Academic literature on the topic 'Chapelle de Notre-Dame du Haut (Ronchamp, France)'

AbstractThis work falls within the empirical studies of design activity. Its project is to understand Le Corbusier's designing way and how does he work and structure his design processes. Doing so, it jumps above the descriptive and doctrinal knowledge of objects produced by “Le Corbusier” to study the actions and mechanisms that led to them.To achieve its aim, this study uses genetic method, developed by P.M. De Biasi of literary origin, this research method is made of three stages. The first one, which is of empirical nature, is one of data gathering. It leads to the establishment of genesis tables and to the classification of the all collected documents. The second stage, makes the analysis of all the collected documents one by one. It allows the restitution of the creative process of one projects “Le Corbusier” which is “la chapelle de Notre Dame du haut de Ronchamp”. The last stage is finally that define the design processe of the this project. The results show that the design activity of “Le Corbuiser” obeys the overall logic of one generic model which may be called his individual designing style.

La conviction de Le Corbusier que la géométrie et plus généralement les mathématiques sont porteurs de valeurs esthétiques, fonctionnelles et même morales est connue ; la mise en place des tracés régulateurs dans certains de ses projets et surtout son travail pour le Modulor en sont les preuves sans doute les plus évidentes. Pour Le Corbusier, la géométrie est un idéal, et plusieurs auteurs relèvent le caractère platonicien ou pythagoricien de sa vision sur les mathématiques. Dans la présente étude, nous allons interroger la manière dont des principes ou méthodes géométriques ou mathématiques sont implémentés dans le processus de concrétisation de son œuvre projetée (et construite). Notre étude se focalise sur des cas qui présentent des aspects géométriques relativement complexes, plus spécifiquement deux projets qui contiennent des surfaces géométriques particulières, à double courbure inverse : la salle principale du Palais de l’Assemblée de Chandigarh et la chapelle Notre-Dame-du-Haut à Ronchamp. Dans le premier cas, la régularité géométrique est apparente, dans le deuxième est recherchée délibérément une irrégularité très prononcée. Les méthodes utilisées dans les deux cas partagent des points en commun, mais présentent aussi des différences qui méritent d’être soulignées.

The article discusses the ways, methods and means used by architect Le Corbusier to organize the light environment in his sacred buildings: the chapel of Notre Dame du Haut in Roncham; the church of the Dominican monastery complex Notre Dame de la Tourette; the Catholic church of Saint-Pierre-de-Firmin. The churches were built in France in the 50s and 70s of the last century, with the exception of the church in Firmin, which was completed in 2006. In these sacred buildings, built in the modernist style, the architect abandons the traditional architectonics of sacred buildings of the past and declares the renewal of artistic principles, the novelty of architectural forms and structures. The architecture of the churches, which speaks the language of pure form, found in precise proportions, reveals Le Corbusier's characteristic fusion of architecture and the plastic arts, their interdependence and mutual enrichment. By shaping the light-spatial composition of the interior of these churches, the architect tried to achieve an atmosphere of concentration and "silence" so necessary for contemplation, reflection, and common prayer. To create this atmosphere, Le Corbusier chose the twilight that prevailed in the interior of his churches, the austere and dry aesthetics of the wall surfaces, which compared to churches built in the Romanesque period. It was important for him to have a very refined, dosed natural light entering the sacred space of the buildings. He achieves this effect using different methods in each of his sacred projects. By controlling the amount of light, through a combination of direct, reflected and diffused natural light entering through skylights, the architect creates a changing light-spatial composition that differs from the light environment of traditional churches. According to the architect, the skylights, selectively and carefully placed in the spatial structure of the churches, should create an atmosphere of mysticism and focus the attention of the parishioners on prayer. The requirements of religion had little influence on the architect's plan. The shape of the temples and the light and space composition of the interior space were a response to the psychophysiology of the senses. The choice of an ascetic interior for his buildings, without any decoration, leaves room for the changing natural light that illuminates the magical, mystical, indescribable space, and is perhaps the only symbol of its sacredness.

En brisant le lien unissant le dessin, la géométrie et l'opération constructive, le disegno développe au XVe siècle un geste de la pensée et de la main capable de mouvoir les lignes de la représentation architecturale par une succession de croquis, transcrivant la confusion d'une pensée qualitative en instrumentalisant le flou du dessin. Dans les années 1920, la ligne du disegno connaît une seconde enfance, dont Le Corbusier va préserver la liberté jusque dans ses projets ultimes. Le disegno devra renverser le mythe de l'Idea classique et son orthogénèse, afin d'assumer la condition fragmentaire de l'idée et la formation tardive de sa formulation, dont les discontinuités rivalisent avec les méthodes discursives. Il devra résister aux dogmes visant à replier la ligne architecturale sur la vérité mathématique, sur la raison pratique ou sur la transparence constructive
By dissociating drawing from both geometry and construction activity, in the XHth century disegno developed a way of thinking and tracing the lines of architectural representation through the succession of tentative sketches transcribing the confusion of qualitative thought by orchestrating the use of blurred lines. In the 1920s, the linear freedom of designo went through a second childhood, which would be preserved by Le Corbusier up to and including his last works. In order to maintain its power, disegno had to overthrow the myth of the classical Idea and its predetermination, to adhere to the fragmentary condition of the idea and its late formulation, whose inconsistencies were competing with discursive methods. Disegno also had to flight dogmas that sought to reduce architectural creativity to mathematical truths, practical reasoning or constructive transparency

Abstract: This paper explores Le Corbusier’s practice of collecting and studying everyday objects as inspiration for new architectural ideas. An avid collector of ‘objets trouves’ that Le Corbusier referred to specifically as ‘objets à réaction poètique,’ he promoted their use claiming they gave direction to an imagination that alone might not be able to detect. Perhaps the most famous object in Le Corbusier’s collection was a crab shell that he used as inspiration for the design of the roof for his Notre-Dame du Haut chapel in Ronchamp, France. Although Le Corbusier’s use of this shell is well documented in studies on his oeuvre, little attention has been given to the role he intended found objects to play in his design process. In themselves these objects, which have their own identities as shells, pinecones or pieces of bone, they do not immediately lend themselves to any architectural solution. Rather, they are evidence of Le Corbusier’s unique approach to design that relies on a what Louis Pasteur referred to as a ‘prepared mind,’ availed of all relevant data and information pertaining to a task, that can search for solutions in random object or events by spontaneously shift back and forth between analytic and associative modes of thought. Keywords: Architectural model, Ronchamp, Design method, Imagination, Play, Objet trouve. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4995/LC2015.2015.677

Abstract: Although currently it is largely accepted that Chapelle Notre-Dame du Haut at Ronchamp is one of the milestones in Le Corbusier’s works, there is no less agreement in saying that it was one of the most controversial of his works and one turning point in modern architecture, not only in terms of digging a grave for functionalism but to opening a window to a wide bunch of architects and works that would have been excluded from history and maybe forever otherwise. In order to recall its importance, we must look back to how architectural journals featured Ronchamp in the mid fifties as, on one hand, Le Corbusier was not a young architect but a very well known and respected one with an international reputation and therefore, it was not easy to criticize his works and, on the other hand, Ronchamp was such a shocking building for many colleagues who had no choice but writing about it that somehow they were between the Devil and the deep blue sea. Keywords: Ronchamp; debate; journals; historiography, contemporary; criticism. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4995/LC2015.2015.942