A couvreur-zingueur is a French roofer who specialises in sheet zinc as well as slate and other coverings. In Paris the trade is closely tied to the city's 19th-century roofscape, where zinc covers about 80% of rooftops. In 2024, "the skills of Parisian roofers and ornamentalists" were inscribed on UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
The work
Couvreurs-zingueurs cut, fold, solder and fit zinc sheet on site: they lay and replace roof sheets, form gutters, flashings and seams, and keep the steep mansards and flatter upper slopes of Haussmann-era buildings watertight. Paris roofers also work with slate, lead, clay tiles and copper. Their companions, the ornemanistes (ornamentalists), work zinc in the workshop to make dormer windows and to reproduce or create roof ornaments such as stamped decoration and finials. Together the two trades restore the roofs of Haussmann buildings, and their work has included the roofs of Notre-Dame de Paris.
Origins
The trade grew with the use of rolled zinc as a building material in the early 19th century and expanded under the Second Empire (1852-1870), when Baron Haussmann's rebuilding of Paris lined the new boulevards with apartment blocks under zinc-and-slate mansard roofs. Zinc suited these roofs because it was inexpensive, easy to cut, solder and form, and light enough to allow lighter roof frames.
UNESCO inscription
The inscription was decided on 4 December 2024 by UNESCO's Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, meeting in Asunción, Paraguay. The application was led over about seven years by the GCCP, a Paris trade group for roofing, plumbing and heating firms, with support from local politicians and industry partners. The listing recognises a living practice handed down between generations; it is separate from the long-running proposal to inscribe the roofs of Paris themselves on the World Heritage List.
Today
The trade also contributes to improving the energy performance of old buildings through roof insulation and ventilation. Recruitment is a recurring concern: industry sources describe a shortage of several hundred young roofers in Paris and thousands of unfilled roofing jobs across France.
Related terms
- Couvreur: roofer in general.
- Zingueur: zinc worker.
- Ornemaniste: maker of decorative roof metalwork.
- Lucarne: dormer window.
On the timeline
- c. 1850In Paris the trade is closely tied to the city's 19th-century roofscape, where zinc covers about 80% of rooftops.
- 2024In 2024, "the skills of Parisian roofers and ornamentalists" were inscribed on UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
Sources
Reviewed 2 November 2026 · 3 sources · Editorial policy · Plain-text version · Suggest a correction
- Verriers, forains, couvreurs : trois pratiques du patrimoine immatériel à l'honneurMinistère de la Culture · culture.gouv.fr
- Protecting the work of the Parisian rooferVMZINC · vmzinc.com
- Toits de ParisWikipédia · fr.wikipedia.org