IN DEPTH ANALYSIS OF

ARCHITECTURAL BUILDING.
Notre dame du haut chapel,ronchamp
NOTRE DAME DU HAUT CHAPEL,
RONCHAMP.

Introduction:
Notre-Dame du Haut is a Roman
Catholic chapel in Ronchamp, France. Built in
1955, it is one of the finest examples of
the architecture of Franco-Swiss architect Le
Corbusier. The chapel is a working religious
building and is under the guardianship of the
private foundation

In 1950, Le Corbusier was commissioned to

design a new Catholic church and completed in
1954.Notre Dame du Haut is one of 17 buildings by Le
Corbusier that have been added to UNESCO's World
Heritage List of internationally significant architecture
sites
CONTEXT STUDY/HISTORY :
The chapel is the latest of chapels at the site. The
previous chapel was completely destroyed
during World War II. The previous building was a
4th-century Christian chapel. At the time the new
building was being constructed, Le Corbusier was
not interested in Machine Age architecture; he felt
that his style was more primitive and sculptural. He
realized when he visited the site that he could not
use mechanized means of construction, because
access was too difficult.

On January 17, 2014, the chapel became the

target of a break-in. A concrete collection box was
thrown outside, and one of the stained-glass
windows, also designed by Le Corbusier and the
only one on the chapel to carry his signature, was
broken

The site of Ronchamp has long been a religious

site of pilgrimage that was deeply rooted in
Catholic tradition, but after World War II the church
wanted a pure space void of extravagant detail
and ornate religious figures unlike its
predecessors. Ronchamp is deceptively modern
such that it does not appear as a part of
Corbusier’s aesthetic or even that of the
International Style; rather it sits in the site as a
sculptural object. The inability to categorize
Ronchamp has made it one of the most important
religious buildings of the 20th Century, as well as
Corbusier’s career.

In 1950, when Corbusier was commissioned to

design Ronchamp, the church reformists wanted
to clear their name of the decadence and
ornamental past by embracing modern art and
architecture. Spatial purity was one of Corbusier’s
main focuses by not over complicating the
program and removing the typical modern
aesthetic from the design.
History from the 4th century to 1955
Notre Dame du Haut (Our Lady of the Heights) takes its
name from a sanctuary and pilgrimage chapel dedicated
to the Holy Lady built in the early Middle Ages,
possibly in the 4th century, on top of the hill of
Bourlémont, near the village of Ronchamp, in
the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region.
Since the French Revolution, the property is privately
owned by a group of about forty local families, a quite
uncommon condition for a sacred Catholic site. The
small medieval chapel, substantially modified over time
and probably rebuilt in the 14th century, was expanded
in 1859 through the addition of a Gothic-revival
extension.
The historic chapel, injured by a fire in 1913, was
reconstructed in 1926, but then bombed and badly
damaged in 1944, during World War Two.
Consequently, in 1949, the owners of the property and
the Diocese of Besançon decided to completely rebuild
the chapel, yet in modern forms; they, therefore,
asked Le Corbusier, who was widely regarded as the
most important living European architect, to design the
new building.
The Swiss-French architect, who was then 63 years and
hadn’t previously designed any sacred building*, was
initially quite reluctant to get the task ( “I don’t want to
work together with a dead institution”, he reportedly
said to his potential clients) but, after visiting the place,
eventually accepted the commission.
The new chapel designed by Le Corbusier was
inaugurated and consecrated by the archbishop of
Besançon, Marcel-Marie Dubois, on June 25, 1955.
 Le Corbusier had designed a church, the

Basilica of Sainte Baume in southern France,

about one year before, in 1948; yet, the project,
not well accepted by the local Catholic
authorities, was never built; that could also
explain his reluctance to accept a new
commission for a religious building

An early-20th-century French postcard which depicts

the Notre Dame du Haut chapel before 1913, when a
fire triggered by a bolt of lightning partially destroyed
it; the Gothic-revival wing on the right was completed
in 1859, while the older chapel on the left dated back to
the Middle Ages

The old chapel in 1944, after being bombed and

damaged during the World War Two; courtesy of Les
Amis du Musée de la Mine de Ronchamp
SITE ANALYSIS:

Site
The site is high on a hill near Belfort in eastern France.
There had been a pilgrimage chapel on the site
dedicated to the Virgin Mary, but it was destroyed during
the Second World War. After the war, it was decided to
rebuild on the same site. The Chapelle Notre-Dame-du-
Haut, a shrine for the Roman Catholic Church at
Ronchamp, France was built for a reformist Church
looking to continue its relevance. Warning against
decadence, reformers within the Church looked to renew
its spirit by embracing modern art and architecture as
representative concepts.

The chapel at Ronchamp is singular in Corbusier's

oeuvre, in that it departs from his principles of
standardisation and the machine aesthetic, giving in
instead to a site-specific response. By Le Corbusier's
own admission, it was the site that provided an
irresistible genius loci for the response, with the horizon
visible on all four sides of the hill and its historical legacy
for centuries as a place of worship.

This historical legacy was woven in different layers into

the terrain – from the Romans and sun-worshippers
before them, to a cult of the Virgin in the Middle Ages,
right through to the modern church and the fight against
the German occupation. Le Corbusier also sensed a
sacred relationship of the hill with its surroundings – the
Jura mountains in the distance and the hill itself,
dominating the landscape.

Plan du site et de ses évolutions

Le Corbusier (1955)
(1) : Notre-Dame-du-Haut chapel ;
(2) : pyramid of peace ;
(3) : pilgrim shelters ;
(4) : chaplain's house ;
Jean Prouvé (1975)
(5) : campanile ;
Renzo Piano (2011)
(6) : Sainte-Claire chapel (oratory of the convent) ;
(7) : Sainte-Claire convent ;
(8) : gatehouse (reception, exhibition room)..
Analysis of building:

The main structure consists of thick masonry walls,

which are curved to improve stability and provide
structural support. The monumental curved concrete
roof is a shell structure supported by columns hidden in
the walls. A gap underneath allows a sliver of light to
filter into the interior.
Although its external appearance suggests a
complicated layout, the interior is fairly simple in plan.
Three thick white walls curl inwards from the outside to
create smaller chapels at the sides of the main
space. Two sit on either side of the north entrance and
one in the south-east corner next to the main entrance.
The interior of one of the chapels is painted bright red
and the sacristy on the north side is painted violet –
echoing the bright sections of colour in the
architect's Dominican Monastery of La Tourette.
The floor follows the slope of the site towards the main
altar, and is covered with a concrete surface that was
poured on site and divided into a gridded pattern based
on the architect's Modulor system of proportions. An
irregular arrangement of windows is scattered across
the walls. These are glazed with a mixture of clear and
coloured glass.
The internal and external walls were finished with
mortar, which was sprayed onto the surfaces before
being whitewashed or painted. The roof was left raw,
showing the board marks from the casting of the
concrete.
"This has no connection to stained glass; Le Corbusier
considers that this form of illumination is too closely
bound to old architectural notions, particularly to
Romanesque and Gothic art," explained the Fondation
Le Corbusier, a non-profit organisation set up to help
protect the architect's legacy.
"Therefore here there is no stained glass, but glazing
through which one can see the clouds, or the
movements of the foliage and even passers-by," it said.
Background of the architect :
Le Corbusier was a Swiss-born French
architect who belonged to the first generation of
the so-called International school of architecture.

In his architecture, Le Corbusier chiefly built

with steel and reinforced concrete and worked with
elemental geometric forms. Le Corbusier's painting
emphasized clear forms and structures, which
corresponded to his architecture

Early Career
These trips played a pivotal role in Le Corbusier’s
education. He made three major architectural
discoveries. In various settings, he witnessed and
absorbed the importance of (1) the contrast
between large collective spaces and individual
compartmentalized spaces, an observation that
formed the basis for his vision of residential
buildings and later became vastly influential; (2)
classical proportion via Renaissance architecture;
and (3) geometric forms and the use of landscape
as an architectural tool.

In 1912, Le Corbusier returned to La Chaux-de-

Fonds to teach alongside L’Eplattenier and to
open his own architectural practice. He designed a
series of villas and began to theorize on the use of
reinforced concrete as a structural frame, a
thoroughly modern technique

Le Corbusier began to envisage buildings

designed from these concepts as affordable
prefabricated housing that would help rebuild cities
after World War I came to an end. The floor plans
of the proposed housing consisted of open space,
leaving out obstructive support poles, freeing
exterior and interior walls from the usual structural
constraints. This design system became the
backbone for most of Le Corbusier’s architecture
for the next 10 years.
Born Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris[1]

6 October 1887

La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland

Died 27 August 1965 (aged 77)

Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, France

Nationality Swiss, French

Occupation Architect

Awards AIA Gold Medal (1961), Grand Officiers of the Légion d'honneur (1964)

Buildings Villa Savoye, Poissy

Villa La Roche, Paris
Unité d'habitation, Marseille
Notre Dame du Haut, Ronchamp
Buildings in Chandigarh, India

Projects Ville Radieuse

Signature
At a very early stage, the architect developed the
principles of five key points for a new architecture:

 a building raised on pilotis pile stilts,

 a self-supporting structural framework formed by
columns and beams,
 glazed external walls,
 a flexible open plan (without load-bearing walls)
that can be adapted according to the building’s
functions and their changes,
 a terrace roof that acts as a roof garden.
His most emblematic works include:

 Villa Stotzer (La Chaux de Fonds, Switzerland,

1907)
 Villa Savoye (Poissy, France, 1928)
 Cité Radieuse (Marseille, France, 1945-1952)
 National Museum of Western Art (Tokyo, Japan,
1957)
 Chapel of Notre-Dame du Haut (Ronchamp,
France, 1950-1955)
 Palace of Assembly (Chandigarh, India, 1955)
CHRONOLOGY
 1887
Born on 6 October in La-Chaux-de-Fonds
(Switzerland).
 1908-1909
Work experience training with the Perret brothers:
study of reinforced concrete techniques.
 1923
Publication of Vers une architecture [Towards an
Architecture], a veritable “bible” of modern
architecture.
 1931
Completion of the Villa Savoye in Poissy.
 1945
Finalisation of Le Corbusier’s Modulor,
establishing architectural proportions based on the
scale of the human body.
 1952
Completion of the Unité d’Habitation in Marseille
(in the Bouches du Rhône area of France).
 1954
First visit to Firminy.
 1955
Completion of the Chapel of Notre-Dame du Haut
in Ronchamp (in the Haute-Saône area of France).
 1960
Completion of the Dominican Monastery of Sainte-
Marie de la Tourette in Eveux-sur-l’Arbresle (in
the Rhône area of France).
 1955-1965
Construction of Chandigarh, capital of the Punjab
region (India).
 1961-1965
Construction of the Maison de la Culture in
Firminy.
 21 May 1965
Le Corbusier’s last visit to the Firminy construction
site: inspection of the main structural works of the
Maison de la Culture and laying the foundation
stone of the Unité d’Habitation.
 1965
Died on 27 August at Roquebrune-Cap-Martin (in
the Alpes-Maritimes area of France).
 1966-1969
Construction of Firminy Stadium.
 1968
Creation of the Fondation Le Corbusier in Paris,
devoted to the conservation, study and
dissemination of Le Corbusier’s work.
 1973-2006
Construction of the Church of Saint-Pierre in two
phases, designed with José Oubrerie.
References:

1. "Monument historique —
PA00102263". Mérimée
database of Monuments Historiques (in
French). France: Ministère de la Culture.
1993. Retrieved 12 March 2013.
2. ^ Jump up to:a b c Victoria Stapley-Brown
(January 31, 2014), Le Corbusier’s Chapel of
Notre Dame du Haut vandalised The Art
Newspaper.
3. ^ Germaine Greer (October 17, 2007), A
concrete version of dizzy rapture The
Guardian.
4. ^ Bianchini, Riccardo. "The Notre Dame du
Haut chapel by Le Corbusier –
Ronchamp". Inexhibit. Inexhibit. Retrieved 20
September 2017.
5. ^ Herbert Muschamp (November 14, 1999), At
Last, Buildings Are the Stuff of Dreams New
York Times.
6. ^ Derek Thomas, Masters of the Structural
Aesthetic (2017) p. 71.
7. ^ Jim Postell, Nancy Gesimondo, Materiality
and Interior Construction (2011) p. 300.
8. ^ Robin Evans, The Projective Cast:
Architecture and Its Three Geometries (2000)
pp. 309-310.
9. ^ Michael Kimmelman (April 17,
2012), Quietly Adding to a Modernist
Masterpiece New York Times.
10. ^ Jonathan Glancey (September 25,
2011), Renzo Piano: let there be light in the
convent The Guardian.
Sketches :

NOTRE DAME DU HAUT CHAPEL

FLOOR PLAN
NOTRE DAME DU HAUT CHAPEL
ELEVATION
End of the page.