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. — NYT
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”.
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