Archinect - News

Why Modern Architecture Struggles to Inspire Catholics

2014-09-02T13:45:00-04:00

Outside a few rare examples such as Ronchamp, I sense that Modernism has failed to deliver an architecture that connects with most Catholics and other traditional Christians. Much of this has to do with fact that Modernism as a cultural movement is inherently atheistic as it is based on a secular materialist philosophy.

Le Corbusier's Ronchamp Chapel vandalized

2014-01-22T14:53:00-05:00

Vandals have smashed an ‘irreplaceable’ stained-glass window after breaking into Le Corbusier’s Ronchamp Chapel in eastern France. The hand-painted, coloured glass window designed by the Swiss architect in the early 1950s was destroyed, it is understood, as the intruders forced entry into the famous Chapel of Notre Dame du Haut. Once inside the vandals lifted a concrete collection box and threw it outside.

Space and light and order...save the bread

2012-04-17T15:15:00-04:00

Humility is a virtue. That’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’ center into the cuts, half buried, with zinc-and-glass facades to let in light.

Michael Kimmelman recently visited Ronchamp, France the site of Le Corbusier’s hilltop chapel Notre Dame du Haut and Renzo Piano Building Workshop's recent addition to the of a new convent and new visitors’ center. He believes that the new addition is a humble, quiet addition to the Modernist masterpiece and a worthy attempt at devising a convent "beside the chapel that could thrive among pilgrims and tourists, and breathe life back onto the hill”.