Notre Dame is back – but not quite as you knew her

Politely hidden behind construction hoarding, razor wire and a gauze of scaffolding, "Our Lady of Paris" has been healing.

Five years after the flames roared and the world held its breath, Notre Dame cathedral is coming back to life.

It's a wonder. Even for us who are very often in the cathedral, it doesn't get old, it gets more beautiful every day," said Philippe Jost, who oversees the effort to rebuild Notre Dame, last November.

"There's a Sistine Chapel effect," he said about returning to the iconic monument that has something to look at and discover wherever you go.

The cathedral was to be opened to the public on December 8. Even today, the cause of the catastrophic fire that blazed through the monument on April 15, 2019, remains a mystery, though investigators believe it was accidental.

Still, the figures involved in the reconstruction are impressive. Rebuilding Notre Dame de Paris, the public body led by Jost in charge of the task, says it has cost €700 million ($737 million) to restore the ancient monument to its former glory. In total, €846 million ($891 million) were raised in donations from 340,000 donors in 150 countries, with the additional money spent on restoring other monuments.

Beyond that, there are the materials used in its rebuilding: The tallest oak felled was 27 meters tall (88 feet high), 1,300 cubic meters of stone were replaced, 8,000 organ pipes (belonging to France's largest instrument) cleaned and retuned, 1,500 solid oak pews hewed – all the work of 2,000 dedicated artisans.

The results of their labor are just even more impressive.

Dark To light

A few steps below the cascading statues of the cathedral's magnificent façade, dark gives way to light.

The naked columns of the cathedral soar up to the ceiling; the walls, stripped of centuries of dust and grime, appear brand new.

The cost of the fire hasn't just been financial, however-the careful cleaning and restoration has stolen some of the mystical gloom and charm that visitors will remember. But those responsible hope it will ensure the health of the building for centuries to come.

A great renovation goal was set five years ago by France's President Emmanuel Macron, and in returning on Friday, thanks to the hundreds who were seen dousing the flames as he gave support to restorations that needed it.

For much of those last 2,055 days, however, the site had been something of an anthill-a hive of industry. It had teams cleaning marble mosaics, retouching frescoes, and clambering over the scaffolding that filled the center of the landmark.

BBC News teams have been to Notre Dame several times since the fire, even as the work ploughed on through Covid-19's stranglehold on France.

For BBC News cameraman Mark Esplin, one change has been most striking. He recalls how there was still a "huge hole in the ceiling" when he was granted permission to tour the site in 2019, adding: "You could see right up to the sky."

Like many in 2019, a BBC News team watched in horror, mere meters away, as the cathedral's spire was wrapped in flames before toppling to the ground. Late in the evening, they heard hundreds of people gathered around the landmark raise their voices in hymn.

"I remember the smell … Mark and I got so close that my jacket stank of smoke for days," recalls Senior Producer Saskya Vandoorne.

The void in the ceiling of that famous gothic church is now filled today by the octagonal base of the new 315-foot spire almost identical to the one designed in the 19th century by architect Eugène Viollet-le-Duc. Seen by so many as a symbol of strength and dedication to the rebuilding efforts, the wooden spire finally shed its scaffolding and returned to the Paris skyline early last year.

Listening for the first time since the fire to the bells ring out last month was another milestone, too.

The eight refurbished bells of the northern belfry, of the cathedral, which is partly burnt by fire, rung last November as part of technical tests before the grand reopening of Notre Dame on December 7 and 8.

Some Parisians viewed the return of the nearly life-size statue of the Virgin Mary to Notre Dame, which occurred in November, as "miraculous." Considered the symbolic heart of the cathedral, it was somehow spared in the fire.

Its return last month-the evening procession drew hundreds-was another sign of the deep emotion this recovery has sparked in the hearts of so many in France.

For Monseigneur Patrick Chauvet, rector of Notre Dame de Paris at the time of the fire, the memories are still raw.

"It was an apocalyptic vision, the cathedral upside down," he said of his first look inside Notre Dame after the blaze.

"I haven't fully recovered from it; it's engraved in the depth of my being."

A Work Of Passion

On the night of the fire, with air still acrid with smoke, Macron made a solemn promise.

"We will rebuild Notre Dame. Because that's what the French expect and because it is what our history deserves," he said outside the ruins of the cathedral.

It was then that he set the bold deadline of five years to rebuild, which to many seemed an impossible task.

Few beyond those directly involved have been allowed in to see how the specialized laborers and craftspeople have duplicated the techniques and materials of the cathedral's original construction.

For those about to revisit Notre Dame, this improbable victory is best seen looking up.

The ceiling is a lattice of some 1,200 oak logs – the "forest" as workers call it – which were felled in a former royal wood, just like the beams that held up the original roof.

Harvested in France's west, and fashioned into towering frames in the country's northeast, the oaks of Notre Dame's newly soaring roof, wound their way back to Paris along the River Seine.

Atop sits the spire, with a golden phoenix now at its summit where a rooster once pecked, symbolically taking the place of the bird, that was found in amongst the rubble of the flames.

Most of the beam from the original structure dating from before 1226 with the oldest being in 1156 from an axed tree.

Even today, it has the world's biggest reserve of mature oak woods, an exceptional boost for the reconstruction efforts. Three oaks used for restoration works are 230 years old according to the National Office for Forests in France.

Carpenter craftsmen, who could shape the trees into frames reminiscent of the medieval era, were brought in from across France and the world; it was a similar approach to all the highly specialized skills required for the restoration: stone masons, metal workers, organ builders, and so on.

These craftspeople, working in conjunction with larger companies, could take antiquated building practices and apply them at scale, rather than faster and cheaper modern building techniques.

For the man in charge of rebuilding the cathedral, using those traditional methods was key. "It's authenticity, it's the care to respect the monument," Jost said to BBC News. "We use the same materials, oak and stone, and with the same techniques."