After Monday’sdevastating Notre Dame Cathedral fire, the city of Paris now looks towards rebuilding their beloved landmark.
According to an article inThe Atlanticpublished on Tuesday, architectural historian Andrew Tallon created painstakingly detailed laser scans of the building in 2010 — scans that could be used to help rebuild the structure.
Tallon, who died from brain cancer at the age of 49 in 2018, scanned every part of the cathedral’s structure using a scanner called the Leica ScanStation C10, according toThe Atlantic.The process took five days and the scanner was set up in 50 different positions around Notre Dame.
Paul Blaer, who worked with Tallon to create the scans, spoke toThe Atlanticabout the aftermath of the fire.
“I saw this happening, and I had two thoughts,” Blaer told the outlet. “One thought was that I was kind of relieved that [Tallon] didn’t actually have to see this happen. But on the other hand, he knew it so well and had so much information about how it’s constructed, he would have been so helpful in terms of rebuilding it.”
Prisma/UIG/Getty
It’s unclear where the disk that contains all of Tallon’s data is at this time.The Atlanticnotes that, because the cathedral has stood for so long and been renovated numerous times, most drawings of the structure are incomplete and Tallon’s laser scans could be the only complete rendering of the architectural details of the cathedral.
“The laser data might be the ground truth in a way that nothing else is,” the article reads.
An 1836 painting of Notre Dame Cathedral.Art Media/Print Collector/Getty
Notre Dame Cathedral has stood for 856 years. The Catholic church is a world-famous landmark for the French capital, second only perhaps to the Eiffel Tower, and draws about 13 million visitors per year. It has been a center of religious and cultural life there since it was completed around 1365.
The building has weathered its share of tragedies over the years. During the French Revolution, it was looted and desecrated, according toThe Guardian, before Napoleon began renovations in the mid-1800s. The cathedral also survived both world wars — including the Nazi occupation of Paris in World War II.
Notre Dame Cathedral in the late 19th or early 20th century.The Print Collector/Print Collector/Getty
The massive fire erupted on Monday night, destroying the roof of the 856-year-old building and causing the spire to collapse.
Pedestrians flooded the streets to watch the blaze, many in tears, one Paris resident told PEOPLE. On Monday evening, a crowd gathered to sing “Ave Maria” near the cathedral.
IAN LANGSDON/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
CBS Newsreported that a spokesperson for the Paris fire service said Tuesday morning that “the entire fire is out” and that the emergency services are now “surveying the movement of the structures and extinguishing smoldering residues.”
“The worst has been avoided, but the battle isn’t fully won yet,” French President Emmanuel Macron told crowds in a speech given outside of the church Monday night.
He promised that the cathedral will be rebuilt. “It is with pride I tell you tonight we will rebuild this cathedral . . . we will rebuild Notre Dame because it is what the French expect of us, it is what our history deserves, it is, in the deepest sense, our destiny,” he said.
source: people.com
