The History Of The Centquatre In 1 Minute

The Centquatre, named after its address at 104 rue d’Aubervilliers in the 19th arrondissement, is a vast cultural center, historic monument, and a wondrous example of urban renewal in one of Paris’s relatively deprived neighborhoods. With over 25,000 square meters of usable exhibition space, it is home to 200 artists in residence and is capable of welcoming 5,000 visitors at a time to its multidisciplinary workshops and events.
Now the beating heart of cultural life in the northwest of Paris, for over 120 years the building housed the city’s dead as they were prepared for burial. In 1870, the Archbishop of Paris established a funeral service on the site and commissioned architects Delebarre and Godon to construct an undertaker’s on an industrial scale, the size, in fact, of Place de la Republique. Its style is similar to that of train stations and exhibition halls built at the time: a cast-iron frame, solid stone walls, and vaulted glass ceilings. In its early days, the building housed – in addition to a mortuary, a coffin repository, and the shops of associated trades – some 300 horses, 100 funeral chariots, and 80 hearses which, as time wore on, became 150 vans and 92 saloon cars. At its peak, 1,400 people worked on the site.