Abstract
The Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris is amongst the most well-known worship spaces in the world. Its large volume, in combination with a relatively bare stone construction and marble floor, leads to rather long reverberation times. The cathedral suffered from a significant fire in 2019, resulting in damage primarily to the roof and vaulted ceiling. Despite the notoriety of this space, there are few examples of published data on the acoustical parameters of this space, and these data do not agree. Archived measurement recordings from 1987 were recovered and found to include several balloon bursts. In 2015, a measurement session was carried out for a virtual reality project. Comparisons between results from these two sessions show a slight but significant decrease in reverberation time (8%) in the pre-fire state. Measurements were recently carried out on the construction site, 1 year since the fire. Compared to 2015 data, the reverberation time significantly decreased (20%). This paper presents the preliminary results of these measurements, providing a documentation of the acoustics of this historic worship space both prior to and since the 2019 fire.
Highlights
The acoustics of worship spaces have been a topic of research for many decades
Concerning the direct sound, 2015 shows this as well localised and sharp
Concerning the cumulative energy, in 2015 this increases rather smoothly and uniformly from all directions, as represented by the regular radial spacing between subsequent energy contour curves, with the largest increase from 100 to 200 ms, reflections arriving with path differences of 35 to 70 m after the direct sound, mainly attributed to the vaulted ceiling
Summary
The acoustics of worship spaces have been a topic of research for many decades Due to their significant dimensions, these spaces have been used over the centuries for cultural as well as religions activities. Such spaces often exhibit acoustic anomalies (e.g., whispering galleries and coupled volumes). The Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris is amongst the most well-known worship spaces in the world. This medieval cathedral is widely considered to be one of the finest examples of French Gothic architecture. Certain elements of this work have been presented previously in a scientific conference [12]
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