An amazing project

The ephemeral church of Montigny-sur-lès-Cormeilles (1969)

Abstract

At the end of the sixties, the inflatable structures aroused an extraordinary interest, in particular, for their possible applications in the field of architectural creation, including religious architecture.
Driven by his passion for this constructive system, the German-born architect Hans-Walter Müller paid for the creation of a "gonflable" church for the French municipality of Montigny-lès-Cormeilles. Despite its ephemeral lifespan, reduced to a single summer weekend, the project gave much to talk about in France.
The installation of a place for the cult, in which its construction and disappearance had to be developed in a short space of time, turned this episode into a singular event. In fact, inflatable structures have characteristics that place them at the antipodes of traditional construction: stable, heavy, solid and perennial. Prolonging the spirit of kinetic art, to which Müller was closely linked, this realization allowed him to put into practice the research about the nomadic architecture, light and easy to install, which he had been developing since 1963.
The communication will specify the objectives that guided the construction of the church of Montigny-lès-Cormeilles, as well as its execution process, the reactions of its users and the issue of immateriality.
Likewise, the importance that this realization acquired in the difficult classifiable trajectory of its author will be analyzed.