Saint-Pierre church, Modern church in Firminy, France

Saint-Pierre Church is a modern structure in Firminy built from concrete in the shape of a truncated cone, standing 33 meters tall with a square base measuring roughly 25 meters on each side. The building serves as both a house of worship and an exhibition space, as its lower levels contain display areas for the Saint-Etienne Museum of Modern Art.

Le Corbusier took on the church project for Firminy-Vert in 1961, at the request of mayor Eugène Claudius-Petit, and produced his sketches in June of that year. The first stone was laid in May 1970, but building only began in autumn 1973; the shell stopped at levels four and five in 1978 and stood walled up for three decades. José Oubrerie, Le Corbusier's collaborator from the outset, directed the works from 2004 and the building was inaugurated on 29 November 2006, at a cost of 7.6 million euros.

Locals call it the "église Le Corbusier" or simply "église Corbusier", after its architect. The lower level now holds an interpretation centre on Le Corbusier's work and an annex of the Saint-Étienne Museum of Modern Art, while the upper part keeps a religious role: an altar there was dedicated on 29 June 2007.

The building welcomes visitors, with the exhibition spaces on the lower levels being accessible to everyone. To visit the main church area and reach the upper levels for views, admission is required, so it is worth checking conditions before planning your visit.

The concrete structure required more than one hundred specialized molds to achieve its precise truncated cone shape. A particular technical challenge involved the 85 wooden corner forms, which were designed using computer technology during the early 2000s.