Ugine's Remarkable Industrial Complex

The factory was expanding and Paul Girod soon needed more workers. However, Ugine, a farming village, had neither the infrastructure nor the housing to accommodate them. Paul Girod therefore implemented a construction policy for his employees, first with the help of renowned architects, then with the help of the architects of the Reconstruction period. Paul Girod also called on a large foreign workforce, in particular the White Russians fleeing Russia after the Russian Revolution, to whom he gave his furniture storehouse as a place of worship, hence the presence of an Orthodox church in Ugine (the only Orthodox church in the Savoie region). The town's development was such that a second "center" was built, with shops and, above all, a church designed by Claude Fay, an architect whose many buildings have been classified as 20th-century heritage.

. The architectural ensemble built around the factory as part of the architects' social life.