A solution had to be found to enclose the building site so that it was independent of the weather. This helped minimize the influence of the weather on the exposed sandstone work during construction and comply with the special requirements on stone work quality. The roofing structure also had to ensure a transport of materials via cranes – after all, blocks weighing up to 5 tonnes had to be moved.
 
There were no archetypes for a building site of this size. What's more, it quickly became clear that it would take too much time to dismantle and reassemble the construction to raise it to the required heights. A construction was thus developed which could be raised hydraulically.
 
After the erection of the canopy in June 1996, it was raised five times and retrofitted twice to adjust it to the progress of the building work. The canopy was raised for the first time from its initial height of 12.50 m to 23 m in August 1997. A year later it was lifted to 33.50 m and then to 44 m for the last time in May 2000. The nave, inner dome, first part of the tambour cylinder, dome batter and lower part of the staircase turrets could be rebuilt with the canopy in this position.
 
A new bearing construction was erected on the dome batter for rebuilding the dome between January and March 2002. From there the canopy was raised to 57 m in April. The fourth hydraulic lifting operation took place in November 2002 before the canopy construction was retrofitted to complete the neck of the lantern and the lantern itself. The canopy that meanwhile covered only a small part of the dome was erected at a height of 76 m in July 2003 before it reached its highest position of 83 m in November of the same year.