L’église Notre-Dame-des-Pauvres à Issy-les-Moulineaux (Hauts-de-Seine)

Abstract

Issy-les-Moulineaux’s church, Notre Dame des Pauvres, « Our Lady of Poor People », is one of the very first churches built in close Parisian suburbs after Second World War bombings. Dated from 1954-1955, it is a very young architect’s work, Jean-Blaise Lombard, associated with architect Henri Duverdier. Meant to serve a very disadvantaged working class and made with a very small budget, it attracts the critics’ attention thanks to the freedom of its architecture, characterized by the large size of the shrine as well as by the importance ascribed to stained glass walls realized by painter Leon Zack. The avant-garde liturgical lay-out, together with the décor unity dominated by abstract art - where glassmaker Master Jean Lesquive and sculptors Maxime Adam-Tessier and Irène Zack intervene - made this church a key edifice in Île-de-France post-war rebuilding period.

Keywords

• reconstruction
• Varengeville
• Le Corbusier
• Jean Lesquibe
• Orsay
• couvent de La Clarté-Dieu