Saint-Augustin Church, in the heart of Haussmann-style Paris

TheEglise Saint-Augustin has been under renovation in recent years, and Parisians rediscovered it in a new light at the start of 2018. An opportunity to look back at the history of this church with its rather... astonishing architecture.

TheEglise Saint-Augustin was built between 1860 and 1871 in a rather strange location for a religious building: at the crossroads of the boulevards Malesherbes and Haussmann. Until the Second Empire, this neighborhood was nicknamed"Little Poland", due to the poverty that reigned there. It was Napoleon III and Baron Haussmann who reshaped the area, which soon became the bourgeois district we know today.

Victor Baltard, famous architect of Les Halles, was entrusted with the project. Baltard was no stranger to renovating churches in Paris, but this was his first church-building project.

At the time, metal was seen as the material of the future. TheEglise Saint-Augustin thus became the first large church built with a metal frame covered by stone. Baltard made no attempt to camouflage the metal - quite the contrary.

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The structure is not as visible as that of theEglise Notre-Dame-du-Travail, but still. Inside, the framework is visible at vault level. The church's pillars, meanwhile, are made of gilded cast iron and adorned withpolychrome angels. All these details give theEglise Saint-Augustin a strange, cluttered appearance, somewhere between industrial and more classical styles.

In terms of architectural style, Baltard chose not to choose: the nave is Romanesque, the choir and dome are Byzantine, the ciborium is antique, and the porches are neo-Romanesque. From the outside, theEglise Saint-Augustin reflects a Romanesque-Byzantine style to great effect, with its impressive rose window (covered in gold leaf since the latest restoration work) and beautiful frieze.

In short, theEglise Saint-Augustin is unlike any other church in Paris. A blend of classical art and modern metalworking techniques, it remains intriguing to this day!