Roof structure preservation at Saigon Notre-Dame Cathedral

Abstract

The Saigon Notre-Dame Cathedral in Ho Chi Minh City is typical cultural historical relics and also an urban heritage of the French colonial period in Vietnam. Together with other coverage elements like the masonry wall and the stained glass window, the roof structure plays a primary role of protection building against the weather. The objective of this article is to report our survey works done in April 2016, in view of authenticity in preservation work. Methods used include site-survey on roof-tiling materials and roof- tile production named ‘Marseillaise Acier’ produced by Acier upon Marseilles typology, where two types of tiles found: (1) Maltese Cross, Arnaud Etienne et Cie, Marseille St. Henri, France; and (2) Bee, Guichard Carvin et Cie, Marseille St. Andre, France. As time went by, other two types of tiles were found to be used, named ‘Wang Tai’ and ‘Tuileries de L‘Indochine’. Due to the demand of roof-tiling replacement, resulted in changes to the roof structure load bearing, analysis options on weight and load bearing variables were considered and compared for possible solutions with new tiles impored from Monier-France tile producer due to ist heavier weight and large dimension. Research limitation and implications is limited to our real case at the cathedral, in which we proposed to re-collect old but reusable roof-tiles to a particular roof location for the sake of authenticity.