From before sunrise to after sunset, in icy winters and scorching summers, “zinc-ers” bejewel the Paris skyline. These artisans install and replace the zinc roofs that help define the city. Now their skills are being recognized.
UNESCO is the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. The group helps preserve practices, knowledge, skills, or traditions deemed part of a location’s heritage. UNESCO has added Paris zinc restoration techniques to its ever-growing list of Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) items.
“With nearly 80% of the roofs in Paris covered in zinc,” the UNESCO citation reads, “the city is a living archive of these skills that shape the unique identity of its urban landscape.”
Zinc roofs have been a feature of Paris since the 1800s. Zinc is durable, long-lasting, and corrosion resistant. As it weathers, zinc’s patina helps the metal repair itself from scratches and dings. Those qualities make it an excellent—if expensive—roofing choice. Buildings from gabled and balconied apartments to historic steepled churches feature the trademark light gray or blueish metal roofs.
Using centuries-old techniques, roofers carefully measure and plan each zinc sheet to fit a shape on the roof. They custom-cut the pieces with sturdy scissors. Then, using a Parisian folding machine, they crease the lightweight, pliable metal to create joints and ridges. Finally, roofers install the sheets high above the city.
Most roofers like heights, architecture, and working outdoors. Climber Fantine Dekens chose zinc-ing because it took her outside and up high. Plus, she says, “There is a sort of romanticism around the roofs of Paris that attracted me.”
According to experts, zinc roofers have a number of trade secrets. There are special whistles for calling to one another and an earring that reveals the education level a roofer has achieved.
Another is the tradition of leaving an object under a zinc sheet to be discovered by the next roofer. In a video posted on the UNESCO website, roofer Tony Raquidel found a yellowed newspaper when removing a panel. In turn, he left a signed photograph of himself and two other roofers. The trio is grinning from atop the building being re-zinced with the famed Eiffel Tower as backdrop.
Zinc roofers hope their UNESCO recognition will inspire others to join them. The profession is short of workers with skills for preserving Paris’ iconic zinc roofs.
“Often we sing; we shout. No one is watching us,” Dekens says. She finds the job “poetic”—and thrilling. “We can observe all of Paris at the same time. It’s pretty incredible.”
Why? Valuable skills, knowledge, and practices are worth preserving and documenting. Humanity will labor at restoration until the day of Christ’s return. (Acts 3:21)
