Marie's chapel

This chapel was commissioned from Blavignac by Abbé Fleury on behalf of Emilie Guers. The chapel was moved from Carouge to Etrembières because it had become too small, and because of the rise of the "Kulturkampf" (culture war) in Switzerland, which gradually led to Catholics being expelled from Geneva. The Catholic congregation of the Faithful Companions of Jesus thus found itself expelled from Geneva. When they were expelled, they found themselves living on an estate they had acquired in the 1840s, the Bois Salève estate in Etrembières. However, there was no chapel for services on this estate, so the idea came up to repatriate the one in Carouge, and a procession brought back the bell tower on August 2, 1840.

The chapel fell into disrepair in 1905 with the law separating Church and State. However, the Bois-Salève estate and Château de Symond served as a place of welcome for refugees and war wounded, and were to become close to the hearts of New Zealanders (hence the name of today's street), with donations pouring in from the island to keep the estate going.
The estate and chapel later became the property of the French railways (SNCF), and during the Second World War the premises were used to house Jewish children. When Marianne Cohn was arrested on May 31, 1944, she pretended that she and her group of children were on their way to the Bois-Salève colony at Pas de l'échelle. In the 1980s, the site was once again abandoned and squatted.

Today, Marie's chapel is in the process of being renovated, with associations fighting to restore the bell tower and stained glass windows, and to turn it into an exhibition space.