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Origin and history

The chapel Sainte-Thérèse-de-l'Enfant-Jésus and de la Sainte-Face, located in Hem in the Hauts-de-France, is a religious building emblematic of the 1950s reconstruction movement. Funded by the textile industrialist Philippe Leclercq, it is part of a workers' district, integrating an old Flemish farm yard transformed into a beguinage. Its architecture, signed Hermann Baur (student of Le Corbusier), evokes a barn or crèche, while its campanile and parvis decorated with mosaics underline its originality. The chapel embodies a synthesis of the arts, combining from 1954 the architect and the painter Alfred Manessier, joined by the sculptor Eugene Dodeigne and the Mosaïst Jean Barillet.

Built between 1956 and 1958, the chapel is consecrated by Cardinal Achille Liénart, bishop of Lille. It is distinguished by its altar designed to anticipate the liturgical reforms of Vatican II, allowing a celebration both traditional and directed towards the assembly. Ranked a historical monument in 1995 (and then in 2012 for its ensemble), it houses major works: two walls of stained glass of Manessier symbolizing the life of Saint Thérèse, a tapestry of the Holy Face after Georges Rouault, and sculptures of Dodeigne (statue of the saint, altar, tabernacle).

The stained glass windows, made of glass slabs colored by the Barillet and the Boussois factory, unfold an evocative palette: red for suffering, purple for spirituality, yellow and white for light, blue for life. The west stained glass, the Tree of Life, is inspired by the stair plane trees of the garden, while the Rouault tapestry, woven in Aubusson by Plasse Le Caisne, dominates the abside. The chapel, donated by the husbands Leclercq to the diocese of Lille, illustrates the commitment of a social Catholic patron in modern sacred art.

Integrated into a coherent ensemble with the neighbouring workers' houses, the chapel also serves as a setting for the film La Vie dreame des anges (1998). His project resulted from an unprecedented collaboration between artists, parishioners and diocesan commission of sacred art, the latter choosing the dedication to Saint Thérèse rather than Saint Francis, originally proposed. The building, owned by the diocesan association, remains a place of prayer and a unique testimony to post-war religious artistic innovation.

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