Church of Saint Vincent de Paul, Paris: Overall elevated view of facade from Place Franz-Liszt

The church was built 1824-1844, on the site of the ancient Saint-Lazare prison enclosure. In that enclosure had been sited the Maison Saint-Lazare, occupied by Vincent de Paul--it was here that he lived and worked--and afterwards by the Congr\u00E9gation de la Mission, from 1632 to 1793. Hittorff was appointed architect for the church, initially commissioned from his father-in-law. Hittorff designed this as a model building and published a programme for it: all the arts, from sculpture and monumental painting to cabinet making and stained glass, were represented in the building and coordinated by Hittorff. St Vincent-de-Paul should be seen as the link between ideas derived from antiquity and more recent European art, which it combined in an eclectic manner. The western fa\u00E7ade has a projecting Ionic portico reached by a wide flight of steps, and a pediment full of sculpture, but this is set between a pair of slender towers that echo the traditional medieval format, although they have classical details.