New Again – A Senryū #ThursdayDoors

boarded up no more

translucence made new again

building on the past

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Built on the feudal land where the city was founded, the Cathedral and minor Basilica, Notre Dame de la Treille in Lille, France (Lille Cathedral) is a mix of very modern architecture and medieval components (circa 1900s). Lille Cathedral was built in honor of the Virgin Mary (venerated in Lille, France as Our Lady of the Treille).

Its main facade unfinished and boarded up for decades, Lille Cathedral was made new again when generous benefactors aided the cathedral’s monumental completion in 1999.

The featured doors are the five meters high (16 feet) main entrance doors, west facade.

The doors are made of glass framed in bronze by sculptor Georges Jeanclos. The central mullion (in the middle) depicts Mary, Mother of Jesus, with open arms. On the bronze mullion are sculptured vines in relief. Vines are the symbol of Our Lady of the Treille, to whom the city of Lille is dedicated.

Trivia #1: The miracle of the 53 healed.

Documented accounts that persists to this day, record that on June 14, 1234, fifty three persons with disabilities prayed for healing in front of the carved statue of Our Lady of the Treille in the Collegiate Church of Saint-Pierre (the predecessor church to Lille Cathedral).

All 53 persons were healed. To this day, each year, the many miracles associated with the statue, Our Lady of the Treille, are commemorated on the second Sunday after Pentecost in Lille.

On October 28, 1634, in a unique act of devotion, Jean le Vasseur, the Mayor of Lille, offered up the keys to the city on the Collegiate Church of Saint-Pierre‘s altar in gratitude, some say, for the numerous miracles documented in the city’s centuries-long devotion to Our Lady of the Treille.

Trivia #2:

Lille Cathedral lacked a suitable second and larger organ for its Gallery (the cathedral has a smaller choir organ since the 1867). In 2007, the legendary concert hall of Radio France, Studio 104, Paris, ‘sold’ its famous theatre organ to Lille Cathedral— for the symbolic sum of one franc. The organ was remodeled and installed at Lille Cathedral in 2008.

Additional facts:

Drawing millions of visitors each September, Lille, France, is home to one of Europe’s largest flea markets, Grande Braderie de Lille.

Although it is hard to see in photos, Lille Cathedral’s modern west facade’s exoskeleton is made from 100 sheets of translucent marble on which the equation E=mc² is engraved.

Pictured below Lille Cathedral during construction when the first segment (the apse) was completed in 1900.

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