Saint-Maurice-de-Duvernay Church

Discipline : Art & Photography

Categories : Art Projects / Visual art : Silver certification

Designed between 1961 and 1962 by architect Roger D’Astous, the Saint-Maurice-de-Duvernay church located in Laval is part of the modern architecture movement that marked Quebec in the 1960s. Characterized by strong horizontality, the silhouette of the building stands out for its controlled simplicity and geometric power, breaking with the traditional codes of religious architecture. 

Recognizing its historical and architectural value, the government of Quebec designated the Saint-Maurice-de-Duvernay church as a heritage building in 2024. It is in this context that Annie Fafard was chosen to highlight the church’s architecture as part of an outdoor exhibition presented at the Centre de la nature de Laval. Her goal: to reveal the richness of the building’s modern architecture while paying tribute to the reflection and vision of its designer, Roger D’Astous.

To inform her approach, the artist delved into the Roger D’Astous Archive held at the Canadian Centre for Architecture, where she consulted the original plans of the church. The archival documents offered the photographer a more precise perspective on the architect’s intent, his formal choices, and the details to highlight in her interpretation. 

One of the central artistic processes of this project involves the superimposition of original plans onto contemporary photographs of the church. This practice creates unprecedented viewpoints, impossible to perceive in reality, and reveals hidden or forgotten layers of design. Her works thus act as a bridge between memory and perception, between archive and image, between heritage architecture and contemporary gaze.

The project in images