La Madeleine
— — a Greek temple in the middle of the city.
Not only on a wall.
“A Roman-temple façade at the end of the Rue Royale, fifty-two Corinthian columns running unbroken around a single block of the 8th. Napoleon ordered it as a Temple to the Glory of the Grande Armée; it was rededicated to Mary Magdalene in 1842 and has been a parish church since. The view from the steps runs straight down the Rue Royale to the Place de la Concorde. from the studio
La Madeleine, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
L'Église de la Madeleine sits in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, between Place de la Concorde and Boulevard Haussmann, on the axis that runs north from the Assemblée Nationale across the Seine to the Opéra Garnier. The current building was designed by Pierre-Alexandre Vignon, consecrated in 1842, and modelled on a Roman peripteral temple. Fifty-two Corinthian columns of twenty metres each ring a single rectangular block measuring 108 by 43 metres. Napoleon originally commissioned the building in 1806 as a Temple to the Glory of his armies. Today it is a parish of the Archdiocese of Paris.
The Madeleine is one of the purest Neoclassical buildings in Paris. There are no bell towers and no apparent windows from the street; light reaches the nave through three coffered domes hidden behind the pediment. The high-relief pediment by Philippe Lemaire shows the Last Judgement and dates to 1834. Inside, the floor is polychrome marble and Charles Marochetti's Mary Magdalene Carried by Angels stands above the high altar. Chopin's funeral was held here in October 1849; Mozart's Requiem was sung. The grand organ, built by Aristide Cavaillé-Coll in 1846, remains one of the great instruments of Paris.
The Madeleine is a working parish and admission is free. Doors open daily from roughly 9:30 to 19:00, with shorter hours on Sundays around the principal Masses. Free organ recitals run on selected Sundays and weekday evenings; the parish publishes the schedule on its site. The closest Métro is Madeleine, where lines 8, 12, and 14 meet directly beneath the steps. Buses 24, 42, 52, 84, and 94 stop on the square. The flower market on Place de la Madeleine has run since 1832 and remains the oldest in the city.