2024-12-22T10:56:50-05:00 https://archinect.com/news/article/45330892/space-and-light-and-order-save-the-bread Nam Henderson 2012-04-17T15:15:00-04:00 >2012-04-17T16:50:36-04:00 <img src="https://archinect.gumlet.io/uploads/40/40a8yk80zthndikj.jpg?fit=crop&auto=compress%2Cformat&enlarge=true&w=1200" border="0" /><em><p>Humility is a virtue. That&rsquo;s the obvious lesson, but doing anything, even constructing a few self-effacing buildings at Ronchamp, is a big deal. Mr. Piano solved the riddle of adding to a site without appearing conspicuously to do so by burrowing into the brow of the hill, below the chapel, and inserting the convent and visitors&rsquo; center into the cuts, half buried, with zinc-and-glass facades to let in light.</p></em><br /><br /><p> Michael Kimmelman recently visited Ronchamp, France the site of Le Corbusier&rsquo;s hilltop chapel Notre Dame du Haut and Renzo Piano Building Workshop's recent addition to the of a new convent and new visitors&rsquo; center. He believes that the new addition is a humble, quiet addition to the Modernist masterpiece and a worthy attempt at devising a convent "<em>beside the chapel that could thrive among pilgrims and tourists, and breathe life back onto the hill</em>&rdquo;.</p>