Notre Dame clock impossible to restore, to be replaced with new one - St. Petersburg factory
The damage caused to the original clock on the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris in 2019 is irreparable, so a new one will be created, the press service for the St. Petersburg-based Raketa clock factory, which is participating in the cathedral's reconstruction, told Interfax on Thursday.
"The original clock cannot be restored, and a copy or a similar one has been found, with which the association [the French association set up to restore the clock] created a 3D model. We have obtained this model and are now making 2D [models] for all drawings and every part with precise dimensions," the press service said.
The factory has the capacity to manufacture the mechanism in full, but this side of the matter has not yet been discussed with the association, it said.
"Currently, there is a lot of work being done precisely on research, design, and production technology. This will be a new clock," the press service said.
It was reported earlier that Raketa would help restore the cathedral clock destroyed in the fire on April 5, 2019. "Specialists are studying COLLIN clocks in order to understand which parts can be manufactured at the St. Petersburg enterprise," the French association said.
"Raketa engineers have begun studying the structure of the mechanism of the clock at the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris in order to understand which parts they can develop at the Raketa clock factory in St. Petersburg," the factory's press-service said.
France no longer has the technology to make such a monumental clock, whereas Raketa has developed and manufactured the world's largest clock, a 4.5-tonne, six by seven meter, mechanical clock, consisting of over 5,000 gold-covered steel, aluminum, and titanium parts which is hung in the atrium of the Central Children's Store in Moscow.
Last year's fire nearly destroyed the Paris landmark. It started on the scaffolding erected outside the church during restoration work. The damage was significant: the spire and the roof collapsed.
French President Emmanuel Macron set a task of restoring Notre Dame within five years, which surprised many French architects, who think such work should take much longer.
