The Great Churches of Paris: Le Sacré-Cœur

This Week: The Restoration Movement and the Eclectic Churches of the 19th Century

The last French king, Louis-Philippe, who reigned between 1830 and 1848, was responsible for the restoration of many churches and other historic monuments in France. In Paris, the first restoration architect, Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, undertook the restoration of three iconic churches: Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois, the Sainte-Chapelle, and Notre-Dame. During the Second Empire of Napoléon III that followed shortly after the “July Monarchy” of Louis-Philippe, city architect Victor Baltard (who designed Les Halles) built the Église Saint-Augustin around a metal frame, obviating the need for flying buttresses. The year after the bloody uprising known as “the Commune” of 1871, the City of Paris started the construction of the Basilique du Sacré-Coeur, built in pure-white travertine atop Montmartre in a “Neo-Byzantine-Romanesque” style, which would not be consecrated until 1919. André Malraux, France’s first Minister of Cultural Affairs appointed by Charles de Galle in 1958, launched a campaign to clean and restore the churches and other monuments of Paris, which continues unabated to this day.

The Evolution of the Church and Ecclesiastical Architecture in Paris From the Middle Ages to Today

Every Thursday at 12 noon Central Time in Chicago/1 pm Eastern Time in Miami/19h Central European Time in Paris – from January 12 through February 16, 2023

Following the success of the Grands Châteaux of the Loire and Ile-de-France and The Making of the French Garden series of online talks, Russell Kelley spent the summer visiting the most beautiful churches of Paris! Our curator extraordinaire returns to offer a series of 6 talks packed with information about another important pillar of France’s cultural and architectural heritage: the extraordinary variety of churches that were built in every commune in France – but especially in Paris – over the past one thousand years.

Russell Kelley is the curator and moderator of the past two winters’ Zoom lecture series on the “Grands Châteaux of the Loire and Île de France” and the “Making of the French Garden”. He has lived in Paris for 30 years and is the author of The Making of Paris: The Story of How Paris Evolved from a Fishing Village into the World’s Most Beautiful City (Lyons Press, 2021).

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This program is presented in partnership with the Alliance Française Miami Metro with communication support from the Federation of Alliances Françaises USA, the French Heritage Society, and the Association of American Women in Europe.

Through our Entrée Libre initiative, free admission to this program is offered to students enrolled in French Studies in universities and French schools in Chicago and the Midwest. You MUST register with an .edu address to get a Zoom link for the event.