Notre-Dame de Paris cathedral should be receive visitors again during the year 2024. This was confirmed by the Minister of Culture, Rima Abdul Malak visiting the site this Thursday, July 28.
Under construction since the April 2019 fire, the cathedral will once again receive of the public and the faithful in two years. “We are quite confident, all of us, collectively, that the year 2024 (…) will be the year of culmination of a large part of this project, in any case of the opening of the cathedral to worship and to the public“, specified the minister, in accordance with the”ambitious goal“fixed by Emmanuel Macron after the fire to rebuild the cathedral in five years.
However, General Jean-Louis Georgelin, in charge of the restoration of the cathedral, recently declared to our colleagues from Le Figaro that this 2024 objective was “a tense, rigorous and complicated objective” without calling into question the calendar. “For the moment, nothing, nothing, nothing allows us to say that the 2024 objective will not be met”he insisted during the visit of the Minister of Culture.
New work phases
“There will certainly be other work that will need to continue beyond 2024, of course“, underlined Rima Abdul Malak. The construction site, with a total budget of 850 million euros, is currently in its second phase, the reconstruction. A phase which will make it possible in particular to rebuild the frame of the cathedralto reproduce the identical arrowand restore the vaults.
The first phase of the work was intended for the securing the premises et al’evacuation of the works and the great organ. This was followed by a phase of realization of “test sites“to define the protocols for cleaning and restoring the interior of the cathedral, particularly in the chapels.
A third phase rebuilding exterior of the cathedral will take place later, with also the development of the forecourt which, him, depends on the town hall of Paris.