Saint-Jacques-le-Majeur

Montrouge’s earlier church was demolished in the 1930s to widen the road. Éric Bagge designed its successor for the Chantiers du Cardinal, and Cardinal Verdier blessed it on 5 December 1937. The war halted the work: the façade and bell tower Bagge planned were never built, and in 1981 Henri Martin was asked to complete the front, which he did with a giant cross. The church was listed as a historic monument in 2006 and restored from 2013 to 2017. Inside, look up before you look ahead. A frame of articulated reinforced-concrete portals rises some 20 meters, and light enters through a two-meter band of glass, set a third of the way up the walls; it is the church’s only light. The photographs show the front on 17 June 2024 and the nave, in colored light, on 19 June. They record those two days, not the light you will find.