St. Joseph (Le Havre)

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St. Joseph is a Catholic parish church in Le Havre in the Seine-Maritime and a memorial for the destruction of the city and for those who died when France was liberated in 1944.

Panoramic picture of Le Havre, with the Church of St. Joseph center left.

history

In 1865 a maritime exposition with numerous exhibition pavilions took place in Le Havre . From 1868 the area was built on as a residential area. The parish church of St. Joseph, a neo-Gothic basilica , was built until 1873.

After the Allied landing in Normandy in the final phase of World War II , Le Havre and its port remained a fortress of the German occupation forces, and the capture was prepared in early September 1944 with massive British bombardments. The historic buildings were almost completely destroyed and at least 5,000 people were killed.

The planning of the reconstruction of the city after the war was entrusted to the renowned architect Auguste Perret (1874–1954), who carried it out using geometrical exposed concrete construction ( brutalism ). The most demanding building project in this ensemble was the new St. Joseph's Church, which, in addition to its ecclesiastical function, was to become a memorial and “lighthouse” of remembrance. The foundation stone was laid on October 21, 1951. The Le Havr architect Raymond Audigier was involved in the development of the plans . He completed the construction after Perret's death. The church was opened in June 1957 and consecrated in 1964 . As early as 1965 it was included in the list of Monuments historiques . The tower of the church was provided with interior lighting in 1997. The church was renovated from 2003 to 2005.

Architecture and equipment

organ

The plans for St. Joseph are a further development of the unrealized design that Perret submitted to the 1926 competition for the Votive Church of St. Jeanne d'Arc in Paris. For Le Havre, the gigantic dimensions were reduced and the form made more objective . However, the basic idea of ​​a neoclassical square hall building with an edge length of 40.6 m remained, above the center of which the dominating lantern tower rises on four groups of four columns each . The room contains a chapel and is divided in height by a gallery. If a height of approx. 200 m was planned for Paris, St. Joseph still reaches the total height of 107 m. The church was built on a concrete base of 2000 m 3 .

The tower is an inwardly open, lantern-topped octagon . Its walls are dissolved into small windows, whose symbolic color scheme was designed by Marguérite Huré . The altar is located in the center under the tower. This and the rest of the liturgical furnishings were made by Guy Verdoya . 700 tons of steel and 50,000 tons of concrete were used for the building . There is no figurative decoration at all.

12,768 pieces of glass were installed in the tower and church exterior. Whore was inspired by the course of the sun: In the east, the colors pink and lavender appear as symbols for birth; in the south gold and orange symbolize the triumph of Christ; in the west red-pink tones predominate and in the north blue tones, the colors of the Virgin Mary.

Organs

The organ in the gallery was originally built in 1966 for the now demolished St. Thomas Chapel in Le Havre by Alfred Kern & Fils in Strasbourg and transferred here between 2003 and 2004. The neo-baroque disposition is divided into two manuals and pedal .

There is a mobile organ positive on the altar island .

Web links

Commons : St. Joseph (Le Havre)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. a b c d Information booklet of the Office de Tourisme de l´ Aggloméretion Havraise, Le Havre 2009.
  2. ^ Véronique David: Marguerite Huré, précurseur de l'abstraction dans le vitrail religieux . In: In Situ. Revue des patrimoines . No. 3 , March 1, 2003, ISSN  1630-7305 , doi : 10.4000 / insitu.1980 ( openedition.org [accessed December 8, 2018]).

Coordinates: 49 ° 29 ′ 27.5 ″  N , 0 ° 6 ′ 4.1 ″  E