Chapelle Saint-Louis de la Salpêtrière

The Chapelle Saint-Louis de la Salpêtrière sits at the center of a complex with a Greek cross floor plan, identifiable by its four intersecting wings that meet under a prominent central dome. Louis the fourteenth ordered its construction to serve the thousands of women held at this former saltpeter factory turned prison and hospital. Patients attended mass from four separate wings, kept apart based on their social status and physical condition. It remains a stark reminder of the rigid order imposed on those walls.