Handshouse Studio celebrated the restoration of Notre-Dame de Paris by Hand-raising their Notre-Dame Project’s 8100-pound white oak replica of Choir Truss #6 at the Great Lakes Woodworking Festival June, 2023! 

Handshouse Studio, known internationally for our bold endeavors to recreate large historic objects, completed a full-scale reconstruction of Notre-Dame de Paris’ Choir Truss #6, one of the oldest trusses that once stood above the Notre Dame choir. Bringing together a team of traditional carpenters, faculty and students in a 10-day workshop held in Washington DC in August 2021, the Handshouse team reconstructed the truss using the materials and methods of the original medieval builders. This hands-on educational project was initiated to celebrate the cultural heritage lost in the 2019 fire that destroyed the entire timber roof and spire of this UNESCO world heritage site, and to offer a gesture of global solidarity with the contemporary traditional craftspeople coming together to reconstruct the iconic cathedral today.

June 2023, Handshouse Studio has brought the Notre Dame Project to share with participants in Michigan!

At the Great Lakes Woodworking Festival (Adrian, MI), The Notre Dame Project’s replica truss was raised at 12pm on Sunday, June 18th, and will remain standing on view for the public throughout the day. Participants are invited to help hand-raise the truss.

Handshouse also brought the La Forêt Model Project to the Sam Beaufort Woodworking Institute. This ongoing event series is part of the Notre Dame Project that explores key features of the Gothic cathedral in hands-on workshops/exhibitions with participants and communities around the US. In this 5-day workshop, participants continued to build the 1:10 scale white-oak model of “La Forêt, the timber roof frame of the Notre-Dame with special permission to reference both Rémi Fromont and Cédric Trentesaux’s meticulous hand-drawn survey and the remarkable composite laser survey assembled by the Chantier scientifique (CNRS/MC). “To make the scale model by hand, project participants are lucky enough to be able to rely on many of the same sources that are being used to reconstruct the cathedral itself at full scale,” said Lindsay Cook, Ph.D., project historian and architectural history professor at the Pennsylvania State University. 

La Forêt Model and the full-scale Choir Truss #6 was on display at the Sam Beaufort Woodworking Institute during the Great Lakes Woodworking Festival June 17th-18th (11am-5pm each day).