Saint-Eugène Sainte-Cécile Church

Saint-Eugène Sainte-Cécile features a cast-iron framework painted to mimic stone, tucked behind a facade of ornate, colorful neo-Gothic tracery. Built in just twenty months during the mid-nineteenth century, it replaced the old Saint-Eugène parish church. The architect Louis-Auguste Boileau used iron to create slender, soaring supports that allowed for thinner walls and larger stained glass windows than traditional masonry could hold. It remains the first church in Paris constructed entirely with an internal metal skeleton supporting the entire structure.