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.