Rebuilding Notre-Dame de Paris. Ethnographies of an exceptional construction site

The Maison Suger is hosting the final symposium of the Sacrade program on the theme: "Rebuilding Notre-Dame de Paris. Ethnographies of an Exceptional Construction Site" on April 1-2, 2025, in collaboration with the Agence Nationale de Recherche and the Institut National du Patrimoine, Paris.

The Sacralities by Destination symposium will take place over two days (April 1 and 2, 2025). The aim of the colloquium is to re-mobilize those involved in the various ethnographic fields around the materials collected and data produced as part of the SACRADE program. Nearly four months after the reopening of Notre-Dame de Paris, how do they view the results of this survey and their own participation in the project? The role of ethnologists will also be discussed, as a means of reflexively and critically looking back on their own know-how and representations.

The first day, organized at the Maison Suger, will be built around three thematic round tables: liturgical layout, the cathedral's paintings and treasures, the mobilization of the timber industry for restoration and, finally, organ restoration. A few months after the reopening, the various players will discuss their relationship with the building, its objects, their restoration and their renewed spatialization. The main lines of analysis will explore the challenges of “identical” restoration, the porosity between heritage and religious sacralities, the involvement and place of collectives in restoration, and the way in which restoration deals with temporal constraints and a transgenerational mesh of past, present and future actors. The researchers will review the materials collected, showing films made on site and discussing them with the players involved, with a view to comparing restoration know-how.  The day will end with a visit to the restored Notre-Dame de Paris cathedral. The tour will explore the cathedral's new state, through the eyes of both clergy and heritage mediators.

The second day will take place at the INP. It will feature a number of conferences examining the challenges of restoration from a historical and legal perspective, as well as a comparative perspective on the question of how Notre-Dame de Paris can be placed in an archive and in history, so as to stimulate both forward-looking and critical reflection on the issues of memory, transmission and conservation linked to the documents and know-how produced during the course of the project. The human and collective dimension of the restoration project will be celebrated at the end of these days, with a special event dedicated to the Chœur des Compagnons de Notre-Dame de Paris. Over and above the resonances and contrasts between the professional viewpoints and know-how brought to bear on the site, these exchanges will also be an opportunity to reveal the thickness, hybridity and mix of the discourses, emotions and attachments expressed in relation to a world-renowned heritage and religious site; and, subsequently, to describe the ways in which we conceive of the fragility, maintenance and repair of the things that make up our common world. 

→ Find the programm (FR)