Couvent des Récollets de Paris

The Couvent des Récollets features a seventeenth-century cloister built of rough, pale stone and high, slate-tiled roofs that cut a sharp, quiet rectangle into the dense Tenth Arrondissement. Franciscans founded this monastery in sixteen hundred and four, but the community faced a sudden eviction during the French Revolution. The building served as a military hospital, a bakery, and a shelter for abandoned children before its current life as an international architectural center. A single rusted iron bell hangs silently in the courtyard.