St. Joseph Oratory, Montreal
Dom Bellot
travels to Canada in 1934 to give lectures about religious architecture. He is
invited by the Canadian architect Adrien Dufresne. Dufresne is interested in
the style of Bellot and Dom Bellot is interested at the religious arts in
Quebec. This marks the start of "Belotism",
the religious architecture of Quebec from 1930 until about 1960, influenced by
the ideas of Dom Bellot.
Dom Bellot
is asked in 1937 to complete the St. Joseph Oratory at Montreal. Building it
started in 1915 in a neo-classical style by architects Viau and Venne. The
death of Venne stopped the project before it was completed.
Together
with the architects Parent and Tourville, Dom Bellot finishes the church. The
dome is mostly the work of Bellot: diameter 38,4 meters, height 155 meters
above street level and 97 meters from the floor of the church. It is
constructed out of two concrete shells, on top of each other. The inner dome as
ceiling, the outer dome as roof.
On the
interior of the church Dom Bellot made some modifications of the original
structure. This is the only church of Dom Bellot where the arches are
"fake" and do not make part of the structure of the building.
The statues
in this church are made by Henri Charlier, the "twelve disciples" are
made of wood, so is the crucifix.
The photo's are made by D. Stiebeling,
and were taken from the internet.