St Joseph’s Church, Le Havre – Seine-Maritime – France

by Albert Videt Jensen

Saint-Joseph’s Church is an iconic Catholic parish church in the rebuilt city centre of Le Havre (Seine-Maritime, Normandy). A monument to modern architecture, it symbolises the rebirth of a city destroyed by the bombing raids of September 1944. Its 107-metre-high lantern tower serves both as a lighthouse visible up to 60 kilometres out to sea and as a ‘memorial to the fallen’.

Rebuilt from 1951 onwards by Auguste Perret, a pioneer of reinforced concrete, it serves as both a war memorial and a parish church. Perret died in 1954; Raymond Audigier succeeded him, assisted by Georges Brochard and Jacques Poirrier. The church was inaugurated in June 1957. Built on a square plan, a base supports a pyramidal structure and, above that, the Gothic-inspired lantern tower. The concrete is left in its raw state, without ornamentation: its only decorations are the stained-glass windows by Marguerite Huré and two 18th-century statues. Inside, the eye is drawn upwards towards the top of the tower.

The stained-glass windows (1952–1957) comprise 12,768 pieces of hand-blown coloured glass. A pioneer of abstraction in religious stained glass, Huré uses only colour: seven main colours in fifty shades, becoming progressively lighter towards the top, where the glass is translucent. The nave thus remains dark whilst light streams down from the tower. The church was listed as a historic monument in 2018 and forms part of Le Havre’s city centre, which was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2005.