Église Sainte-Thérèse-du-Landais

English translation

The text above is the record as published by the Ministère de la Culture, in French. The English below is a machine translation made by TreeAlive, not by the Ministère de la Culture; it has not been checked by a person. Where the two differ, the original is the record. Report a translation error: privacy@treealive.com

History

The parish of Landais is situated at 40 rue de Gallieni to the north of the Recouvrance district in Brest. Five parishes are created after the war in the city of Brest during a period of demographic expansion: Notre-Dame du Bouguen, Notre-Dame-du-Bergot, Notre-Dame-de-Bonne-Nouvelle at Kérinou, Saint-Jean and Sainte-Thérèse-du-Landais. The parish of Landais forms with Saint-Pierre, Kerbonne and Recouvrance, the deanery of Saint-Sauveur which becomes the right bank sector group. These new parishes are linked to the creation of new districts with the influx of those displaced from the centre of the city of Brest and with the arrival of a rural population coming to work on the Reconstruction building sites. The religious authorities of Brest therefore decided to build a provisional chapel dedicated to Saint Thérèse from 1948. In order to construct the church of Landais, a transfer of war damage compensation from the chapel Saint Joseph towards the construction of the new church of Landais and that of Saint-Jean was made. The parish of Landais was created by episcopal ordinance of 27 August 1956. The land allocated to the new church was ceded to the church by the owner monsieur Louis Vieille and his wife through the medium of the property development company of Landais. The plans for this new church were entrusted to the architectural firm Marzin-Freyssinet. The architect Louis Freyssinet took charge of the plans. The plans were elaborated in consultation between the architect and the rector, Father Vey. The latter wished for a centralised plan to create a sense of closeness with his parishioners. Completed in 1959, the church Sainte-Thérèse-du-Landais is Louis Freyssinet's first work. It was constructed by the Quéméneur company, in schist from Trélazé. The construction of the new church of Landais amounted to 67 million francs. It was consecrated by Monseigneur Fauvel on 10 October 1959. The church of Landais, constructed after the church Saint-Louis but before the Second Vatican Council, can accommodate six hundred people. As at Saint-Louis, the architectural and decorative approach follows the precepts of Father Couturier by appealing to known artists and by choosing a break with academicism. The stained glass windows of the church of Landais were thus entrusted to the Jesuit Father André Bouler. It is no longer a matter of teaching the parishioners through imagery but of offering the parishioner an interior psychological space allowing parishioners for contemplation and spiritual journey. Freed from iconographic constraint, the glassmakers can create true works of sacred art. Father Bouler created the stained glass windows for the Brest churches of Landais, Lambézellec and Recouvrance. A Jesuit by training, he spent two years in the workshops of Fernand Léger during a three-year course in painting at the end of his Jesuit formation. From 1957, André Bouler settled in the Jesuit house at 35 rue de Sèvres in Paris. There he rubbed shoulders with the sculptor Tézé and especially the architect Le Corbusier. Monseigneur Fauvel contacted him in December 1957 for the creation of the stained glass windows for Landais. The young priest had then only created small stained glass windows for a student chapel in Grenoble (38). He creates the cartoons and models of the stained glass windows as a painter but the execution of the stained glass work is entrusted to the master glassmaker Jacques Juteau, then based in Ermont in the Val d'Oise. The painter's first idea is to create a stained glass window in glass blocks and concrete. The architect opposed this, fearing that the concrete would weigh down the building. Father Bouler's painting is often abstract, an expression of his concentration, his interiority. Listening to music while he paints, the artist transposes into colours the harmonies he hears. A modern approach for a new parish: The church of Landais is a circular building thirty metres in diameter. The walls are in concrete with an exterior facing of schist cut into very thin facing panels. The external wall, without low windows, allows the parishioners to be isolated from the surrounding noise. This wall is moreover not load-bearing and offers a pure circular design with this absence of external pillars. The bell tower of the church is dissociated from the church and extends to a height of twenty metres. It is topped with a cross of 5 metres. Inside the building, twenty pillars are arranged in a circle three metres from the wall. These pillars support the vault and trace an ambulatory around the nave. A vast stained glass window of 163 square metres runs around the building. The altar is slightly off-centre on a podium in schist slate which highlights the sacred space and contrasts with the whiteness of the concrete. The baptistery is located in a side chapel near the main entrance. The chapel of the Holy Sacrament, which has become the sacristy, is integrated at the rear of the choir, separated from it by a concrete claustra. Catechism rooms are situated beneath the church. The circular stained glass window measures 100 metres in circumference by 1.80 metres in height. It comprises 360 panels, 11,800 pieces of glass and 1 tonne of lead. This stained glass window which creates a mystical atmosphere in a play of contrasting lines and colours bears a phrase from Saint Thérèse of Lisieux: 'That I seek and find never anything but You alone'. The composition of the stained glass window begins above the choir then turns clockwise. Four zones of colour stand out and were chosen according to the orientation of the church and its sunlight: 'An intense point above the choir, then we expand, calm, we remain in the blues, the setting sun side above the door. We will move to something much richer, the setting, then we will slip back into the blues, into the blues to arrive at the starting point of the main motif. It is actually a symphony in four movements so to speak: there is allegro, adagio, allegro then adagio. That is how I saw things, yes'.