The Convent of Sainte-Marie de La Tourette is considered one of Le Corbusier’s most important projects, being inscribed in July 2016 as UNESCO World Heritage Sites. It was the last Le Corbusier’s project to be built in Europe, and one with a unique program. It is a Dominican Order priory on a steep slope near Lyon, France, designed by Le Corbusier and the avant-garden musician and architect Iannis Xenakis, and constructed between 1956 and 1960. The first designs of the building started in May 1953, with the sketches drawn at L’Arbresle, France, where the basic shape of the building and terrain of the site were outlined.
Under the persuasion of Father Marie-Alain Couturier, whose request was to “create a silent dwelling for one hundred bodies and one hundred hearts”, the Dominicans ordered Le Corbusier the construction of the priory on an irregularly sloped site at Éveux. The construction of the project on this hillside allowed the architect to explore the concept of the upside-down city and take advantage of the powerful views the site has, allowing, with the help of the design, the maximum views from the building and the domination of the landscape composition.
The use of the “five points of modern architecture”, is clear all over the project. By raising the structure on reinforced concrete pilotis, the terrain maintains its topographic elevation and allows circulation at the top of the structure. The elevated circulation develops on the garden rooftop, where Le Corbusier creates an architectural promenade. One enters the building, circulating downwards, reaching the atrium and church.
The pilotis that are used in the structure, line the inside walls and also allow to open the facade with horizontal strips of windows that provide equal light in the interior of the building. The layout and design of these panes of glass, "pans de verre ondulatoire”, located on the three exterior faces, were worked extensively by Xenakis and allowed the maximum light to penetrate as well as the circulation of air to the inner courtyard. On the other hand, the facade of the courtyard of the monastery is composed of fenestration of large concrete elements from floor to ceiling, that is perforated with glazed voids. With this project Le Corbusier manipulated light through the openings in the concrete, departing from his previous idea of flowing indoor and outdoor spaces.
Design as a priory for the Dominicans, the program included a Chapel for worship and prayer, that connects all the parts, a residence with a hundred bedrooms for teachers and students as well as study halls, and an educational place. The building with a complicated plan is organized into three main levels, where the lowest one, with a lower ceiling that brings the friars closer to earth and bulging out into the landscape, provides access to the church and contains the refectory and the chapter house. The second floor houses the public entrance as well as the reception rooms, an oratory, the study rooms, the common rooms and a library. The last floor is dedicated to accommodation, where the small cells are placed side by side, with a balcony that looks out to the landscape. These cells were meant as sleeping rooms for teachers and students, but finally housed monks, becoming a place of meditation and study.
The monastery cells are designed around a central U-shaped courtyard that is overlooked by the sloping corridos with glass façades and is closed by the triple-height chapel at the end. On two of the levels, the loggias that crown the building (one for each monk’s cell) form the brise-soleils. The incline openings in the ceiling, located in the corridors leading to the dwelling cells, are used to direct the light down into the interior and lower levels. Below, we find the refectory and the cloister that are high above the ground with the help of the pilots, whereas the church sits on the ground.
It is in the interior of the building where we find a great part of the building's personality, with the glazing from floor to ceiling in public areas, that allows the views of the surroundings, allowing harmony for the friars in the roughness and brutality of the architecture. Although the raw concrete finish is used on most of the structure, in the mark doors, pipes and floors, bold colours are used. The "promenade architectural" is again used in this project, highlighting the viewpoint of the ramp down the church entrance, situated on a concrete corridor with a glazed facade that leads to a metal wall, that rotates to the coloured luminosity of the church.
The interior of the church becomes a concrete box with a spiritual essence given by the natural light that enters through the “light cannons” and the strong colour. In this church appears the most powerful and intriguing room, the chapel. Here you find the altars in form of a block and table that rise from six platforms, symbolizing the rise from earth to heaven and the Christ in the Sacrament descending.
The decision of the Dominicans to base the friars in the community, shortly after the building had been finished, has allowed for over forty years, the use of the convent’s cells, for the pilgrims, students and architecture devotees. This way the Convent of Sainte-Marie de La Tourette has become over time a pilgrimage site for architects and a meeting place for different disciplines.
Description of the project by Le Corbusier
It was under the instigation of Reverend Father Couturier (one of the men who have brought about the reawakening of sacred art in France) that the Dominicans of Lyon charged Le Corbusier with the task of bringing into being at Eveux-Sur-Arbresle, near Lyon, the Convent of La Tourette, in the midst of nature, located in a small vale that opens out onto the forest. This problem, the program of which is based upon the rules of the Dominican Order established at the beginning of the 13th Century, involves the presence of fundamentally human elements in the ritual as well as in the dimensioning of the spaces (rooms and circulation). Just as for the Chapel of Ronchamp, Le Corbusier finds here a program of human scale, at the human scale. And it was his friend, the Reverend Father Couturier, who, before his death so brutally intervened, had explained to him some of its profound resonances. The buildings contain a hundred sleeping rooms for teachers and students, study halls, a hall for work and one for recreation, a library and a refectory. Next tomes the church where the monks carry on alone (on occasion, in the presence of several of the faithful). Finally, the circulation connects all the parts, in particular those which appear in a new form (the achievement of the traditional cloister form is rendered impossible here by the slope of the terrain). On two levels, the loggias crowning the building (one for each acoustically-isolated monk's tell) form brise-soleil. The study halls, work and recreation halls, as well as the library occupies the upper level. Below are the refectory and the cloister in the form of a cross leading to the church. And then come to the piles carrying the four convent buildings rising from the slope of the terrain loft in its original condition, without terracing.
The structural frame is of rough reinforced concrete. The panes of glass located on the three exterior faces achieve, for the first time, the system called: "the undulatory glass surface" (which is applied as well to the Secretariat at Chandigarh). On the other hand, in the garden court of the cloister, the fenestration is composed of large concrete elements reaching from floor to ceiling, perforated with glazed voids and separated from one another by "ventilators": vertical slits covered by metal mosquito netting and furnished with a pivoting shutter. The covered walks of the cloister are enclosed with "waves". The corridors leading to the dwelling tells are lighted by a horizontal opening located under the ceiling.
The convent is "posed" in the savage nature of the forest and grasslands which is independent of the architecture itself. The façades shall remain in rough concrete, the several infillings being painted with whitewash. The walls of the church shall be in "banchage". In the interior of the church, the "points of the diamond" shown in the section reproduced below will rot appear in the final execution because of different reasons (except one or two installed in a good place). The roof of the convent itself, like that of the church, will be covered with a thin layer of earth loft to the vicissitudes of the wind, birds and other carriers of seeds, assuring both water-tightness and isothermic protection. (The roofs of the small house on Lake Léman, constructed thirty years ago, the apartment house at 24 Rue Nungesser et Coli and various buildings in India are similarly constructed.)
Extract from Le Corbusier, Oeuvre complète, volume 6, 1952-1957
