2017-07 - Blog Posts

Three churches in Le Havre

This building very much stands out in Le Havre's rebuilt city centre, as it is far more ornate than its surroundings. It's the oldest building in Le Havre, completed in 1638, just 120 years after the founding of the town. Damage by Allied bombings but not completely destroyed, the old church was kept and restored, and, with Le Havre becoming a major town again, it got its own diocese in 1974. The church then became Notre-Dame Cathedral of Le Havre, and is now approaching 50 years in the role (anniversary in December).

As it had been decided to keep the old church, Auguste Perret, the architect in charge of the reconstruction, would build a church of his own elsewhere: the new Church of Saint Joseph, a blocky concrete structure, perfectly in sync with the rest of the urban project. Where the cathedral sticks out as its rounded, classic facade contrasts with the angular buildings around it, Saint Joseph's stands out with its tall central spire. Culminating at 107 m, the tower is inspired by lighthouses, a symbol of Le Havre's maritime nature.

Somewhere in between, other churches further away from the port also survived the war - not without damage, but restoration was chosen over replacement. In the foreground, Saint Vincent de Paul's Church was built in the 19th century in a neo-Romanesque style, its central tower reminiscent of the abbey on Mont Saint Michel.

Catène de Containers

To celebrate the 500th anniversary of the founding of the port on the right bank of the Seine estuary, Le Havre went big. They commissioned a sculpture from artist Vincent Ganivet... and he delivered a monument!

Standing at nearly 29 m tall, the arches are made with 36 shipping containers, representing Le Havre's half-millennium as an international trade hub. 21 in one and 15 in the other, they are arranged in a catenary shape which makes the structure self-supporting. There's stuff to satisfy a maths and physics buff in there somewhere... but I'll just concentrate on the fact that it looks cool, especially compared to its industrial and brutalist surroundings.

As a major port in Nazi-occupied France, Le Havre was bombed into oblivion by the Allies, hence most of the town centre's buildings were built at once in the late 1940s-early 1950s. The result is a very rigid, homogeneous, mineral urban environment, to which the Catène adds a welcome dash of colour.

But if nothing else (and we've established there is a lot else), it looks like it'd make a compelling Mario Kart track.