Bell foundry Paccard

The Savoyard

The World Peace Bell (Millennium Bell), recorded on July 16, 2006

The Paccard bell foundry ( Fonderie Paccard ) was founded in 1796 in the municipality of Quintal near Annecy and is now located in Sévrier . The blacksmith Antoine Paccard (born November 22, 1770, † June 6, 1830), Mayor of Quintal, hired the bell caster Jean Baptiste Pitton von Carouge to replace the old bell for the village church with a new bell that was destroyed during the revolution had been made.

After this first casting, Antoine Paccard and his descendants continued the bell foundry. Around 1855 the family set up the workshop in Annecy-le-Vieux . In the late 19th century, the company under Georges Paccard offered a wide variety of bell types and thus gained a worldwide reputation as an efficient supplier of bells. In 1891 it made the largest bell in France, the so-called Savoyarde, for the Basilique du Sacré-Cœur of Montmartre in Paris . With a weight of 18,835 kilograms and a height of 3.06 meters, it is still one of the largest bells in the world.

In 1914, the company cast the 16-tonne Jeanne-d'Arc bell for Rouen Cathedral , which was destroyed during the bombing of the city in June 1944. In 1959 it was re-cast with a weight of ten tons.

Around the middle of the 20th century, Paccard developed into the leading international manufacturer of carillons and created, among other things, the large chimes of the Tour Yolande in Chambéry (70 bells), Berkeley University (68 bells), Douai (62 bells), cathedral Saint-Bénigne, Dijon (56 bells), Basilica Sainte-Thérèse in Lisieux (48 bells) and Princeton University (39 bells).

In 1950 the American government ordered 54 bells modeled on the Liberty Bell , one for each of the capitals of the US states. The peace bell in Hiroshima City Park also comes from Sévrier.

In the late 20th century, Annecy made some unusually large bells, such as the Millennium Bell for Kentucky, weighing 33 tons.

The company has delivered around 120,000 bells since its inception. More recently, it has also designed and manufactured music installations for public spaces. The plant has been in Sévrier on the outskirts of Annecy since 1989 . The Paccard Bell Museum, founded in 1984, found enough space at the new location .

Web links

Commons : Paccard bell foundry - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Website of the bell foundry Paccard (French)

Individual evidence

↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g Philippe Gloaguen, et al .: Le Routard - Le guide de la visite d'entreprise . No. 79/0425 // 0 . Hachette Livre, Vanves 2016, ISBN 978-2-01-323703-1 , pp. 232 .

[:0-1] ↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g Philippe Gloaguen, et al .: Le Routard - Le guide de la visite d'entreprise . No. 79/0425 // 0 . Hachette Livre, Vanves 2016, ISBN 978-2-01-323703-1 , pp. 232 .