On June 21, around 4:45 p.m., an explosion rang out in the heart of the Latin Quarter. The building at 277, rue Saint-Jacques, collapsed. Several dozen people were injured and three lost their lives. The explosion, which was felt several hundred meters away, caused extensive damage to surrounding buildings. The Val-de-Grâce church, of which number 277 is one of the guardhouses surrounding the main courtyard, is not spared.
Friday, December 8, the Heritage Foundation and the Ministry of the Armed Forces launched a public appeal for donations for the restoration of the building, which served as a military hospital during the Revolution, then as a military medical school. From 1979 to 2014, the site once again became the main hospital of the French armies, before a transfer of activities due to a transfer to the hospitals of Clamart and Saint-Mandé.
Since then, the immense land of Val-de-Grâce, on the edge of Boulevard du Port-Royal, has been at the heart of a very large project to create a new digital health innovation campus. It plans to extend the site from 53,000 m² to 73,000 m² to install research laboratories and teaching spaces. PariSanté Campus will bring together five public operators. For the private sector, the new campus should accommodate a corporate hotel, start-ups, a conference center and accommodation and catering services. The cost of the project is estimated at 360 million euros and is planned for 2028 or 2029.
On the rue Saint-Jacques side, it is time for the restoration of the baroque monument, built at the initiative of Anne of Austria. “Stained glass windows were torn apart in one direction, then turned around in the other direction. The violence of the explosion was capable of breaking thick 17th century ironworks and breaking stone seals,” explains Martin Bacot, chief architect, to La Croix.
Thursday, December 7, a sponsorship evening was organized, in the presence of Patricia Mirallès, Secretary of State for Veterans, and host Stéphane Bern. The next day, the Ministry of the Armed Forces published on social networks an appeal to generous donors launched by Stéphane Bern.
“On June 21, during the explosion on rue Saint-Jacques, this church was very badly damaged. This is why the Ministry of the Armed Forces, in conjunction with the Heritage Foundation, is organizing a major collection. We need to find a million euros to carry out the restoration, renovation and safeguarding work,” he explains.
The State invested 1.5 million euros to secure the site. The additional funds will be used to continue the work already underway on the facade of the building, but also additional restorations, such as that of the monumental canopy and the Cavaillé-Coll organ, reports La Croix. For the moment, around fifty donors have raised more than 7,000 euros. The online prize pool can be found on the Heritage Foundation website.
