Under the glass roof of the Grand Palais, Macron launches the home stretch before the Olympics

“Four years ago, we were told that it was still crazy” to carry out this “largest restoration project in the country with Notre-Dame”, launched the head of state.

And now, "the whole world will find the Grand Palais and will rediscover it", he added in front of workers who received a "diploma" certifying their participation in "saving this historic building".

“Thanks to you, we are not simply going to organize sporting events, but to be able to remake this place into a place of creation, of exhibition, of knowledge, of welcoming the public,” he insisted, before attend a fencing demonstration.

Built for the Universal Exhibition of 1900, the Grand Palais has been closed since March 2021 for this work at a cost of “around 500 million euros”, according to the Elysée.

The handover of the keys to the Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games is scheduled for Friday. “Its teams will have three months to carry out enormous logistical work,” Daniel Sancho, director of the restoration project, told AFP.

Emmanuel Macron promised to return for the official inauguration.

Upgrading

Bathed in light through its 17.500 m2 glass roof equipped with “unique green” metal frames, according to Daniel Sancho, and a dome peaking at 45 meters in height, the large nave of 13.500 m2 is 200 meters long.

Tatamis and fencing tracks will be placed in its center for the events which will begin there on July 27.

The nave "could house the Palace of Versailles", jokes to AFP Didier Fusillier, president of the Réunion des musées nationaux (RMN) – Grand Palais, recalling that before its renovation, it already hosted all kinds of cultural events, fashion shows and even equestrian events.

Balconies, paintings, frames, stairs, elevators, mosaics, parquet floors, statuary... For three years, the project has been carried out "at high speed", he says, despite "many unforeseen events, which is specific to large monuments like this, itself built in three years".

Where "Matisse, Cézanne and Marquet were young workers, the challenge, for our architect François Châtillon and his teams, was both to respect the monument by propelling it into our century, with the need to bring it up to standard", he emphasizes.

Among the most important challenges, Mr. Sancho cites the protection of the metal frames with paint against fire, the creation of numerous emergency exits to be able to double the number of visitors (9.000 against 5.600) and "the slab (floor, Editor's note) of the nave", which today "can support two tonnes per m2, more than a bridge".

Jewel of Art Nouveau

In the 2000s, the building had subsided by 13 cm due to the wear, by water from a water table, of the oak piles supporting the foundations. They had been replaced at the time by molded concrete walls and the frame had also undergone significant consolidation.

In the event of a heatwave or extreme cold, the slab of the nave will be equipped with "a network of pipes filled with water, allowing the space to be cooled or heated at human height", adds Mr. Sancho.

During the Games, the large nave will be able to accommodate 8.000 people in two stands, who will enter through a completely restored entrance.

The athletes "will train in a few adjoining galleries. There will be different warm-up stages, up to the +hall of honor+ (a space of more than 200 m2), where they will be in the final phase before their competition. They will go down then the grand staircases, jewels of Art Nouveau which have regained their original bronze color,” he enthuses.

Work in a number of spaces adjoining the nave will continue "for about a month and a half" before stopping for the Olympics, according to Mr. Sancho.

"After the Games, which will occupy approximately 30.000 m2 of the entire space, the nave will begin to live from October and we are giving ourselves until March to complete all the work, in order to open the entire Grand Palace in June 2025,” he explains.