Hard-working Saint-Joseph Church of Avignon

The hard-working Saint-Joseph Church , is a parish church with the resolutely modern architecture, ordered by the diocese of Avignon, in the department of the Vaucluse, to equip a new district, in the southern periphery of the city, deprived of place of worship. It was built in second half of the 20th century by the Architecte French Guillaume Gillet (1912 - 1987), originating in the Oise. Built 1967 with 1969, it was devoted the October 19th 1969.

Hard-working the Saint-Joseph Church and the contiguous parochial center constitute a whole of Reinforced concrete relatively elegant and air, which renews the vision of architecture crowned in the quoted of the popes, marked hitherto by the building sites of the Papauté of Avignon at the 14th century. This construction falls under the continuity of the architectural modernity of the Fifties, implemented by Guillaume Gillet during the rebuilding of Royan (Charente-Maritime), of which it had the load. The church entirely and the frontages and roofs of the parochial center were registered with the additional inventory of the historic buildings by decree of the December 22nd 1993. The building was labellisé “ Patrimoine of the XXe century ” by the ministry for the Culture.

History

In 1966, the abbot Henri Laurent, then sparing diocesan, the father Joseph Persat, cleaned of Champfleury and the abbot Marcel Roy, painter and glass maker, select Guillaume Gillet, Grand Prix of Rome in 1946 - which had already built 1955 with 1958 the Église Notre-Dame de Royan - to establish the plans of the future church, intended for the new district located between Champfleury and Monclar, in the south of Avignon, district in full expansion, which was to face, since 1962 with the massive surge of the repatriates of North Africa.

For this construction, association diocésaine, building owner, imposed neither forced, nor architectural orientation, leaving a great freedom to the architect for the realization of a relatively simple program: a church, a presbytery, and church halls, which Guillaume Gillet answered by an overall plan corresponding to the triangular form of the piece acquired by the diocese.

Structure

The architect knew to benefit the best from space, and this variation of the triangle, symbolizing the divine Trinité, which could have constituted an insurmountable constraint, becomes the principle of organization of all the parochial center. Each point of the starting triangle itself is occupied by a strong point, also triangular: in the east, the church, with north, a cloister of winter protected by a pyramidal canopy, with south-west, a conference room. A wing must receive the presbytery and its appendices, the another rooms of catechism, the third a covered gallery closing again the whole around a vast hexagonal place. This last part, just as the conference room, will not be carried out, because of budgetary constraints.

A common architectural vocabulary brings closer the various churches built by Guillaume Gillet. These buildings are resolutely modern constructive systems and represent variations on geometrical forms. Its esthetics is that of the rough concrete of dismantling, with use of wood. This choice, associated with the cover in copper sheets oxidized today in a beautiful green patina, deliberately registers the building among the sanctuaries with the architecture of avant-garde, which slices with the traditional style romano-of Provence , still used in 1941 for the construction of the Église Our-Lady-of-Doors.

As with its practice, Guillaume Gillet worked in close relationship with an engineer, whom it had already associated besides with the design of two others of his churches with hyperbolic paraboloids. The Inhabitant of Avignon Charles André was the architect of operation. Among the artists intervened in the decoration of hard-working Saint-Joseph appear the abbot Roy itself, creative of the stained glasses and the Watkin ironworker, author of the cross which surmounts the arrow.

Description

The church is the most spectacular element of the parochial center and constitutes a true technical prowess. On the triangular level, Guillaume Gillet created a trefoil vault called “in saddle of horse”, whose axes gather in the center to give rise to an arrow bored on the height of three narrow windows. Its surprising volume, animated, produces an impression of flight towards the sky. The walls, statements with the angles, go down towards the triangular door, located in the middle of each side. Their base, plugs but animated by wings, is out of rough concrete of dismantling, their edges and their upper part makes up of a stringcourse of stained glasses whose concrete veins are encrusted with mosaics. On each face, the roof is inclined to the doors then springs towards the high metal arrow.

Inside, the concrete is softened by a frame in lamellate-stuck carried by a tripod. Its fairness, coloring blue and orange of the stained glasses offer a cordial environment favourable with the meditation. Among liturgical, sober and elegant furniture, one will retain especially the baptismal font, true metal and concrete sculpture.

An unfinished project

The developmental perspectives of the district of Champfleury were not carried out in accordance with the forecasts. So association diocésaine had as of 1970 to reduce the program of origin. This incompletion makes the organization overall less readable. Today, the appendices are assigned to the community “ the Bread of Life ”, which deals with the inhabitants. The church was attached to the parish of Saint-Ruf, of which it had been detached in 1958. The last work, completed by Charles André, concerned the copper cover and the terraces.

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