Restoration of the glass mosaic of St. Chapelle

A grant from VILLUM FONDEN made it possible to restore a 760-year-old glass mosaic in Paris’s St Chapelle Church. The resorted work of art was completed in May.

In 2007, VILLUM FONDEN made a €5 million grant towards the restoration of St Chapelle. At the time, it was the foundation’s largest grant to a non-Danish project.

For the VILLUM FONDEN the grant underscores how this outstanding example of European Medieval architecture, in which daylight formed a central element, can be combined with the particular place that daylight holds for the VELUX FOUNDATIONS and the commercial organisation with which they are affiliated.

The glass mosaic of the Church of St Chapelle has for more than 700 years brought light into people’s lives, while at the at the same time surviving the darkness of war and revolution (Photo: Jens Markus Lindhe)

The epitome of light

The windows of the Church of St Chapelle were created to bring religious stories alive for worshippers, while at the same time giving them a wondrous work of art to behold.

Daylight was also the foundation of the legacy left behind by Villum Kann Rasmussen, the founder of the VELUX FOUNDATIONS, and the inventor of the VELUX skylight. VELUX, and the entire group of companies he founded, has as its motto “to bring daylight, fresh air and a better environment into people’s lives”.

In that respect, the grant to the Church of St Chapelle is in keeping with the intentions of Mr Rasmussen.

Thousands of visitors

The restoration of St Chapelle’s mosaics will allow the church to provide coming generations of visitors the chance to marvel at the way they transform light to beauty.

The VILLUM FONDEN hopes that the grant will contribute to ensuring that a valuable monument to European architectural history continues to serve as a source of joy and wonder for the people of France and the countless number of foreign tourists who visit the Church of St Chapelle each year.

St. Chapelle