Wonders & blunders

The first sight I had of the Chapel of Notre Dame du Haut at Ronchamps was of the textbook-familiar roof floating over a distant hilltop treeline. But no textbook could prepare me for the experience of engaging with the building. The sculptured convex and concaved battered walls seemed to respond to the surrounding landscape and horizons, anchored by the three chapel towers. The transition to the interior was to experience a serenity and spirituality only matched by notable medieval precedents. It is a remarkable 3D space seemingly hollowed from the solid. The sloping floor generates a gravity towards the altar, accentuated by the asymmetric arrangement of the pews.

Uplifting The Chapel of Notre Dame du Haut in Ronchamps was designed by Le Corbusier and built between 1950 and 1955. Sitting on a hill, this monumental church is a dramatic form.

The unfortunate and later reinterpretations of another seminal building by Le Corbusier, the Unité d'Habitation in Marseilles, represent for me the biggest mistake. There are notable exceptions, but the transposing of the ideal with little consideration or understanding of community, of cultural differences, of building management and of the technology was one of the great disasters of the latter half of the 20th century. There are profound lessons for the current profusion of high-rise housing in our inner cities.

Upsetting Instead of following the example of Le Corbusier’s inspired use of raw concrete at the Unité d’Habitation in Marseilles, which was completed in 1952, many post-war high-rise buildings, such as the Park Hill estate in Sheffield have made concrete look drab and sad.