Following World War II many churches in France and in its territory were constructed or significantly remodeled. Picasso, Matisse, Jean Cocteau, Rouault, Leger, Chagall and Lahner were among the celebrated artisans called on to design chapels, produce stained glass, create frescoes and church windows.

Lahner was commissioned by the Averseng family to design a small whitewashed chapel in El Affroun in Algiers. In the chapel there is a clerestory of stained glass running along the upper portion of the walls; there are no other windows in the building and Lahner seems to have chosen this approach in order to keep the illumination inside the chapel subdued.

1954
The Algerian chapel was dedicated to Saint Martina (Sainte-Martienne), an obscure early Christian martyr who was miraculously spared by a lion. Lahner chose to depict the moment of her salvation in this series of chapel windows. Neither the lion nor Sainte-Martienne are defined well enough to portray the event realistically. Instead, Lahner tells the story through the use of light and color.