Reinforced concrete structuresFig. 4.10 Monastery of
La Tourette, Eveux,
France, 1955. Le
Corbusier, architect.
Exposed structural
concrete, which bears the
marks of the rough
formwork against which
it was cast, was a notable
aspect of the architec-
tural vocabulary
employed by Le
Corbusier in this period.
It was compatible with
his architectural thinking
at that time but was also
ideally suited to the
requirements of this
particular client and
project. [Photo: Andrew
Gilmour]formwork was very crudely constructed and
produced textures which were rough and
uneven. The device was first used by Le
Corbusier in buildings such as the 'Petite
Maison de Weekend' of 1935 but the most
notable of his buildings in which it was
employed were the 'Unite d'Habitation',
Marseilles, of 1947-52 and the monastery of La
Tourette, near Lyons, of 1957-60 (Fig. 4.10). In
these later buildings the crudity of the
construction was to some extent caused by the
inexperience of the building contractors but
there is no doubt that Le Corbusier himself
found that the suggestions of 'savageness' and
'the primitive' which it produced were compat-
ible with his architectural thinking at that time.
The resulting style was to be much imitated,
a prominent British example being the
National Theatre of Great Britain (1967-76),
London (Fig. 4.11) by Denys Lasdun, and was
entirely compatible with the fashion for 'New
Brutalism' which had emerged in Britain in the 107