Before the restoration of Notre-Dame de Paris can begin, engineers may have to t...
NEW YORK - Before the restoration of Notre-Dame de Paris can begin, engineers may have to tap nearly every stone in the cathedral and listen for subtle sounds of damage, according to specialists who repaired one of the largest cathedrals in the world in New York after a devastating 2001 fire.
“Everything is done in ‘cathedral time,’” said James Patterson, director of facilities and capital projects at St. John’s on Manhattan’s Upper West Side near Columbia University. “Cathedral clocks move much slower than everybody else’s clocks.” Patterson and others recalled the joy of discovering sculptors, stonemasons, stained-glass specialists and others around the world who can rival the artisans of earlier centuries in their decorative work. There were less obvious considerations to contend with, too, such as how to ensure the majesty of the nave’s acoustics were not dampened by repairs to the walls and ceiling.
To check which blocks needed to be patched up or replaced outright, Nat Oppenheimer, the structural engineer on the St. John project, and his colleagues “sounded” thousands of limestone blocks throughout the cathedral over a period of months.
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