Église Notre-Dame de Toute Grâce du Plateau d'Assy, Modern church at Plateau d'Assy, France.
Église Notre-Dame de Toute Grâce du Plateau d'Assy is a Roman Catholic church built from 1937 to 1946 by architect Maurice Novarina at 1,000 metres on the plateau d'Assy, in Passy. It is built of Taveyannaz green sandstone, wood and slate, with a double-pitched roof made to carry heavy snow. A 28-metre bell tower with a small belfry and clock rises beside a deep five-metre canopy held by eight pillars; inside, a nave flanked by two aisles leads to a semicircular choir above the crypt.
In 1935 Canon Jean Devémy, chaplain of the Sancellemoz sanatorium, proposed a church for the tuberculosis patients and staff of the plateau d'Assy, where some twenty sanatoriums stood but no church existed. With the approval of Bishop Florent du Bois de la Villerabel of Annecy, an architectural competition was held in 1937 and won by the young Savoyard architect Maurice Novarina. Construction began in 1938 and the shell was largely finished before the war; the church was blessed in 1941, the crypt opened for services that year, and the consecration followed in 1950.
The church is dedicated to Notre-Dame de Grâce, a devotion to Mary as a source of grace. Its decoration was commissioned by canon Jean Devémy through the Dominican Marie-Alain Couturier, who held that each generation must call on the masters of living art. Works by Rouault, Matisse, Braque, Chagall, Léger and Richier fill the interior; the artists were chosen for their skill, not their faith, which provoked the 1950s quarrel over sacred art.
The church sits on a mountain plateau and remains accessible most of the year, though winter weather can make driving challenging. The building's deep protective overhang provides shelter, and the surrounding walking paths open up fully from late spring through early fall.
The large mosaic on the facade is by Fernand Léger, who also designed the church's ceramic tabernacle. The artists were chosen for their skill rather than their religious practice, a principle defended by the Dominican Marie-Alain Couturier; this approach provoked the "querelle de l'art sacré" among the French clergy.
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