Concrete and Light

At the suggestion of the Department, the Maison de l’Architecture de l’Isère presents the exhibition “Of Concrete and Light“. “Of Concrete and Light“ retraces the important work carried out by the Department, in collaboration with the Grenoble Diocesan Association, owner of the majority of the churches
built after 1905.

While previous heritage inventories have studied a very large number of religious buildings, they have not covered 20th-century buildings. This inventory provides an overview of this very special heritage, the future of which is sometimes uncertain. More than 200 buildings or pieces of furniture have been identified. They reveal great creative audacity and mark a stylistic break with the previous century.

The ambition of this inventory was to cover all the religions and denominations represented in the region. The collection brings together nearly a hundred sites built in the 20th century and as many earlier churches decorated, refurnished, or redesigned during this period. The exhibition you are about to discover highlights the major developments and artistic and architectural creations of the period through photographs that allow us to observe the diversity of artistic creations and the audacity of these architectural styles, fruits of their time and its challenges.