68 Lille cathedral – Notre-Dame-de-la-Treille and its translucent walls.
This cathedral was started in 1856 and finished in … 1999 (the long period is mostly due to finance problems)! The architects were chosen in the 1850s after an international competition, an extremely modern idea for the time. The name of the cathedral comes from the name of a statue in the previous church, which was reputed to have been a source of miracles.
I had to visit this cathedral when it was almost dark . I have already been there in sunshine, which is particularly impressove as the whole front of the cathedral is built in translucent stone ( Is it marble or something ?), so that the light shines through.
It has a number of
fetching features. The Stations of the Cross is done in modern paintings, quite
spectacular in effect, and very distant from the sober stations we are used to.
There is also a model of what the cathedral was planned to look like (very
different indeed).
When I went it was last
November, so the nativity crib had been set up. Well in fact two cribs – one
with very much traditional statues, and the other a modernist crib (somewhat in
keeping with the Stations of the Cross). You want modern, we got modern ;
you want traditional, we got traditional.
(Rather a lot of) Information in French
