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Workers rely on medieval era tech to reconstruct the Notre Dame

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Re: Workers rely on medieval era tech to reconstruct the Notre Dame

#21

Post by barelyauser »

ceejayoz wrote: post #18
jfengel wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole building isn't economic or productive. They could probably make more money tearing it down and replacing it with a Starbucks. The vast majority of human activity isn't productive. And that's awesome. We've got so much wealth that we can afford to use it on things that are merely pretty or interesting, like video games and space telescopes and flowers. It would be nice if we could use more of it to ensure th…

> The whole building isn't economic or productive. They could probably make more money tearing it down and replacing it with a Starbucks. It likely has economic impact vastly larger than any Starbucks via tourism.

And what does "economic impact" means? A bunch of people burning jet fuel to get there and spend some hours looking at it? Why not working towards helping other people?

Re: Workers rely on medieval era tech to reconstruct the Notre Dame

#22

Post by jfengel »

ceejayoz wrote: post #18
jfengel wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole building isn't economic or productive. They could probably make more money tearing it down and replacing it with a Starbucks. The vast majority of human activity isn't productive. And that's awesome. We've got so much wealth that we can afford to use it on things that are merely pretty or interesting, like video games and space telescopes and flowers. It would be nice if we could use more of it to ensure th…

> The whole building isn't economic or productive. They could probably make more money tearing it down and replacing it with a Starbucks. It likely has economic impact vastly larger than any Starbucks via tourism.

Admission was free to the cathedral itself, though you needed to pay to visit the roof.

Of course it was a draw to Paris in general. It's hard to measure its impact, since the cathedral fire coincides with COVID, but Paris tourism has nearly reached pre-pandemic levels and remains the most-visited city in the world.

I don't honestly believe it would be a net economic benefit to put a Starbucks there. But more to the point, the whole thing is there just because people like to look at it. That's all the "productivity" it needs.

Re: Workers rely on medieval era tech to reconstruct the Notre Dame

#23

Post by shagie »

soco wrote: post #5

They also rely on medieval era trees to reconstruct it, as the more than 1000 oak trees painstakingly sought through entire France had to be more than 1 m wide. Okay not medieval - they are only about 200 years old. Could have made a nice title though.

There's the story by the Long Now foundation about the oak beams at the New College in Oxford https://longnow.org/ideas/humans-and-trees-in-long-term-part... /// https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/oak-beams-new-college-ox... /// https://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/2013/oct/02/david-...

Another example (and less debatable in its authenticity) Why the US Navy Manages Its Own Private Forest - https://www.military.com/history/why-us-navy-manages-its-own... /// https://ussconstitutionmuseum.org/2015/05/11/the-wooden-wall... (and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28793461 )

Re: Workers rely on medieval era tech to reconstruct the Notre Dame

#24

Post by ceejayoz »

barelyauser wrote: post #21
ceejayoz wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The whole building isn't economic or productive. They could probably make more money tearing it down and replacing it with a Starbucks. It likely has economic impact vastly larger than any Starbucks via tourism.

And what does "economic impact" means? A bunch of people burning jet fuel to get there and spend some hours looking at it? Why not working towards helping other people?

Buying from the cafes nearby. Patronizing the hotels. Going to see a show after. All the things one does in the neighborhood around a tourist attraction.

A week-long golf tournament in my town brings in 200k+ people and local government touts a $190M economic impact number for that. I'm sure it's fudged to be as high as possible, but pretending Notre Dame doesn't have an economic benefit to Paris would be odd.

Re: Workers rely on medieval era tech to reconstruct the Notre Dame

#25

Post by [deleted] »

canoebuilder wrote: post #16
bambax wrote: post #4

The rebuilding is apparently going well, but this is hiding the fact that nobody seems to be doing any inquiry about why the fire wasn't stopped in time. As far as we know, the fire was an accident (not foul play) -- but an extremely preventable one. There were works in progress on the roof of the cathedral, so people were coming and going, some of them possibly smoking, electrical devices were being used, etc. And t…

> As far as we know, the fire was an accident “As far as we know” In the same sense of like “innocent until proven guilty” But is that the right lens to be looking through here? What is the rate of accidental church fires, let alone at somewhere that is such a treasured location as this? Then factor in, wasn’t there an ongoing spate of what were clearly church arson attacks going on at the time? Then factor in what y…

[deleted]

Re: Workers rely on medieval era tech to reconstruct the Notre Dame

#26

Post by franky47 »

There are many solutions in old hand-tool woodworking that were elegant back then, and are still more relevant today than spinning a tool at 20k RPM.

Example: when removing waste with a chisel for joinery, going cross-grain allows popping large chunks with ease, rather than route them to dust. And it's a lot of fun!

Power tools do have a use for repeatability and mass-production, which may be useful in the Notre Dame build, but I find the carpenters' approach more honorable.

Re: Workers rely on medieval era tech to reconstruct the Notre Dame

#27

Post by [deleted] »

canoebuilder wrote: post #16
bambax wrote: post #4

The rebuilding is apparently going well, but this is hiding the fact that nobody seems to be doing any inquiry about why the fire wasn't stopped in time. As far as we know, the fire was an accident (not foul play) -- but an extremely preventable one. There were works in progress on the roof of the cathedral, so people were coming and going, some of them possibly smoking, electrical devices were being used, etc. And t…

> As far as we know, the fire was an accident “As far as we know” In the same sense of like “innocent until proven guilty” But is that the right lens to be looking through here? What is the rate of accidental church fires, let alone at somewhere that is such a treasured location as this? Then factor in, wasn’t there an ongoing spate of what were clearly church arson attacks going on at the time? Then factor in what y…

[deleted]

Re: Workers rely on medieval era tech to reconstruct the Notre Dame

#28

Post by ceejayoz »

canoebuilder wrote: post #16
bambax wrote: post #4

The rebuilding is apparently going well, but this is hiding the fact that nobody seems to be doing any inquiry about why the fire wasn't stopped in time. As far as we know, the fire was an accident (not foul play) -- but an extremely preventable one. There were works in progress on the roof of the cathedral, so people were coming and going, some of them possibly smoking, electrical devices were being used, etc. And t…

> As far as we know, the fire was an accident “As far as we know” In the same sense of like “innocent until proven guilty” But is that the right lens to be looking through here? What is the rate of accidental church fires, let alone at somewhere that is such a treasured location as this? Then factor in, wasn’t there an ongoing spate of what were clearly church arson attacks going on at the time? Then factor in what y…

> What is the rate of accidental church fires, let alone at somewhere that is such a treasured location as this?

https://apps.usfa.fema.gov/downloads/pdf/statistics/v2i7-508...

1,300/year in the US, 25% of which are arson. Clearly it's not a unique occurrence.

Re: Workers rely on medieval era tech to reconstruct the Notre Dame

#29

Post by shirleyquirk »

I came here to share that the importance of using contemporaneous materials, if not methods, was highlighted for me when I worked on Bath cathedral and saw how the victorian 'improvements' of using iron rather than wood to fix the stonework caused much damage a century later; iron expands when it rusts and causes cracking.

Then I see linked in that article that Notre Dame was a very early example of using iron staples! I can only think that they were used away from water, unlike Bath, where the repairs were on the window fixings.

Re: Workers rely on medieval era tech to reconstruct the Notre Dame

#30

Post by franky47 »

soco wrote: post #5

They also rely on medieval era trees to reconstruct it, as the more than 1000 oak trees painstakingly sought through entire France had to be more than 1 m wide. Okay not medieval - they are only about 200 years old. Could have made a nice title though.

We have a forest in the center of France that was dedicated to producing ship masts. Surely some of those oak trees may have fit the bill.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forest_of_Tron%C3%A7ais

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