It wasn’t until spring this year, two years after the fire, that Autodesk has made any mention of its involvement in the rebuilding of NotreDame, in which Revit is playing a role. Thankfully, this frenzy didn’t last too long.
There was also a scramble to try and locate laser scan surveys of the cathedral which had been carried out in the past, so they could rapidly model the asbuilt in their BIM and CAD solutions. Some even contributed cash to the rebuilding effort. Shortly after the horrific news, CAD software firms were in full swing offering to provide their AEC tools to the project for free. The CAD industry is not one to miss a silver lining marketing opportunity in a dark grey cloud. On 12 April 2019, as Notre-Dame still burnt, the French president, Emmanuel Macron vowed to put all of France’s resources into rebuilding the iconic cathedral. When disaster strikes and a building which means so much to everyone is destroyed, it’s hard to look away from rolling 24/7 news coverage and one is filled with disbelief and sadness. In 2019 the world learned of the horrific news that the famous Notre-Dame de Paris was engulfed in flames From generation-to-generation, they have dominated skylines, and their silhouettes embody the very character of a city. We tend to take the perpetuity of iconic buildings for granted.
