BELLOT, PAUL

Benedictine architect active in the modern renewal of church architecture; b. Paris, June 7, 1876; d. St.Benoit-du-Lac, Canada, July 5, 1944. The son of an architect, he entered the École des Beaux-Arts in 1894 and received his architect's diploma in 1900. After he entered the novitiate at solesmes (1902), the monks were exiled from France (as all religious were) under the new law of 1903. The Solesmes monks moved to the Isle of Wight (England), where between 1907 and 1912 Dom Bellot built the abbatial church of quarr abbey, which established his reputation. His earlier designs of 1906 for the Abbey of Oosterhout, Holland (where the monks of the Abbey of Wisque took refuge), had initiated his architectural career. In his monastic life he was professed on May 29, 1904, and ordained on June 10, 1911.

Having moved to Holland after World War I, he designed a number of brick churches both there and in Belgium; when the French monks returned to the Abbey of Wisque, he went with them and designed several new buildings there. Besides brick he began to employ cement and stone in churches he designed from 1930 to 1937; among those in France are the priory convent of Sainte-Bathilde, Vanves (1930-35); Nôtre-Dame des Trévoix, Troyes (1933); Saint-Joseph at Annecy (1936); and the Dominican convent at Montpellier. He also furnished plans for the church of Our Lady of the Conception at Porto, Portugal (1936).

After being called to Canada (1937) to work on the Oratory of Saint-Joseph, Montreal, he was invited in 1938 to lay plans for a definitive monastic structure at the Abbey of Saint-Benoit-du-Lac. With the collaboration of two Canadian architects, M. Félix Racicot and Dom Claude Côté, he made a master plan; construction began in 1939, and the first two new buildings were dedicated on July 11, 1941. His death followed a year of suffering with cancer.

Although his churches are clean and show a sensitive use of materials, in his efforts to create a religious architecture in the 20th century he was unable to break with a strong sentiment for the Middle Ages. Yet his considered use of light and shadow along with studied proportions and rhythms in arches, stairways, and fenestration have created works with a dignity superior to the popular work of his time.

See Also: church architecture.

Bibliography: Abbaye Saint-Benoit-du-Lac (Saint-Léger-Vauban 1962), 50th anniversary brochure. r. gazeau, Catholicisme 1:1391. j. pichard, Les Églises nouvelles à travers le monde (Paris 1962); Eng. Modern Church Architecture, tr. e. callmann (New York 1960).

[j. pichard]