Le Corbusier's Chapel at Fifty

by Charles T. Downey | Wednesday, May 11, 2005

According to an article (La chapelle de

Ronchamp a cinquante ans, May 10)
from France 2 Cultural News, NotreDame-du-Haut, the icon of
postmodernism that Le Corbusier built
in the mountain village of Ronchamp,
France, is 50 years old this year (my
translation):
Le Corbusier, a staunch atheist, at first had
refused to accept the commission to rebuild
the chapel, destroyed during World War II. But a visit to the site and the promise of total artistic freedom in
designing the building ultimately convinced him, says Jean-Franois Mathay, whose father, Franois, was one
of the project's promoters. It was controversial, since a petition against Le Corbusier's chapel went all the way
to the Vatican. The work began four years later, with the architect hoping to calm the polemical battle.

"In a region with a fairly traditional mindset, Le Corbusier's chapel was received rather poorly. But the
residents of Ronchamp today understand that they have a treasure high up on their hill," says Stphane Potelle,
a historian specializing in Le Corbusier, whom he calls "an agnostic architect who was steeped in spirituality."
The Ronchamp chapel was the first of three religious buildings designed by the architect. It's "mind-blowing for
art historians because it is not of a piece with the rest of Le Corbusier's career," says the historian. "We find
here an interest in space, a control of light, the use of concrete characteristic of his work, but also an incredibly
personal aspect, surely tied to the proximity of the site to the town of La Chaux de Fonds, in Switzerland, where
Le Corbusier grew up with his mother, Marie, whom he venerated and whose first name is attached to the
Marian focus of the chapel.

Ronchamp, Haute-Sane,
France

Location
Geographic
coordinates

474214N,
63716E

Religious affiliation Roman Catholic

Ecclesiastical status Pilgrimage Chapel
Architectural description
Architect(s)

Le Corbusier

Architectural type

Chapel

Year completed

1954
Specifications

Materials

Concrete

Informally known as Ronchamp, the chapel of Notre Dame du Haut in Ronchamp (French:
Chapelle Notre-Dame-du-Haut de Ronchamp), France completed in 1954 is considered one of
the finest examples of architecture by the late French/Swiss architect Le Corbusier and one of the
most important and successful examples of religious architecture in the 20th century, an honor it
shares with the Matisse Chapel in Vence.

Site
The site is high on a hill near Belfort in eastern France. There had been a pilgrimage chapel on
the site dedicated to the Virgin Mary, but it had been destroyed during the Second World War.
After the war, it was decided to rebuild on the same site. The Chapelle Notre-Dame-du-Haut, a
shrine for the Roman Catholic Church at Ronchamp, France was built for a reformist Church
looking to continue its relevance. Warning against decadence, reformers within the Church
looked to renew its spirit by embracing modern art and architecture as representative concepts.
Father Marie-Alain Couturier, who would also sponsor Le Corbusier for the La Tourette
commission, steered the unorthodox project to completion in 1954.
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.
This historical legacy was woven in different layers into the terrain from the Romans and sunworshippers 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 sacred
relationship of the hill with its surroundings the Jura mountains in the distance and the hill
itself, dominating the landscape.

The nature of the site would result in an architectural ensemble that has many similarities 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 sanctus sanctorum itself the chapel. You
cannot see the building until you reach nearly the crest of the hill. From the top, magnificent
vistas spread out in all directions.

Structure
The structure is made mostly of concrete and is comparatively small, enclosed by thick walls,
with the upturned roof supported on columns embedded within the walls, like a sail billowing in
the windy currents on the hill top. The Christian Church sees itself as the ship of God, bringing
safety and salvation to followers. In the interior, the spaces left between the walls and roof and
filled with clerestory windows, as well as the asymmetric light from the wall openings, serve to
further reinforce the sacred nature of the space and reinforce the relationship of the building with
its surroundings. The lighting in the interior is soft and indirect, from the clerestory windows and
reflecting off the whitewashed walls of the chapels with projecting towers.
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.
The main part of the structure consists of two concrete membranes separated by a space of 6'11",
forming a shell which constitutes the roof of the building. This roof, both insulating and
watertight, is supported by short struts, which form part of a vertical surface of concrete covered
with "gunite" and which, in addition, brace the walls of old Vosges stone provided by the former
chapel which was destroyed by the bombings. These walls which are without buttresses follow,
in plan, the curvilinear forms calculated to provide stability to this rough masonry. A space of
several centimeters between the shell of the roof and the vertical envelope of the walls furnishes
a significant entry for daylight. The floor of the chapel follows the natural slope of the hill down
towards the altar. Certain parts, in particular those upon which the interior and exterior altars
rest, are of beautiful white stone from Bourgogne, as are the altars themselves. The towers are
constructed of stone masonry and are capped by cement domes. The vertical elements of the
chapel are surfaced with mortar sprayed on with a cement gun and then white-washed - both on
the interior and exterior. The concrete shell of the roof is left rough, just as it comes from the
formwork. Watertightness is effected by a built-up roofing with an exterior cladding of
aluminium. The interior the walls are white; the ceiling grey; the bench of African wood created
by Savina; the communion bench is of cast iron made by the foundries of the Lure.

Furnishings
Small pieces of stained glass are set deep within the walls, which are sometimes seven feet thick.
The glass glows likes deep-set rubies and emeralds and amethysts and jewels of all colors.
Because it is a pilgrimage chapel, there are few people worshipping at most times. But on special
feast days, large crowds of thousands will show up. To accommodate them, Le Corbusier also

built an outside altar and pulpit, so the large crowds can sit or stand on a vast field on the top of
the hill. A famous statue of the Virgin, rescued from the ruins of the chapel destroyed during
WWII is encased in a special glass case in the wall, and it can be turned to face inward when the
congregation is inside, or to face outward toward the huge crowds.

Roof
The billowing roof of concrete was planned to slope toward the back, where a fountain of
abstract forms is placed on the ground. When it rains, the water comes pouring off the roof and
down onto the raised, slanted concrete structures, creating a dramatic but natural fountain.

Architectural poetry in the machine age

"Architecture is the masterly, correct and magnificent play of volumes brought together in light."
- Le Corbusier
Born Charles-Edouard Jeanneret, Le Corbusier (1887-1965) adopted his famous pseudonym after publishing
his ideas in the review L`Esprit Nouveau in 1920. The few buildings he was able to design during the 1920s,
when he also spent much of his time painting and writing, brought him to the forefront of modern
architecture, though it wasn`t until after World War II that his epoch-making buildings were constructed,
such as the Unit d`Habitation in Marseilles and the Church of Notre Dame du Haut in Ronchamp.
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