March 7th-April 25th a full-scale reconstruction of the Notre-Dame de Paris roof truss made by Handshouse Studio will be on exhibition at the Millennium Gate Museum in Atlanta, GA.

Handshouse Studio created The Notre-Dame de Paris Truss Project with the hope to contribute to the world wide effort to save this invaluable global icon. The goal of the project is to better understand the history of how Notre-Dame Cathedral was built through the hands-on experience of remaking this grand historic object. We focused on a full-scale reconstruction of one of the medieval wooden roof trusses that were burned in the tragic fire in 2019.  The Handshouse Studio team was given official drawings by the French lead architects Rémi Fromont and Cédric Trentesaux to take on the challenge of rebuilding Truss #6, one of the oldest trusses that supported the roof and protected the Cathedral for as many as 800 years.

In August 2021, Handshouse brought together a team of traditional carpenters from across the United States and students, including groups from The Catholic University of America and the North Bennet Street School, to remake a full-scale reconstruction of a medieval truss that once stood above the choir. The team worked shoulder to shoulder using traditional hand tools, methods, and materials that would have been used by the original makers. In an intensive 10-day workshop that took place on Catholic University campus in Washington, DC, we completed the truss reconstruction and then hand-raised the truss for exhibition on CUA campus next to the Basilica of The National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. We were joined by members of the Historic Preservation Training Center of the National Park Service to raise the truss for another one day exhibition on the National Mall. The truss was finally installed in the Great Hall at the National Building Museum for an exhibition that remained through September, 2021.

We have been honored by the continued interest in the Notre-Dame de Paris Truss project and our continuing efforts to offer our truss reconstruction as a gift to the French effort to rebuild Notre-Dame de Paris. The motivation continues to grow, perhaps because of the positivity generated by the inspiring act of rebuilding together. This kind of rigorous physical community effort creates an authentic source of hope at a time when so much feels so fractured and fractious.

The enthusiasm to see the project continue has led to a fabulous new challenge; to exhibit the truss on the back terrace of the Millennium Gate Museum in Atlanta, GA for an extended open-air exhibition.

It is no small task to display this mammoth truss for a 6-week open air exhibition. The lower timber spans just shy of 47 feet, and each of the rafters is more than 38 feet long. The truss is a group of assembled pieces designed to hold immense weight through the powerful physical principles of triangulation and the accumulation of trusses throughout the entire length of the roof. Our isolated installation of a single up-right truss presents its own structural challenges. The object unexpectedly presents itself like a free standing minimalist sculpture juxtaposed to the heroic Millennium Gate Museum with its references to of the Arch de Triumph of France.  

Our Notre-Dame de Paris Truss Reconstruction Project endeavors to bring together hands, hearts, heads, curiosity, and skills, to demonstrate—in action—the material culture embodied in iconic examples of human heritage such as Notre-Dame de Paris cathedral.  When this UNESCO World Heritage site burned, we all lost something priceless. We believe the work of restoring the roof structure, gives us all an opportunity to reawaken awareness of who built it, how it was built, and why.

The Handshouse Studio mission seeks to create adventurous hands-on project with communities, institutions, and partners around the world as a way to illuminate history, understand science and perpetuate the arts. We brought this idea forward as The Notre-Dame de Paris Truss Project to offer a hands-on demonstration of community in conversation with history . The project is also a demonstration of the traditional skills still in abundance, and a gesture of global solidarity with the makers of cultural heritage around the world. We hope to give our truss reconstruction as a gift to the effort to restore Notre-Dame in France, to offer an example of how we are able to work together in the face of loss, to reawaken, reconnect, and rebuild.

The truss installation at Millennium Gate Museum in Atlanta, GA. provides an opportunity for a larger audience to experience the history and grandeur of this single historic truss. Please come see the hand-hewn surface of this traditionally made timber-frame giant, seize the chance to learn more about the stories that live in each timber, the joinery, and marks left by the hand and the axe of its makers.  And perhaps come find a way to be a part of the effort to remake a beautiful object from history.  

Our installation team was a cast of talented “can-doers.”

Retired Virginia Military Institute Engineering Professor, Grigg Mullen Jr—a long time participant in Handshouse projects—was vital to the task of carefully raising and installing the truss exhibition. Grigg and his son, Grigg Mullen III, joined us on a scouting visit of the exhibition site in February to design a safe, simple, and effective support system unique to the Millennium Gate Museum.  

Timber framers, Mez Welch, Ross Beebe and Kurt Rosenberger joined Mullen for the task of installing it. Together, they drove a trailer loaded with the timbers from Lexington, VA, where our truss reconstruction has been stored in pieces since its Washington, DC exhibitions this past summer. Our team started under starry skies working to transport the timbers from the truck to the terrace by crane. Though we called upon a 21st century version of this back-saving technology, cranes were also used to lift and move materials to construct the medieval architectural wonders of Europe. Exploring the wooden cranes that helped make cathedrals like Notre-Dame possible to build was the focus of a series of Handshouse projects; the Perronet Crane, the Tocnik Crane, the Diderot Crane projects.

We were joined by Dan Perez of Millennium Gate and student volunteer Jason Raffery of University of Georgia who came to help reassemble the truss. The wooden members of the truss are all held together with wooden joinery made up of a combination of mortis and tenons, clavettes (large custom-made wooden pins) and wooden pegs. Bill Smith, one of the Handshouse champions who helped lead the charge to bring the Notre-Dame de Paris Truss Project to Atlanta, also came to help. He courageously put on a hard hat and helped drive some of these oak fasteners into place.  

On Saturday March 12th, Lorenzo de Almedia of The Catholic University of America arrived to work with Handshouse co-founders Rick and Laura Brown installing an exhibition of the 1/10 scale model of the Notre-Dame de Paris choir trusses that is being made as part of a national project, we call The “La Forêt” Model Project. A part of the Notre-Dame de Paris Truss project, Handshosue has been inviting colleges, universities and their faculty and students to join us in building a large-scale wooden model of the oldest wooden trusses in the roof structure that once stood above Notre-Dame de Paris cathedral’s choir to deepen the architectural and historical context of the trusses part in the whole. In summer of 2021, the Catholic University of America offered a course, taught by Architecture faculty, Tonya Ohnstad AIA, NCAR, that explored the architectural history of Notre Dame through hands-on construction of the model of “La Forêt”; the complex network of oak timbers that once made up the roof system of Notre-Dame. Led by the Model Project Manager, Architect Nat Crosby, the “La Forêt” Model Project is expanding to include participants from a growing community of colleges and universities including Florida State University, Ball State University, Virginia Tech (WAAC), Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Gordon College, Washington University, University of Georgia and the North Bennet Street School. An immersive workshop is being held at Handshouse Studio in Norwell, MA the week of March 21st that will tackle the next section of the model of “La Forêt.”.

The Notre-Dame de Paris Truss Project and “La Forêt” Model Project will remain on exhibition at Millennium Gate Museum until April 25th. Come by to see them and spread the word to your friends and family in the Atlanta area.

Stay tuned for updates about a series of events being planned before the closing on Sunday, April 24th