Among the few Parisian monuments with images of women, a Polish accent can be found - the monumental sculpture of St Genovephe by Paul Landowski on the Tournelle Bridge.

New design of the bridge

In 1923, a competition was announced for the construction of Paris's Tournelle Bridge, linking the island of St Louis to the left bank of the Seine, to be built on the site of the former stone structure destroyed in the 1910 flood. The winning architectural team was the brothers Pierre and Louis Guidetti. To emphasise the irregularity of the city's buildings on both sides of the Seine at this location, they proposed an original, asymmetrical design for the stone bridge, in which the structure was to be topped on the south side by a tall pylon with a statue of the city's patron saint, Saint Genevieve, facing east.

Saint Genoveva - patron saint of the city

Born in 424, at the age of 27 Genovese is said to have encouraged Parisians to fast and pray in supplication to save the city from the invasion of the Hunnic army, led by Attila, from the east. Thanks to her suggestion, Paris remained unharmed at the time. For this reason, Genovese, who showed courage, willpower and determination in the face of adversity, was soon declared the city's patron saint, and her images became a popular motif in the decoration of Parisian architecture.

Statue designed by Paul Landowski

The design and construction of the statue of Saint Genevieve on the Tournelle Bridge in 1924 was commissioned to the French sculptor of Polish origin, Paul Landowski. In 1925, the artist was given a model of the structure to coordinate the scale of the statue with the plinth. The work resulted in a figure of the saint protecting a child in her arms as she embraces the nave (a kind of medieval ship) - a symbol of Paris. The orientation of the statue on the bridge, which was the source of the dispute between Landowski and the Guidetti brothers that had been ongoing since 1927, has a symbolic significance. It was adjusted not to the direction of the rays of light, as the sculptor wanted, but, in accordance with the architects' vision, to the direction from which danger could have come in the Franconian era. Despite the adjustment of the statue to the chosen solution, the artist was not satisfied with the result, and a debate surrounding the statue was reported in the press. As a result of the dispute, the official inauguration of the statue, scheduled for 9 July 1928, was cancelled.

Technical data: statue: height: 5.4 m; pylon: height: 14 m; total weight: 25 t