Louise-Catherine

[1][3][4][5] In 1929, Madeleine Zillhardt bought the barge with the profit from reselling a drawing and donated it to the Salvation Army on condition it be renamed Louise-Catherine after her companion, Louise Catherine Breslau, who had died shortly before.

[6] A friend of hers and Breslau's, Winnaretta Singer, had it brought from Rouen and commissioned Le Corbusier to design, with Japanese architect Kunio Maekawa[7] its conversion into a 160-bed homeless shelter.

[10] Le Corbusier wrote that the intention was for the barge to be moored in front of the Louvre Museum in winter as a homeless shelter, and in summer to be used as a floating children's camp,[9] further upstream at the Pont des Arts.

[10] In 2006 they sold the barge to the Kertekian family and two other benefactors;[6] the Association Louise-Catherine, headed by architect Michel Cantal-Dupart, was formed to renovate it into a museum and cultural centre with financial assistance from the Fondation Le Corbusier and the French state.

[6] When the level of the Seine dropped after the January 2018 flood, Louise-Catherine's bow caught on the lip of the wharf and on 8 February, despite efforts to free it so she could right herself,[8] the barge took on water and sank rapidly.