The church

The church is built in a Roman-Byzantine art deco style. It has a dome, supported by eight pillars, and two levels: the actual church on one floor and a lower floor below it that contains rooms for everyday life. With the transept’s rounded shape, roughly five hundred people can comfortably attend Mass in this monument. Most churches from the period of reconstruction that followed the First World War kept a Latin cross shape. But this one is an exception with a polylobed plan in a Greek cross in which ‘you can see the altar and pulpit from everywhere’ (extract from a brochure from around 1936 presenting the church). From the road, a curved path leads up to the main entrance: a wooden double door. Directly above this entrance door, a monumental arch with tall stained-glass windows gives the church a grand, solemn appearance.

The feature that immediately stands out when you first look at the church is its tall dome where the transept crosses the nave. The dome’s base is ten metres above the floor and it rises up to a pinnacle eighteen metres above the floor. A lantern caps the dome. This lantern contains a statue of the Christ child and it is crowned with a cross. The building’s shell of reinforced concrete cannot be seen, except in the door and window surrounds and around the dome and its pinnacle. The walls are made of yellow bricks in a Flemish bond. Red bricks are used for emphasis on the corners, entablatures and a frieze that runs around the monument. The apses (side chapels, chancel and galleried narthex) are vaulted with reinforced concrete, concealed outside by rounded hip roofs of flat tiles. An unbroken band of stained-glass windows runs around the dome’s lower section, letting in natural light. A protective layer of transparent glazing is placed outside this strip of colourful windows. The dome’s upper section is made of copper that has greened over time. The initial plan included a church tower rising up at the back of the edifice, unaligned with the chancel. This can be seen in a watercolour plan and in architectural plans for the planning permission document dating back to March 1933. But this tower was never built due to a lack of funds.

Inside the church, the walls are smooth and all painted white. They are made of concrete and plastered brickwork. The eight thick columns on which the dome rests are prominent. Plainness characterises the interior. Its harmony is perfect. Subdued, multicoloured light enters the church through elegant stained-glass windows, both around the sides and up in the dome. A vast gallery made for singers and musicians extends above the narthex. Everything is turned towards the altar, which brought the clergy closer to the churchgoers when the monument was built.

A crypt lies beneath the church. It is a large room that extends under the entire building and that used to host parish meetings. Behind the edifice is a large plot of land that was used as a garden for children of the church youth club. In the 1930s, there was a plan to build a presbytery on this land, but this plan was never brought to fruition.

Regarding decoration, the interior is very plain. Beyond the stained-glass windows, there is no decoration at all: neither mosaics nor frescoes. The floor is covered with plain square tiles and stoneware fragments on the sides. The columns, vaulted ceilings and walls are smooth and painted white. The only ornaments were on the chancel railings, the marble altar and the pulpit. This striking plainness makes the church stand out from churches that were rebuilt in the previous decade, where there are plenty of sculptures, bas-reliefs and stylised plant patterns. Such plainness gives this church a more elegant edge.

The art deco stained-glass windows are the only decorative features inside the church, which brings them out even more. The two apses that make up the side chapels include illustrated stained-glass windows. On one side, we can see Saint Louis, the Virgin Mary and Joan of Arc. On the other side, we can see Jesus Christ, Saint Quentin and Saint Eligius – the parish’s patron saint. Between each of these six stained-glass windows stand eight others that are all designed with the same pattern of Greek crosses and stylised plant patterns.

The stained-glass windows in the chancel (two stained-glass windows in its vaulted ceiling), the narthex (six square stained-glass windows) and the gallery (six stained-glass windows forming a semi-circle) are embellished with geometric patterns.

Lastly, the dome includes sixteen two-metre-tall stained-glass windows that are eleven metres above the floor. They form a remarkable unbroken band of thirty-two stylised crosses.

In the lower floor, many rooms let in natural light, which makes them suited to a range of meetings or workshops.

(Historical and architectural sources: Frédéric Pillet, December 2021)

The garden

The garden surrounds the monument. It is mostly made up of a vast lawn. Large vehicles can enter the grounds via a rear entrance.