Pages

Saturday, April 28, 2007

L'église Notre-Dame in Raincy, Seine-Saint-Denis , Ile de France









La vierge aux taxis: Souvenir de la victoire de l'Ourcq en 1914

La vierge aux taxis: Souvenir de la victoire de l'Ourcq en 1914

Diplomatic relations between France and the Vatican were severed from 1904 to 1921.

After relations were repaired, the parish priest at Raincy, l'abbé Félix Nègre, obtained permission for a new church to be built at Raincy.

He commissioned two brothers, Auguste and Gustave Perret. The commission attracted great publicity. The Perrets were not exactly known as being on the Catholic side during the preceding troubles. The reaction was polemical especially amongst some Catholic architects who were not chosen.

The result: the first modern Catholic church building in France, constructed of reinforced concrete.

The Dominican priest,Father Couturier with Maurice Denis were responsible for the first abstract stained glass windows in the church.

But most of the stained glass work was executed by the master glazier Marguerite Huré based on drawings by Maurice Denis.

One of the ten large windows, based on an incident in the Battle of the Marne, was called "The Virgin of the Taxis". It represented the time in September 1914 when taxis brought troops from the town of Raincy to the battle fields of the Marne to save Paris and were successful at the Battle of l`Ourcq.

Between 1988 and 1996, the church was entirely restored.

No comments:

Post a Comment