Église Saint-Bernard-de-La-Chapelle

The Église Saint-Bernard-de-La-Chapelle is a Neo-Gothic Roman Catholic parish church in the Goutte d'Or neighbourhood of Paris's 18th arrondissement. Joseph Magne, one of the city's principal architects under Napoleon III and Baron Haussmann, drew up the design. Work began in 1858 and finished three years later. The church is dedicated to Bernard de Clairvaux, the twelfth-century monk from Burgundy who reformed the Cistercian Order. An older legend holds that Saint Genevieve built a chapel here in 475, over the burial place of Saint Denis.

Its facade faces west because Haussmann's new street plan for the neighbourhood dictated the orientation. Outside, the decoration is devoted to the resurrection: sculpted angels and a statue of Christ you pick out from afar. Inside, the aisles that ring the nave, transept and choir trace a large cross, and the space conveys harmony and calm. On the main altar sits a tabernacle of gilded bronze, worked into the shape of a Gothic church portal. The studio of Eugène-Stanislas Oudinot made the stained glass, combining painting techniques with traditional glasswork to produce realistic, colourful windows. An organ from the workshop of Cavaillé-Coll rounds out the interior.

The parish is one of the most ethnically diverse in Paris, with residents from seventy recorded nationalities. In 1996, around three hundred immigrants and their supporters occupied the church, drawing media attention to the Goutte d'Or's social dynamics.