Architecture Update: Notre-Dame Rosary Church in Les Lilas, Seine St. Denis

It has been quite a while since an Architecture Update has appeared on this blog, mostly because the decision had been made to discontinue the feature, but I just had to post about a new church in the Seine St. Denis department outside of Paris, in the commune of Le Lilas.  I am obsessed with modern churches in Europe, primarily because of the nature of public architectural projects in Europe (especially France) and the interplay of this quality with the essential requirement for Catholic churches to be an expression of both centralized church authority and a representation of a modern personalized religious experience.  Whew!  That was a mouthful.  Basically, what I am trying to say is: A modern Catholic Church has to simultaneously represent the power of Catholicism whilst also suggesting individual spirituality (rather different from the arrogance of the Spanish/Italian Baroque during the Counter-Reformation).  Dezeen (the best architecture and design website out there) has posted some incredible pictures of the newly-completed church of Notre Dame in Les Lilas.

Images courtesy Herve Abbadie/Dezeen

The church was designed by ENIA Architects and was constructed of "two contrasting colors of stone".  Because church services had to continue in the 1886 "temporary" Les Lilas church next door, the project needed to be completed in phases in such a way that the original church was not demolished until the worship areas of the new church were completed.  Dezeen described the original church as being of a temporary, wooden construction, but the images that I dug up reveal a rather small concrete structure.  There are various aspects of the new church that are interesting, such as the nave that is entered perpendicularly, but most are beyond the scope of this blog.  In contrast to most Americans, I am very much in favor of civic architecture (commissioned by government bodies) because, frankly, we cannot leave art and architecture preservation (and innovation) to the tacky plebs.  I'm just sayin'.  (via Dezeen)

The original church of Les Lilas.  It appears that the accessory building (to the right of the church) was demolished in order to construct the new Notre Dame Rosary Church