Église Notre-Dame-du-Travail, Roman Catholic church in Plaisance, 14th arrondissement of Paris, France.
Église Notre-Dame-du-Travail is a Catholic church at 59 rue Vercingétorix whose neo-Romanesque stone facade, with a round-arched portal and paired windows, gives no hint of the interior. Inside, two rows of slender riveted steel columns and pointed metal trusses, said to reuse girders from the 1855 Palais de l'Industrie, carry the roof above a central nave and side aisles with wooden galleries. The church is 59 metres long and 25 metres high.
Construction began in 1897 under Father Soulange-Bodin to replace a smaller church that could no longer accommodate the growing number of workers in the area. The building was completed during a period of rapid industrial growth in western Paris.
The interior murals, sculptures, and stained glass windows honor workers and their lives, reflecting the industrial heritage of this working-class neighborhood. These artworks tell stories of people who lived and labored in the area.
The church faces Square du Cardinal-Wyszynski at 59 rue Vercingétorix. The facade is flanked by two octagonal towers; the Sevastopol bell, too heavy for the tower, sits in the garden on a concrete structure above the old stairway tower. A carillon of four bells on the roof plays a six-note melody every quarter hour.
The bell in the church tower was originally brought from Sevastopol after its capture during the Crimean War in 1855. This unexpected artifact connects distant European history to this Parisian house of worship.
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