Church of Our Lady of Labour — Attraction in Paris

Fascinating church - well worth visiting if you're interested in architecture. Also, the walk through the local neighborhood (Pernety) was interesting with a range of building styles, people, etc. I happened to arrive during a service which was well attended by babies to very senior citizens and all ethnicities.

The quick backstory is that this was built in an area where there was a tremendous amount of construction and development being done in the 1890s; many artisans from other countries like Italy and Portugal came to the area so a church was needed to serve them. The key to its fame is that the interior is all steel or iron metal work – girders, curved pieces, etc. And it’s all painted a pale green, and the girder columns and chapels are painted in art nouveau style with flowers, shades of green for the foliage and various pinks, red, lavender. Apparently when workers were deconstructing halls from various universal exhibitions, the steel hoops from the roof of the 1900 Universal exhibition were repurposed for the church’s vaulted nave. Dark wooden ceiling contrast nicely with the pale green metalwork. The murals and chapel paintings include scenes, recognizing the various trades who worked on the church. There were also some...

Interesting history: When construction for the Eiffel tower began in 1887, workers from nearby towns migrated to Paris, mostly settling in Montparnasse. A thoughtful move to provide these workers a place of worship, Paroisse Notre-Dame-du- Travail, was built from recycled material from the Palace of Industry built for the 1855 World's Fair. Quite difficult to find because it is tucked behind the place de Catalogne. And, if one is looking for a "quirky" structure (as blogs would describe it), it could be missed because it has quite an ordinary exterior. However, inside is an extraordinarily unadorned interior composed of a nave and four aisles. The exposed, exceptionally light iron frame not only create an industrial aesthetic but becomes a fitting tribute to the workers' dedication to...

I visit this eglise very often but I never noticed the structure or the sculptures surrounding me. It really is a beautiful and quite different eglise. I have never actually seen in a church before a beautiful sculpture of a man and a woman embracing in the hand of God - It really is beautiful. On the right hand side.as you walk in there is a room with Our Lady and her son, Jesus, and she is comforting him in his final moments - beautiful but also emotional. The structure on the inside reminds me of an old railway station - it's very different. There is also a little garden out the back which is super pretty. I would recommend to visit here no matter what your belief or religion as its really...