Which neoclassical church in Paris was designed as a temple-like building?

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The Church of the Madeleine is the neoclassical church in Paris designed as a temple-like building.

Known in French as La Madeleine, the church stands on Place de la Madeleine in Paris’s 8th arrondissement. Its exterior follows the form of an ancient peripteral temple, with Corinthian columns surrounding all four sides rather than appearing only across the front. This design draws on Greek and Roman models, especially the Maison Carrée at Nîmes and the Temple of Olympian Zeus in Athens.

Construction began under Louis XV, but the project was interrupted by the French Revolution. Napoleon later redesigned the building as a monument to the glory of his armies. After Napoleon’s fall, it returned to its intended religious purpose and was completed as a church in 1842. Its temple-like appearance can cause confusion with the Panthéon, another major Parisian neoclassical monument, but the Panthéon has a domed, monumental design rather than La Madeleine’s enclosed temple form.

Source: Wikipedia · fact-checked Sept. 2026

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