Abbey of St. Benoît du Lac,
Lac Memphrémagog
In 1939 Dom
Bellot starts building the St. Benoît du Lac abbey. It would be a large
complex, pentagonal. The form of a window with a typical Bellot-arch on top.
Construction started with one wing of the complex. You can see the part on the
photograph. The most left part of the complex is made by Dom Bellot.
Bellot's
return to France was blocked by the outbreak of the second world war. He was
forced to stay in Canada and spent this last years of his life in this abbey.
Around Dom
Bellot gathered a group of young Canadian architects, who were very interested
at Bellots ideas about religious architecture. Among
them were Adrien Dufresne and Dom Côté, a Benedictine monk of the St. Benoît du
Lac abbey. Sadly Bellot's permit to practise architecture in Quebec was not
renewed in 1941 so he had to stop designing new buildings. The group of
architects around Dufresne would continue building in his way.
In 1943
cancer was diagnosed and Bellot died in a hospital in Montreal on June 5 1944.
He is buried on the cemetery of St. Benoît du Lac.
Dom Côté
finished the abbey with more parts: The bell-tower, rooms for guests and rooms
for the monks. A new church is added to the complex in the 1990's by architect
D.S. Hanganu.
The photo's are taken from the homepage of this abbey.