Notre-Dame de Pentecôte, Modern chapel in La Défense district, Puteaux, France
Notre-Dame de Pentecôte is a cubic church building on the slab of the Défense business district, with a 35-metre facade partly detached like a bell tower and holding eight bells. Its concrete wall is clad in opaque grey glass, with two lighter lines forming a large cross across the full height and width. The interior is stacked vertically: a 300-seat chapel upstairs, a reception level with bookstore, and meeting rooms and a restaurant below.
The building was completed in the early 2000s and represented one of the first new religious structures built in France as the new millennium began. It succeeded an earlier prayer space and marked a turning point in how religious buildings were designed in the region.
The church is not a parish but a "maison d'Église" of the Diocese of Nanterre, run with six stated priorities: welcome and listening, liturgy, the business world, deepening faith, art and culture, and solidarity. Bishop Gérard Daucourt (2002–2013) called it a "laboratory for the evangelisation of our secularised society". A bookshop, an annex of the Procure in Paris's 6th arrondissement, occupies the ground-floor reception level.
The entrance is on a pedestrian street between the CNIT and the Maison de la Défense, reachable from the parvis de la Défense and the place de la Défense. The basement meeting rooms, restaurant, kitchen and toilets are accessible to people with disabilities. On Wednesdays the restaurant serves meals from about 13:15, after the mass, before work resumes at 14:00.
The first stone, laid on 25 March 1998, is the only stone in this concrete and glass building; it stands beside the baptistery and carries an excerpt from the Book of Isaiah (28:16–17). The church was consecrated on 7 January 2001, the feast of the Epiphany, making it the first church opened in France in the third millennium. It received the "Patrimoine du XXe siècle" label in 2011.
The community of curious travelers
AroundUs brings together thousands of curated places, local tips, and hidden gems, enriched daily by 93,782 contributors worldwide.