Nice - Church of Our Lady Help of Christians
- department: Alpes-Maritimes
- municipality: Nice
- naming: Notre-Dame-Auxilliatrice Church
- address : 36 place Don Bosco
- authors: Jules FEBVRE (architect), Eugène DOUCET (painter)
- date: 1926-1933
- protection: Inscription under the title of historical monuments by order of 26 April 2001
- label patrimoine XXe: Commission régionale du patrimoine et des sites (CRPS) of 28 November 2000
Located in the Paillon valley in the north of the city, Notre-Dame-Auxiliatrice, the first church established on French soil by the Salesians, a religious congregation with educational vocation founded in Turin in 1859 by Don Bosco, is the work, built between 1926 and 1933, by the Niçois architect Jules Febvre (1859-1934).
If the plan remains traditional, the architectural realisation shows itself resolutely modern by the choice of the material, the reinforced concrete, and by the elegant lightness of the structure that the latter allows (thin octagonal supports, claustra brightening the walls). The influence of the innovative designs of the brothers Auguste and Gustave Perret and the example of Notre-Dame du Raincy is evident.
The exterior, relatively discreet, appeals to colonial references, exalted still by the presence of palm trees planted in front of the facade, and to sgraffito typically Nice.
Inside, on the other hand, the luxuriance of the decor completely conceals the concrete frame: large colored stained glass, stained glass windows, furniture inspired by the beginnings of Christianity and made of precious materials, and, present in all the available space, paintings by the painter Eugene Doucet... Everything comes together in a complex program to magnify the sanctuary and to honor its two titulars, the Virgin and Don Bosco.
Representative of an era marked by the renewal of sacred art, this building appears as a compromise between modernity and historical reference, between structural sobriety and decorative profusion.
- Editor: Jean Marx, drac paca crmh, 2001
