Perret: Church of Notre Dame, Raincy 1923

• Parish priest

  Wanted to build a church to the memory of soldiers fallen in 1914 at the Battle of the Marne
• August Perret

  An architect and atheist, the son of a communard who longed to build a church
• August Perret was known for a number of major buildings in Paris
• Concrete

  Cheap, solid, light, incombustible, easy and soon put to work
• This was the first time that concrete was used on such a large scale for a church
• Site of the church

  In the Town Center, not too far from the station, in the middle of an already densely filled housing estate, surrounded by private homes or rented properties, long, narrow and markedly sloping
• The traditional cruciform ground plan could not be used due to the scantiness of the parcel
• The church would have the shape of a long rectangular volume like an ordinary warehouse but fronted by an imposing belfrey tower
• Nave

  A huge glass cage, 56 M long and 20 wide, a parallel peeper covered with a ceiling supported on pillars
• Pillars

  Slender, rising to a great height of more than 11 M, with a diameter of only 43 cm, elegantly fluted, with no ornament
• Vault

  Imposing and massive to view, but in fact quite light at only 3 cm deep, compared to the thickness of an eggshell
• Perret was the first to realize the force and purity of concrete, seeing it as an unpleasing but beautiful material
• Screen walls

  Slabs with geometric openings that envelop the whole building, designed using 5 different prefabricated molds
• Stained glass windows

  The work of Marguerite Huré, containing color and light within the geometric openings of the screen walls
• There was no budget for painted murals or large tapestries, so the stained glass windows provided the only decoration
• Belfrey tower

  Massive, Monumental, rising to a venous height of more than 43 M, hung about with 20 columns, 8 of which are load-bearing
• The spire on top of the belfrey, made from the same pillar sections, was much criticized as a simple though relatively ungraceful decoration
• Facade

  Exaggerated and difficult to grasp, made up of different projecting elements that conceal the difficulty of joining the box and the tower
• Chapels

  Lodged in the corners of the Nave, covered with octagonal baders, defining the use of the space and creating intimacy
• Other necessary spaces for the church, like the priest's office, storage, and lavatories, were placed beneath the chancel but not underground
• The concrete suffered from the speed of the work, a mere 13 months, and some elements had to be replaced over time
• CQ by Ghiuzan "It is marked by..."


  "It is marked by a stringent austerity and coarseness of detail and surface"
• the north, south and east façades consist entirely of thin precast concrete panels containing rectangular, triangular or circular apertures filled with coloured glass


  This method of fenestration gives the church its effect of continuous expanse of glass and profusion of light.