There is no end to the litany of historic monuments in France and elsewhere in Europe that have gone up in flames while work was underway to restore them. This time it’s Denmark’s turn to be hit by this veritable plague: the Copenhagen Børsen (ill. 1), a magnificent 17th-century monument, has just been ravaged by flames, and guess what? It was being restored and was therefore covered in scaffolding (ill. 2).
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- 1. Central gable and the now-destroyed spire of the Copenhagen Børsen
Photo: Victor R. Ruiz (CC BY-SA 2.0) - See the image in its page
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- 2. The fire at the Copenhagen Børsen on 16 April 2024 after its spire fell.
The building was entirely under scaffolding
Photo: Penguin (CC BY-SA 4.0). - See the image in its page
We do not know the legislation relating to safety on building sites in Denmark. Whatever precautions are taken, an accident is always possible, but it’s a truism that the fewer the precautions, the greater the danger. And while fires can occur off-site, most of them, as we keep repeating here, occur during restoration work. There are many causes for this, but it is clear that the accumulation of "hot spots", due in particular to welding work, multiplies the risks.
Let’s leave Denmark and return to France to say, again and again - and for the moment we’re preaching in the wilderness - that the current regulations are woefully inadequate. The restoration of an outstanding edifice, handed down to us by our predecessors and which it is our mission to pass on to our successors, should be much stricter. We won’t repeat here what we have written several times on this site, the first time here, at the time of the fire at the Hôtel Lambert (more than ten years ago!). And what we detailed in the book Notre-Dame. Une affaire d’État. The inaction of successive Ministers of Culture, which will lead to further tragedies and the burning down of other historic monuments (this is not a prediction, it’s a certainty), is culpable. You’d have to be pretty irresponsible to do nothing when solutions are possible, as recommended by the fire fighters. There is a cost, but it is derisory compared with the consequences of a fire.
This brings us back, of course, to Notre-Dame. Admittedly, we are remaining very cautious until the enquiry has delivered its conclusions - if it ever does. For the moment, there is no proof that the building site was the cause of the fire, or even that it was an aggravating factor. This is a serious hypothesis, but if this were the case, it would not necessarily mean that mistakes had been made, since the measures we are recommending are not compulsory.
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- 3. Detail from a photo released by the diocese, dated the day the sculptures were removed. A bottle of gas and a blowtorch can clearly be seen at the back of one of the lorries.
- See the image in its page
In an article published by La Croix on Sunday 14 April, which reviews the various scenarios surrounding the fire, Richard Boyer, the director of Socra, the company that restored Viollet-le-Duc’s sculptures around the spire, responds to our question, raised by the journalists, about "the use of a tool, a grinder or blowtorch, as a possible source of the fire". He was categorical: "We had already completed the preparatory work a month earlier. That day, all we had to do was remove the statues using a crane truck. As it was blocking the street, we had to move quickly. There was no use of any equipment that could have created a hot spot that day". That’s all very well. But it would be interesting to know what was the purpose of the gas bottle and torch that can be clearly seen in one of the photos released by the diocese (ill. 3), when these sculptures were removed to the crane truck he is talking about. The bottle is clearly visible in this photo and it is legitimate to wonder what it was used for, since we are told that the work had been completed a month earlier. The same equipment is also visible in the Socra workshops near the statues. Proof that this tool was used on these sculptures. We would like to believe that this was not the case on the day of removal, but there is clearly reason to wonder.
Of course, the use of blowtorches is not forbidden on such a site; in fact, it is often unavoidable. We are not talking here about a breach of safety instructions, but about the possible cause of the tragedy.
Questions about the origin of the fire, the State’s inability to legislate to reduce the major risks to monuments during major restoration work, not to mention the many issues surrounding archaeological excavations, the removal of Viollet-le-Duc’s stained glass windows or the installation of glass choir organ cases in the galleries... Even though restoration work on the roof and spire is nearing completion, the issue of the Notre-Dame fire is by no means over.