A Medieval Carpentry Technique Helped Rebuild Notre-Dame

The reconstruction of the legendary cathedral in Paris used “scribing,” a technique employed in its original construction.

When French officials made the decision five years ago to rebuild Notre-Dame Cathedral as close as possible to its original design following a massive and devastating fire in April of 2019, it meant using a carpentry technique that was as old as the building itself, dating back more than 800 years. Called “scribing, or trait de charpentre in French,” Bloomberg’s design newsletter describes it as a method “almost unique to France. (It) starts off the construction of complex wooden structures by using a giant form of technical drawing. Once every piece of one layer of the structure has been sketched out, the wooden pieces the sketch represents are brought in and placed directly over the drawing on a raised trestle.

“This way the components can be laid out over the technical drawing to ensure that every piece fits perfectly, and to make it easier to troubleshoot problems. The process repeats in stages until the whole structure has been tested.

“It was only after going through this process,” the report continues, “that Notre-Dame’s roof trusses, built from specially felled French oak, were put together with pegs (medieval carpenters used no screws) and shipped to Paris.”

What makes the end result that much more special, the story concludes, is that the roof, resembling the inside of a huge galleon, “will remain unseen by the millions of visitors that make Notre-Dame the world’s most visited church (and) makes the skill and effort put into its reconstruction all the more moving.”

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