for a new visitors center and nun's quarters is no doubt good for the spirit of Ronchamp. But is it good for the architecture? Corbu's scions aren't so sure.
I've not been to Ronchamp physically, so I may be wrong, but this looks like a very good proposal to me. I'm less crazy about the Visitor's Center, but the nun's quarters certainly seem like an appropriate resposne to a monumentally difficult challenge.
Also, I very much appreciate the desire to keep the chapel functioning as a religious space. In my mind it is mainly an architouring destination, but I can't imagine a site with 100,000 visitors a year to offer a strongly meditative experience. I'm not a huge fan of nuns, mind you, but I appreciate the goals behind placing them here.
Well bothands you don't want to see Piano attempt a personal magnum opus on the same site as Ronchamp, then, do you? I think it takes a lot of guts to take on this commission, and to be essentially invisible on it is a totally appropriate approach.
Architecture is never invisible, especially architecture designed by one of the most notable architects in the last fifty years (Piano).
To take the stance that this should be some sort of non-architecture, blending into the hillside and hopefully avoiding the attention of the thousands of people to visit Notre Dame Du Haut every year seems like a missed opportunity to carry on the values pursued by Le Corbusier during the design of the original chapel.
No, we certainly don’t need an architect’s magnum opus, but we also don’t need invisibility. I believe that a more fitting tribute to Notre Dame Du Haut would be to design a place that respects and reinvestigates the values and passion that informed the original chapel. What we need is architecture that can change the way we live our lives here, and architecture that can persuade us of the divine beyond. It was this pursuit that gave us the chapel in the first place, right?
They didn't settle for mediocrity then, instead they ended up with an overwhelmingly moving pieces of architecture and one of the finest testaments to humankind’s creativity and wonder regarding the world we live in, and our curiosity of the sacred, both beyond the material world and within ourselves (grand I know, but I really believe it's true).
Does the production (and I mean production) of non-architecture on the site imply that the concerns of Le Corbusier, the members of the Ronchamp religious community, and the citizens of Ronchamp are less relevant to contemporary culture (or at least contemporary architectural culture) today?
So if they didn't settle for mediocrity in 1954, why should we settle now?
i totally agree, citrus. well-written (and impassioned!) response.
corb didn't treat the work of others as anything more than marks on his potential canvas. this site deserves any architect's best work.
reminds me of the old princeton/graves project in which students had to design additions to iconic pieces of residential architecture: savoye, villa snellman, smith house, etc. the decision is always one of attitude. will you be polite and respectful or will you be as equally willful and confident as the original architect - or is there a way to do something equally great through a combination of both strategies?
looks like piano has tried to make the residences disappear - sort of half-hearted - but the visitor's center has a little more muscle to it.
like everyone else, i hope this project comes out well. it's a difficult charge, but we've been here before. remember the hoopla around gwathmey/siegel's addn to the guggenheim or the expansions at the salk institute?
Very well stated, citrus. If one is bold enough to imagine another building visibly sharing the site with Ronchamp, that is certainly the attitude one should take.
Though one wonders what the Corbu Foundation's attitude towards that approach would be!
the corb foundation, similar to the wright foundation(s?), is a necessarily conservative organization. there is some irony in the desire to protect the modern from interference when the progenitors of modern would have been less careful.
these foundations' missions are to let the work stand as museum pieces, preferably unaltered. i'm more of the opinion that, while no one would ever want to damage the legacy of ronchamp, they have to let it live a useful life.
my 2 cents - from being there once for a day.
1. It should not be the first thing you experience, the main route should visually still be all corbu. you come from a journey to see it and then suddenly it's upon you.
2. The new should not be visible from the old - keep it away from the site a bit.
I can imagine the place needs some help in terms of the load of visitors - but keep it old school.
17 Comments
Piano certainly seems like an odd choice for the job.
not happy!
At least he is sinking everything into the landscape so that it won't stand out too much...
Plus it will take less energy that way.
I've not been to Ronchamp physically, so I may be wrong, but this looks like a very good proposal to me. I'm less crazy about the Visitor's Center, but the nun's quarters certainly seem like an appropriate resposne to a monumentally difficult challenge.
Also, I very much appreciate the desire to keep the chapel functioning as a religious space. In my mind it is mainly an architouring destination, but I can't imagine a site with 100,000 visitors a year to offer a strongly meditative experience. I'm not a huge fan of nuns, mind you, but I appreciate the goals behind placing them here.
Have been to Ronchamp (twice), and ANYTHING by Piano pales in comparison...
Well bothands you don't want to see Piano attempt a personal magnum opus on the same site as Ronchamp, then, do you? I think it takes a lot of guts to take on this commission, and to be essentially invisible on it is a totally appropriate approach.
I tend to respectfully disagree.
Architecture is never invisible, especially architecture designed by one of the most notable architects in the last fifty years (Piano).
To take the stance that this should be some sort of non-architecture, blending into the hillside and hopefully avoiding the attention of the thousands of people to visit Notre Dame Du Haut every year seems like a missed opportunity to carry on the values pursued by Le Corbusier during the design of the original chapel.
No, we certainly don’t need an architect’s magnum opus, but we also don’t need invisibility. I believe that a more fitting tribute to Notre Dame Du Haut would be to design a place that respects and reinvestigates the values and passion that informed the original chapel. What we need is architecture that can change the way we live our lives here, and architecture that can persuade us of the divine beyond. It was this pursuit that gave us the chapel in the first place, right?
They didn't settle for mediocrity then, instead they ended up with an overwhelmingly moving pieces of architecture and one of the finest testaments to humankind’s creativity and wonder regarding the world we live in, and our curiosity of the sacred, both beyond the material world and within ourselves (grand I know, but I really believe it's true).
Does the production (and I mean production) of non-architecture on the site imply that the concerns of Le Corbusier, the members of the Ronchamp religious community, and the citizens of Ronchamp are less relevant to contemporary culture (or at least contemporary architectural culture) today?
So if they didn't settle for mediocrity in 1954, why should we settle now?
i totally agree, citrus. well-written (and impassioned!) response.
corb didn't treat the work of others as anything more than marks on his potential canvas. this site deserves any architect's best work.
reminds me of the old princeton/graves project in which students had to design additions to iconic pieces of residential architecture: savoye, villa snellman, smith house, etc. the decision is always one of attitude. will you be polite and respectful or will you be as equally willful and confident as the original architect - or is there a way to do something equally great through a combination of both strategies?
looks like piano has tried to make the residences disappear - sort of half-hearted - but the visitor's center has a little more muscle to it.
like everyone else, i hope this project comes out well. it's a difficult charge, but we've been here before. remember the hoopla around gwathmey/siegel's addn to the guggenheim or the expansions at the salk institute?
Very well stated, citrus. If one is bold enough to imagine another building visibly sharing the site with Ronchamp, that is certainly the attitude one should take.
Though one wonders what the Corbu Foundation's attitude towards that approach would be!
the corb foundation, similar to the wright foundation(s?), is a necessarily conservative organization. there is some irony in the desire to protect the modern from interference when the progenitors of modern would have been less careful.
these foundations' missions are to let the work stand as museum pieces, preferably unaltered. i'm more of the opinion that, while no one would ever want to damage the legacy of ronchamp, they have to let it live a useful life.
my 2 cents - from being there once for a day.
1. It should not be the first thing you experience, the main route should visually still be all corbu. you come from a journey to see it and then suddenly it's upon you.
2. The new should not be visible from the old - keep it away from the site a bit.
I can imagine the place needs some help in terms of the load of visitors - but keep it old school.
Renzo's politeness is a terrible match for the power and clarity of Ronchamp. It should have been Rem.
Oh god no.
give it to zumthor - quiet an magical
solution - kind of like the interior of ronchamp
Now you're talkin', rayray. Zumthor I could support.
That's the Le Corbusier Foundation website? Not much of a resource.
i'd be interesting in seeing zumthor's proposal. but i think he'd place it underground, bunkered in the hill as well.
has ronchamp undergone any serious renovations a la failingwater and la tourette?
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