Cathédrale Orthodoxe de la Sainte-Trinité

The Cathédrale Orthodoxe de la Sainte-Trinité in Paris is a Russian Orthodox cathedral featuring five lightweight composite domes coated in 90,000 gold-platinum leaves. Inaugurated in 2016 after Russia purchased the Seine-side plot for 70 million euros, the building was designed by architect Jean-Michel Wilmotte. Its fiberglass domes weigh one-fifth of traditional structures and were crafted in Brittany by a racing yacht manufacturer.

Paris · from the walk “From the Cathedral to the Iron Lady” · audio ~4 min · Generated

Cathédrale de la Sainte-Trinité, 88 quai Branly, Paris

What are the gold domes of the Cathédrale Orthodoxe de la Sainte-Trinité in Paris made of?

Look up at those gleaming golden bulbs against the Paris sky. You are standing before the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity... the newest cathedral in all of Paris, and one of the most controversial buildings erected in this city in a century.......... This story begins in two thousand seven, when the Patriarch of Moscow, Aleksi the Second, proposed building a major Russian Orthodox cathedral right here on the banks of the Seine. He had the backing of two presidents... Nicola Sarkozy of France, and Vladimir Putin of Russia. But first, Russia needed to secure the land. In twenty ten, Russia paid a reported seventy million euros for this plot... which had previously been the headquarters of Météo France, the French weather service. Who could have predicted That transformation?......... Then came the design battle. A Spanish architect named Nuñez Yanowsky won the original competition. But the Mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoé, was Furious. He called the design a pastiche... mediocre... completely out of harmony with the Unesco World Heritage banks of the Seine. The French heritage authority agreed. Russia quietly withdrew the plan.......... After a new French president took office... Fransois Olland in twenty twelve... a second design by French architect Jean-Michel Wilmotte was accepted. And here is where the engineering becomes extraordinary. Those five golden domes you see above you? They are Not metal. They are made of fiberglass and composite materials, fabricated five hundred kilometers away in Vannes, Britany, by a company called Multiplast... famous for building racing yachts! Each composite dome weighs only One Fifth of what a traditional dome would weigh. The massive central dome... twelve meters high, twelve meters wide... was placed by crane in just fifteen minutes.......... And the gold? Ninety thousand individual leaves, each just eight centimeters square, made of an alloy of gold and platinum. They were applied by hand by Atelié Gohard... the same master gilders who restored the flame of the Statue of Liberty and the golden dome of Les Invalides just down the river. The specific color of the alloy was deliberately chosen to appear slightly different from the nearby dome of the Invalides... a softer, more matte gold that harmonizes with the pale Burgundy limestone of the walls.......... But there is a darker layer to this story. Critics have nicknamed this place the Kremlin on Seine... and even Putin's Cathedral. French intelligence reportedly protested its construction, worried about its proximity to the presidential Alma Palace, which surrounds it on three sides. The cathedral's inauguration in twenty sixteen was meant to be a grand Franco-Russian moment... but Putin's invitation was withdrawn at the last minute over Russia's veto of a French UN resolution on Syria.......... Step inside if you can, and notice how strikingly white and minimalist the interior is. That sparse beauty is intentional... inspired by the ancient churches of Novgorod. And the cathedral itself draws its architectural inspiration from the Cathedral of the Dormition in the Moscow Kremlin, built in fourteen seventy-five by an Italian architect named Aristotele Fioravanti. So what you see here is a French interpretation of a Russian tradition... originally designed by an Italian. Paris at its most beautifully complicated.