Is there a Protestant religious architecture? One can legitimately wonder so much its diversity is big. However, it is possible to distinguish there some constants which continue from one century to another, from a style to the other one and that are : abolition of the worship of pictures and the organization of internal space around the pulpit and the communion table (sometimes incorrectly called altar).
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In the XVIth century : adaptations and new buildings When the Reform is suffisament established in France, reformed people feel the need for places of worship vaster than the particular houses than they used until there.
a - adaptations : The Protestants initially will invest public places, often according to their mocal political and military power, abbeys or convents, catholic churches on which they impose transformations in conformity with their spiritual designs : |
b - new buildings Then, according to the edicts of peaces which give them the right of it, reformed will build new buildings financed by communities however very impoverished by the wars of religion. They will give them the name of "temples" per reference to the temples of Jerusalem and Solomon. These new buildings, which will have sometimes a transitory existence, can be classified in three categories : |
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In the XVIIth century The Edict of Nantes, while authorizing reformed to build their own places of worship but they must not be confused with a catholic church, was the catalyst of an original architectural production. There remains about it only very little of temples and documentation on those which were destroyed (almost all) is more lacunar, which makes very difficult their study. However, three large types can be distinguished :
These types are inspired by the same principle: the community meets around the read and commented Bible, in a functional space, lit well by the sun of the morning, in a new unified architectural space whose its own dynamics is due to the articulation between the gathering on the one hand, the reference to the Word which convenes it. The type of Velaux, identical to that of Collet-de-Dèze, in Lozère (today the only one to show an identical structure with a simple frame in chestnut whose beams are pressed on the median arc, semicircular arch, out of stone of size), but also in those, destroyed, of Anduze, Florac, Saint-Germain-of-Calberte, Lasalle, but also in Orange where John Locke noticed in 1675: "only one stone arch, similar on a bridge, embracing all the length of the church and supporting the rafters like the main beam of a house" In Velaux, this arch is supported on the west on the bell-tower whose sobriety points out that of the temple of Anduze. This arch supporting the frame of the building is of origin and the frontage, completely eccentric compared to the current church, is in architectural harmony with the large arch and the bell-tower. The arch, means used by the originators of this type of temple to cover it, made it possible to release a vast space, without pillars, which was a new design of the places of worship, a new architecture, influenced and produced using the only word. The ovoid model is illustrated by these churches : the second church of Dieppe, Caen, Quevilly, etc As of the death of Henri IV (1610), the Édict of Nantes is called into question, and the demolitions of Protestant churches built after 1598 will proceed all along the century, until knowing their apogee with the Revocation in 1685. It causes the destruction of the quasi totality of the remaining Protestant churches on the whole of France.Only very rare temples remain : Cardet (transformed into catholic church), Cénevières, Collet de Dèze (transformed into hospital), Hougerville (close to Fécamp, exercise of stronghol x), Le Poët Laval (parce qu'il faisait aussi fonction de salle de réunion municipale), Ponet Saint Auban, Velaux (transformed into catholic church), Vézenobres, and enfin Les Vialas. L'Alsace is a special case because it is indeed attached to France only with the treaty of Westphalia (1648), and the Edict of Nantes will not be applied there. Strasbourg becomes French only in 1681: its cathedral is used for the worship protesting during 150 years. The Alsatian churches are often the object of alternate worships (catholic and Protestant) or simultaneum. In addition the worship Lutheran, less severe than the worship calvinist, tolerates inside the building the presence of religious scenes, and also preserves decorations of the old catholic churches : If new buildings meet to the XVIIth century in Alsace or to the country of Montbeliard (Saint Martin's day Temple), in the other French areas, they very few, passed first years of the century. Note : we arbitrarily make begin the XVIIth century in April 1598, as from the signature of the Edict of Nantes. |
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In the XVIIIth century, clandestine assemblies: Protestantism is outlawed : there is thus no new construction between 1685 and 1787, but of the clandestine places of worship. The refractory Protestants (converted of force) meet in " assemblies " in isolated places : it is the time of the Desert which will very often give place to tragic episodes in Cevennes, Languedoc, Poitou, Charentes, Normandy. To announce an original initiative in Saintonge: houses of speech. The end of the XVIIIth century, the tolerance, which settled in the company and which appears by the Edict of Tolerance, signed by Louis XVI (1787), allows the Protestants to meet and some constructions are carried out in the very last years. |
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Churches of the end of the XVIIIth century
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In the XIXth century The organic laws of 1802, which follow the "Concordat" of 1801, will give a new breath to the Protestant worship: the Protestants receive the support of the State to rebuild the temples destroyed by the Revocation or to re-use old pertaining to worship buildings nationalized by the Revolution and closed down (abbeys, convents, churches). |
a - Buildings re-used in Protestant churches They are : |
b - New buildings : This style, born in the XVIIIth century in catholic architecture (Sainte Geneviève or the Panthéon, Saint-Philippe du Roule), is that preferred under the Republic, the Empire or la Restauration in the official public buildings and also among Protestants. Many examples exist of this architecture inspired by Greek or Romanic art : circular or rectangular churches (sometimes preceded by gantries with columns), but also hexagonal or octagonal :
Note : (*) church comprising a circular part |
Neo-gothic or neo-romanic, this medievist vague is essential since 1830 and until approximately 1890 environ. Among them, some exemples : One of the most interesting church is that of the Étoile in Paris, built in 1874 by the Swedish architect Hansen at the request of Pasteur Eugène Bersier. Sometimes certain originalities meet : The neo-Byzantine style whose "grand temple" in Lyon by Garpard André provides a good example of this current. |
.This time, that can be also qualified " picturesque one ", tries to call upon creative imagination but without much success. One plays especially on the external ornamentation, one tests oneself with the regional style (temple-country cottage), one complicates the forms or the bell-towers. The style "New Art" unfortunately does not have an effect on Protestant architecture. The only original example of this time is that of Foyer de l'Âme (Paris, 1906) built on the initiative of Pasteur Charles Wagner while taking as a starting point the architecture of the Department stores : coloured canopies, galleries with posts, audience laid out of rise, architecture seeks not to make "church more ", while keeping the aspect ceremonial. But this example did not make school. |
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In the XXth century :The new materials, whose concrete, bring the birth of an architectural esthetics also related to the liturgical revival. In fact, the religious style seeks to adapt to that of the civil architecture with heaviness and without originality. During the XXth century, other interesting achievements on the architectural level are to be announced :
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