Notre-Dame de Paris · Stained glass restoration · 2022 – 2024

Bringing light back
to Notre-Dame

After the fire of 15 April 2019, the Vitraux Imbert workshop was selected through two public tenders to restore and create stained glass for the cathedral. The story of an extraordinary project, carried out between Paris and Marseille.

The story

A Marseille workshop caring for the cathedral

On 15 April 2019, the fire at Notre-Dame de Paris shocked the whole world. In the years that followed, the rebuilding brought together the finest craftspeople in France. In August 2022, the Vitraux Imbert workshop was chosen as one of the nine master glassmakers’ workshops entrusted with restoring the cathedral’s stained glass, an honour for a Marseille firm founded in 1981 that had just celebrated its fortieth anniversary.

Since 2022, under the public body responsible for the conservation and restoration of the cathedral, and under two public contracts won through tenders, the team led by Oleg Imbert has worked both on site and in the Chutes-Lavie workshop in Marseille: dusting and cleaning Viollet-le-Duc’s 19th-century windows, restoring removed panels in the workshop, creating diamond-pane windows for the western massif and the towers, as well as work in the nave and the lower chapels.

“It is an honour for our Marseille workshop, which celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2021.”

Oleg Imbert, Vitraux Imbert workshop

of stained glass vacuumed, cleaned and repointed in situ

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of panels restored in our Marseille workshop

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public contracts won: restoration and creation

years of skills handed down from father to son

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The project

Inside the cathedral

From the lower chapels to the top of the towers, the team spent more than two years working at the pace of a project unlike any other, alongside carpenters, stonemasons and craftspeople from every trade.

Our work

Four assignments, one standard

In-situ dusting and cleaning

Careful vacuuming and meticulous cleaning of the windows in place, following the strict conservation protocols used for listed historic monuments, to preserve the integrity of the 19th-century windows designed by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc. Particular attention was paid to lead-related constraints, both for the materials and for the safety of the team.

Restoration in the workshop

Several windows were removed and carefully restored in our Marseille workshop: original glass kept, lead replaced where needed, structures strengthened and fragile elements stabilised, before their return to the cathedral.

Creating diamond-pane windows

As part of the reinstatement programme, the workshop designed and installed new diamond-pattern windows made with traditional shapes, materials and techniques. These new windows were fitted in the western massif and in the north and south towers of the cathedral.

Nave and lower chapels

Our team also worked in the nave and the lower chapels, restoring, cleaning and readjusting the windows in place, and restoring and creating the stained glass of the confessionals.

The craft

Attention to detail

Restoring a window at Notre-Dame means, first of all, keeping out of the way: every piece of glass, every lead line, every trace of grisaille tells centuries of history. The workshop works panel by panel, with precise records, materials chosen to match the original techniques and full traceability for every intervention.

The windows

Light restored

December 2024: the cathedral reopens its doors. The windows regain their brilliance and light once again passes through glass and lead, as it did on the very first day.

The team

People at the service of heritage

Behind every restored panel there is a team: Oleg Imbert, his stained glass artists and the workshop staff, on the cathedral scaffolding as well as around the tables of the Marseille workshop. A human adventure as much as a craft one, lived with the pride of serving one of the most loved monuments in the world.

In recognition of his commitment to the crafts, Oleg Imbert was appointed Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French Ministry of Culture.

In the press

A project covered by the press

La Provence

Ces Provençaux aux soins de Notre-Dame de Paris

Made in Marseille

Un atelier marseillais choisi pour la restauration des vitraux de Notre-Dame de Paris

TPBM

Vitraux Imbert participe à la restauration de la cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris

Heritage and creation

Entrust us with your heritage

From a cathedral to the stained glass of a family home: the same standards, the same eye, the same passion for light.

Bringing light backto Notre-Dame