It was originally a small concrete chapel from the 1960s, with a sad appearance, wedged between a parking lot and a building block, a stone’s throw from the sea in Sainte-Cécile-Plage de Camiers, small town on the Opal Coast. Walkers passed by without even seeing it, with its tarnished white walls and its large dark cross. Completely redeveloped and rebuilt at the initiative of a patron, it is now a brand new and completely rebuilt chapel which stands on rue des Lys, where the old sanctuary stood, on land offered by bereaved parents to the memory of their son, Félicien, whose patron saint became that of the building.
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It was the architect Marc Lenouvel who designed the plans for this contemporary expansion. The interior design was entirely entrusted to the sculptor Fleur Nabert. A project born two years ago whose challenge remains “that those who enter here come out believers” and which finally comes to fruition with its consecration this June 28, by Mgr Leborgne, bishop of Arras, while Le Touquet is preparing to welcome its first vacationers.
Fleur Nabert
“Christ, sun of justice”
“Attracted by the bell tower with its pure and modern lines, the visitor enters a glass narthex with translucent stained glass windows made of water pearls which evoke faith (cross), hope (the anchor) and charity (heart) in the language of the nearby sea” explains Fleur Nabert. In the entrance, a glass baptistery opens the way to 30 meters of landscape stained glass windows depicting the opal coast “like a hymn to creation to arouse wonder”, underlines the sculptor. The glass, in relief and colored, which can be touched, was melted and worked by the Loire workshops, in Chartres. These large panels go “from soft gray to the most intense sunlight in a luminous gradation the closer you get to the choir”. The glass work was done by playing with the material thanks to thermoforming, which, through heating, makes the material malleable. The stained glass windows, thus modeled, are lead-free but in relief and the silver yellow, applied to one side, combines medieval tradition with contemporary technique.
At the heart of the stained glass window, a large golden sun illuminates the landscape to manifest the presence of Christ, “the sun of justice which comes to smooth out the shadows,” explains Fleur Nabert. I designed the iconography as a metaphor for prayer which brings clarity within itself to destroy darkness”. A true glass Bible, the stained glass windows with the scenes represented, the techniques used and even the colors used exist to carry the prayer of the faithful as much as to give glory to God.
Fleur Nabert
The furniture has been completely redesigned to fit into a work that aims to be global: tabernacle, altar and ambo. The solid wood benches have been carved in the shape of waves to recall the sea which engulfs the horizon, a few meters from the chapel. A small chapel dedicated to the Virgin will also house a statue of Mary, in colorless glass, imagined as a silhouette which must be approached to distinguish the features, as well as an organ of light where everyone can place a candle to express their prayer. “Everything has been thought of”, underlines the sculptor, who also created for the chapel a perfume which emerges from the wax of the candles, a fragrance which combines “sea foam, the white stone of the cloisters, incense churches and the Marian lily”. The chapel is finally reborn after two years of work to offer visitors and vacationers a spiritual break, in this colorful haven of peace and light a stone’s throw from the sea and the peaceful calm of the horizon.
