Monuments aux morts dit Monument de la Victoire
Monument
Monuments aux morts dit Monument de la Victoire, located in Tourcoing (Nord), is a modern edifice built in the 19th-20th centuries. The monument is currently closed to visitors.
Key facts
- Type
- autre
- Period
- Modern (19th-20th century)
- Location
- Tourcoing, Nord, Hauts-de-France
- Visit
- Closed to visitors
- GPS
- 50.7175, 3.1583
- Mérimée Reference
- PA59000143
Standing like a stone flame, the Monument de la Victoire de Tourcoing is an overwhelming work of sculpture: a winged Victory on horseback crowning an epic ascent of soldiers from the trenches to glory.
History
In the heart of Tourcoing, a town scarred by the Great War, the Monument to Victory stands as one of the most ambitious and evocative memorials in northern France. Far removed from the solemn obelisks and austere stelae that dot the squares of so many French towns, this pyramid-shaped structure tells a veritable sculpted epic, with a dramatic intensity rarely seen in commemorative art. What fundamentally distinguishes this monument is its visual narrative. The work does not merely honour the dead: it depicts a symbolic resurrection, an upward movement from the mud of the trenches to the light of victory. The soldiers who seem to emerge at the far end of the composition to climb the structure lend the whole a quasi-kinetic, almost cinematic quality. Flags and spears form a protective vault above the combatants, creating an imaginary interior space, a nave of stone and bronze. The visitor experience is striking at any time of day. In the morning, the low northern light brings out the relief of the sculptures and every soldier’s face. At the end of the day, the cast shadows dramatise the pyramidal composition and lend the winged Victory at the summit an almost mystical presence. The monument invites you to walk all the way round it: every angle reveals a new interpretation of the scene, a new group of figures, a new emotion. Listed as a Historic Monument in 2009, this monumental complex bears witness to the artistic ambition of an industrial city which, in the 1920s, sought to honour its dead with a work of art in its own right rather than a simple granite memorial. The result of a collaboration between the architect Édouard Monestès and the sculptor Lucien Brasseur, it perfectly illustrates the commemorative aesthetic of the interwar period, blending classical monumentality with subdued expressionism. Tourcoing, a town in the Lille metropolitan area with a strong textile heritage, offers a town centre rich in early 20th-century architecture around the monument. A visit to the Monument de la Victoire is a natural part of a wider exploration of this city, often overlooked by tourist circuits but brimming with character and history.
Architecture
The Monument to Victory in Tourcoing features a pyramidal design with a V-shaped base — the initial of ‘Victory’ and a nod to the letter that would become a universal symbol of triumph. This dual formal symbolism is one of the most elegant features of Monestès’s design: the architecture itself speaks even before the eye takes in the sculptures. The structure is built entirely of cut stone, with blocks deliberately varying in size to create an effect of organic progression, as if the very mass of the building were rising upwards. The monument’s sculptural logic is organised into several superimposed levels. At the base, soldiers lying in the mud of the trenches evoke the horror of daily life at the front. As one moves upwards towards the summit, the figures gradually straighten up, rising at the call of Victory, scaling the structure in a collective surge. Flags and lances form a stone vault above them, creating a protected, almost sacred space, reminiscent of the structure of a Gothic church nave transposed into a secular commemorative language. This overall movement lends the work a kinetic energy rarely found in the corpus of French war memorials. At the summit, the winged Victory riding a steed dominates the ensemble from a height that makes it a visual landmark in the neighbourhood. The style of the sculpture, created by Lucien Brasseur in the 1930s, blends the classical austerity inherited from the French academic tradition with an expressiveness reminiscent of the Art Deco movement, which was then in full swing. The anatomical details of the figures, the tension in the bodies under strain, and the rendering of the military drapery reveal the mastery of a leading sculptor, unjustly overlooked by the contemporary general public.
Related Figures
Édouard Monestès — architecte lauréat du concours, concepteur de la composition pyramidaleLucien Brasseur — sculpteur, auteur de l'ensemble des figures dont la Victoire ailée sommitaleLes soldats tourquennois de la Grande Guerre — figures à la fois historiques et symboliques incarnées dans la pierreLe maire de Tourcoing (années 1920) — commanditaire politique du monument et initiateur du concours de 1923
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Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Monuments aux morts dit Monument de la Victoire located?
Monuments aux morts dit Monument de la Victoire is located in Tourcoing, Nord department, Hauts-de-France region, France.
When was Monuments aux morts dit Monument de la Victoire built?
Monuments aux morts dit Monument de la Victoire dates back to a period built in the modern era (19th-20th century).
Is Monuments aux morts dit Monument de la Victoire open to visitors?
Monuments aux morts dit Monument de la Victoire is currently closed to visitors.