LE CORBUSIER Compared with
his pristine geometric design for Villa
Savoye (FIG. 35-75), the organic forms of
Le Corbusier’s Notre-Dame-du-Haut
(FIG. 36-56) come as a startling sur-
prise. Completed in 1955 at Ronchamp,
France, the chapel attests to the bound-
less creativity of this great architect.
A fusion of architecture and sculpture,
the small chapel, which replaced a
building destroyed in World War II, occupies a pilgrimage site in the
Vosges Mountains. The monumental impression of Notre-Dame-
du-Haut seen from afar is somewhat deceptive. Although one mas-
sive exterior wall contains a pulpit facing a spacious outdoor area for
large-scale open-air services on holy days, the interior (FIG. 36-57)
holds at most 200 people. The intimate scale, stark and heavy walls,
and mysterious illumination (jewel tones cast from the deeply re-
cessed stained-glass windows) give this space an aura reminiscent of
a sacred cave or a medieval monastery.
Notre-Dame-du-Haut’s structure may look free-form to the un-
trained eye, but Le Corbusier based it, like the medieval cathedral, on
an underlying mathematical system. The builders formed the fabric
from a frame of steel and metal mesh, which they sprayed with con-
crete and painted white, except for two interior private chapel niches
with colored walls and the roof, which Le Corbusier wished to have
darken naturally with the passage oftime. The roof appears to float
freely above the sanctuary, intensifying the quality of mystery in the in-
terior space. In reality, a series of nearly
invisible blocks holds up the roof. The
mystery of the roof ’s means of support
recalls the reaction to Hagia Sophia’s
miraculously floating dome (FIG. 12-4) a
millennium and a half before. Le Cor-
busier’s preliminary sketches for the
building indicate he linked the design
with the shape of praying hands, with the
wings of a dove (representing both peace
and the Holy Spirit), and with the prow
of a ship (a reminder that the Latin word used for the main gathering
place in Christian churches is nave,meaning “ship”). The artist envi-
sioned that in these powerful sculptural solids and voids, human be-
ings could find new values—new interpretations of their sacred beliefs
and of their natural environments.EERO SAARINENDramatic, sweeping, curvilinear rooflines are
characteristic features of the buildings designed by Finnish-born archi-
tect Eero Saarinen(1910–1961). One of his signature buildings of the
late 1950s is the former Trans World Airlines terminal (FIG. 36-58) at
John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, which Saarinen
based on the theme of motion. The terminal consists of two immense
concrete shells split down the middle and slightly rotated, giving the
building a fluid curved outline that fits its corner site. The shells im-
mediately suggest expansive wings and flight. Saarinen also designed
everything on the interior, including the furniture, ventilation ducts,
and signboards, with this same curvilinear vocabulary in mind.36-57Le Corbusier,interior of
Notre-Dame-du-Haut, Ronchamp,
France, 1950–1955.
Constructed of concrete sprayed on a
frame of steel and metal mesh, the heavy
walls of the Ronchamp chapel enclose an
intimate and mysteriously lit interior that
has the aura of a sacred cave.1004 Chapter 36 EUROPE AND AMERICA AFTER 194536-56Le Corbusier,Notre-Dame-du-
Haut, Ronchamp, France, 1950–1955.
The organic forms of Le Corbusier’s
mountaintop chapel present a fusion of
architecture and sculpture. The architect
based the shapes on praying hands, a
dove’s wings, and a ship’s prow.