Notre Dame du Haut

Informally known as Ronchamp, the chapel of Notre Dame du Haut in Ronchamp, France is considered one of the finest examples of architecture by the late French/Swiss architect Le Corbusier.

Related Topics:
Chapel - Ronchamp - France - Architecture - Architect - Le Corbusier

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The Chapelle Notre-Dame-du-Haut, a shrine for the Catholic Church at Ronchamp, France was built for a reformist Church looking to continue its relevancy. Warning against decadence, reformers within the Church looked to renew its spirit by embracing modern art and architecture as representative concepts. Father Couturier, who would also sponsor Le Corbusier for the La Tourette commission, steered the unorthodox project to completion in 1954.

Related Topics:
Catholic Church - Modern art - 1954

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The chapel at Ronchamp is singular in Corbusier?s oeuvre, in that it departs from his principles of standardisation and the machine aesthetic, giving in instead to a site-specific response. By Le Corbusier?s own admission, it was the site that provided an irresistible genius loci for the response, with the horizon visible on all four sides of the hill and its historical legacy for centuries as a place of worship.

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This historical legacy weaved in different layers into the terrain ? from the Romans and sun-worshippers before them, to a cult of the Virgin in the Middle Ages, right through to the modern church and the fight against the German occupation. Le Corbusier also sensed a sacral relationship of the hill with its surroundings ? the Jura mountains in the distance and the hill itself, dominating the landscape.

Related Topics:
Middle Ages - Jura mountains

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The nature of the site would result in an architectural ensemble that has many similitudes with the Acropolis ? starting from the ascent at the bottom of the hill to architectural and landscape events along the way, before finally terminating at the sanctum sanctorum itself ? the chapel.

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The building itself is a comparatively small structure enclosed by thick walls, with the upturned roof supported on columns embedded within the walls. In the interior, the spaces left between the wall and roof, as wells as asymmetric light from the wall openings serve to further reinforce the sacral nature of the space and buttress the relationship of the building with its surroundings.

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It is renowned for its simple aesthetic and curvalinear artistic expression, along with the size and layout of windows, which were based on his modulor, on the buildings' perimeter which fill the chapel space with dim, but compelling light. The structure is built mostly of concrete and stone, which was a remnant of the original chapel built on the hilltop site destroyed during World War II. Some have described Ronchamp as the first Post-Modern building. It was constructed in the early 1950s.

Related Topics:
Modulor - Concrete - Stone - World War II - Post-Modern - 1950s

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