église Saint-Vincent-de-Paul

English translation

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History

In 1956, in order to face the increase in population, the mayor decides on the creation of a new town of two thousand dwellings, sets of individual houses gathered in alleyways and squares. In opposition to the gigantism of large housing schemes, Jacques Riboud and Roland Prédieri define a new urban style, close to the human scale, inherited from English garden cities, 'provincial urbanism'. At the centre of this new town of 'La Haie Bergerie', the church of Saint-Vincent de Paul, with 600 seats, built from 1964 to 1968, unfolds its long façade on the square. Only its figurative decoration, a tribute to Saint Vincent de Paul, executed in sgraffito by muralist Robert Lesbounit, makes it possible to identify the function of the building. In fact, the church is set into a building on three sides in a residential complex combining parish facilities and dwellings. Thus the interior space, wider than it is deep, has received zenithal lighting, by means of six sheds, borrowed from industrial construction. The originality of the building is further underlined by its interior decoration: on the lateral walls, the powerful graphic work of Lesbounit gave form to an evocation of the Apocalypse, painted on canvas marouflée, intended according to Roland Predieri, 'to bring the faithful into the world of the spirit'. Claire Vigne-Dumas, extract from 1905-2000, the religious buildings of the 20th century in Île-de-France, Beaux-Arts editions, 2013.