Cent Quatre

The Cent Quatre is a public cultural centre in Paris, which opened on 11 October 2008 on the site of a former municipal undertaker's at 104 rue d'Aubervilliers, in the 19th arrondissement of the city.History of the buildingIn 1870, the Archbishop of Paris, responsible for city burials, established a funeral service on a site known as les Petits Noyers. He ordered the construction of a new building on the site, covering an area of 26,000m², alongside the railtracks leading to the Gare de l'Est, between the rue des Vertus (now the rue d'Aubervilliers) and the rue Curial.In 1874, after two years of work, the building was inaugurated. It was the work of the architects Édouard Delebarre de Bay and Godon, under the supervision of Victor Baltard, chief architect of Paris. The building was conceived in the style of the industrial architecture of the time (that of large train stations and exhibition halls), and constructed around a cast-iron frame using glass and brick. The surface area of the building was the same as the Place de la République. It consisted on two large canopied halls, loading bays, areas, stables and cellars, and was over 270m long.For over 120 years, the building housed the city undertakers for Paris. Over 1,000 people worked in the building, organising 150 funeral processions per day. The main hall on the rue d'Aubervilliers was used for the preparation of coffins and catafalques. The second, on the rue de Curial housed 80 hearses and around 100 funeral chariots on the ground floor and 300 horses in 28 stables in the basement, where over 6,000 coffins were also stored, along with horse-feed and a 50,000-litre water tank. The halls also contained a group of twelve shops offering funeral ornaments as well as workshops for carpentry, tapestry, painting and upholstery.