Sainte-Marie de la Tourette
| Sainte-Marie de la Tourette | |
|---|---|
 Sainte-Marie de la Tourette (view from south-southeast 2007) |
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| Data | |
| place | Éveux |
| architect | Le Corbusier |
| Architectural style | brutalism |
| Coordinates | 45 ° 49 '9.9 " N , 4 ° 37' 20.8" E |
The Sainte-Marie de La Tourette monastery in Éveux (next to L'Arbresle ) near Lyon was designed by the well-known architect Le Corbusier from 1956 to 1960 . It is considered one of the central buildings of brutalism .
Building history
Emergence
The monastery was built for the Dominican Order , which was founded in 1215 as a community of preachers. The Convent of Éveux itself as a training center for the entire Dominican Order in France was established after the Second World War and was originally quartered in an estate that had been converted into a castle.
Père Marie-Alain Couturier , the initiator of the “Art Sacré” movement in France, recommended that Le Corbusier, which he had already brokered for the Notre Dame du Haut church in Ronchamp , should be built. On March 14, 1953, the architectural contract for the construction of the "Couvent d'études" was signed.
The first model was presented to the client in December 1954. The inauguration took place on October 19, 1960, but the construction work was not finished until June 1, 1961. The construction costs totaled 256.8 million francs in October 1960 (the equivalent of approx. 3.08 million DM). At the end of the sixties the building was converted into an educational facility due to a lack of young people.
Monument protection and world cultural heritage
La Tourette has been a listed building since 2006.
In January 2008, did France fourteen buildings and facilities of Le Corbusier in the tentative list of UNESCO register, including Sainte-Marie de la Tourette. Such a procedure is a prerequisite for applying for recognition as a World Heritage Site at a later date . In this case, however, this happened at the same time: under the leadership of France and with the participation of the Fondation Le Corbusier , these fourteen and initially nine works by Le Corbusier from six other countries were named "The urbanistic and architectural work of Le Corbusier" ( French Œuvre urbaine et architecturale de Le Corbusier ) nominated for inclusion as a World Heritage Site. Despite having been revised and reduced to 19 objects in the meantime, this candidacy did not find a majority of the World Heritage Committee at its annual meeting in June 2011.
In July 2016, the building became Le Corbusier's World Heritage Site together with other buildings.
Location and topography
The Dominican monastery was built near Éveux near Lyon on a slope sloping into the valley, which opens up to the valley. On July 28, 1953, before planning began, Le Corbusier visited the Romanesque Cistercian monastery Le Thoronet on the recommendation of Père Couturier , which, due to its location on a sloping slope and the associated level difference of the cloister, the arcades and the church building, became the model for La Tourette.
The building construction
La Tourette was built as a reinforced concrete frame structure. All facings of the cellular floors, the Pan de Verre and Ondulatoire consist of prefabricated reinforced concrete elements . Most of the windows are permanently glazed. The ventilation takes place through ventilation slots that can be closed with flaps, so-called aerateurs . The church walls are made of in-situ concrete, structured by the structure of the formwork panels. The flat roofs ( Toit Jardins ) are covered with a layer of earth and left to the natural greening.
Disposition of the building
The building complex is placed on supports in the natural slope topography and is surrounded by forest and meadows. Mighty pilotis carry the structure. The basic layout of the system forms a rectangle measuring 66.50 meters by 47.50 meters. The church building in the north completes the three-wing main structure to form a four-wing complex . Below the upper two room floors with the monastery cells is the level of the monastery complex accessible through the gate with visitor rooms, meeting and seminar rooms, library, oratory and the church of the convent. In the atrium similar enclosed courtyard of the exported in the form of intersecting ramps connecting cloister between chapter house and refectory in the west wing and the Church of plain poured concrete without any jewelry. Vertical and horizontal slits of light illuminate the religious service, light shafts guide the light from the apex of the church into crypts with the altars for silent masses. On the valley side on the lowest floor there are kitchens, pantries and ancillary rooms at roughly ground level.
Room layout and floor plan
The four-wing structure was designed with three storeys starting from the horizontal terrace roof towards the mountain and five storeys towards the valley with different storey heights. The building is divided horizontally into five floor levels with different room heights. The free-standing pillars that support the structure of the monastery rise from the natural sloping terrain. The entrance level ("Level 3" in the plans) is accessed via the gate on the east side. On this floor there is the monastery gate with the visiting cells, the lounges for conversations and students, the oratory, the library, three seminar rooms, lounges for the fathers and the prospective priests as well as the church. The floor below contains the chapter house and the refectory with sideboard in the west wing. The atrium with cloister is set in the courtyard of the four-wing complex and connects the rooms with one another. In the nave there is from east to west: the confessional , high altar , choir stalls and the organ on the west wall . To the south of the high altar , the sacristy is added to the rectangular nave and the crypt with side altar is in front of the nave on the north side. Underneath, partially level with the slope terrain, levels 4 and 5 named in the plans with lounges, storage and cellar rooms, kitchen, heating and the two crypts with individual altars. Above the entrance floor (level 3) are the two upper cell floors (levels 2 and 1) with 50 living cells each. Each wing of a floor comprises between 15 and 21 living cells with the associated sanitary rooms. The cell room corresponds to a cave, only the workplace is given a smooth reflective wall. The floors are accessed vertically through the stairwells in the middle of the south, east and north wings with double landing stairs. The storey heights are staggered according to the function of the room . The two cell floors have a room height of 2.46 m, the clear room height of the living cells is 2.26 meters. The floor height of the entrance floor with gate (level 3) is 4.06 meters and the floor below (level 4) is graded from 4.52 to 5.81 meters depending on the slope and function.
Views and roofs
Access to the monastery is on the east side. The portal, measuring 2.26 meters × 2.26 meters, is the starting point for the Promenade Architecturale . The floor heights of the building vary according to their function. The nave is single-storey and is almost flush with the roof surface of the other structures. Only the bell tower towers over the buildings. Iannis Xenakis had the facade made of raw concrete and decided to use lime for some fillings. The south, west and east façades are formed by the honeycombs of the living cells and the façades of the common rooms, which are designed according to the principle of the ondulatoire . In the monastery courtyard, the windows consist of large floor-to-ceiling glazed concrete frames. Vertical air slots with rotating metal windows are provided to ventilate the rooms.
The corridors leading to the living cells are lit through horizontal slits under the ceiling . The roofs of the monastery are covered with a layer of earth that provides insulation against moisture and compensates for temperature fluctuations.
The church
The church is a voluminous rectangular cube made of in-situ concrete , "béton brut" and incoming light. Initially, a huge sound reflector was planned to transmit the monks' singing into the valley. Later, a tower with bells as a symbol of the sound and the name La Tourette (the turret) was initially planned with eight, later four bells and finally implemented with only one. The organ, initially forgotten by the monks, was only incorporated into the planning of the church interior later. The crypt as a room for the individual, solitary celebration of the monks is determined by the darkness. By means of the “Les Canons de Lumière”, focused light shines through the ceiling into the sacristy.
The development of the Promenade Architecturale
Iannis Xenakis was entrusted as an employee of Le Corbusier with the project management of the building and the design of the vertical window divisions of the main facades and the cloister. In the oldest plan, a simple ramp is set in the middle of the cloister, later the cloister and ramp merge to form a ramp cross, which connects the wings of the convent. Parallel to the cross, a second ramp from the portal connects the entrance directly with all floors and the roof garden. At 2.26 meters square, the entrance gate is the starting point for all room dimensions. The aisle widths change as you walk from the entrance to the training rooms. The corridor is divided into room sections with different widths of 2.96 meters, 1.83 meters and tapers until only a monk can walk alone to the eye of the needle with a width of 1.13 meters. The vertical, steep stairwells contrast with the course of the cloister.
Radio broadcast
- Moritz Holfelder: La Tourette Le Corbusier. Recording of a contribution in the broadcast radioReisen auf Bayern 2 from minute 25:09, broadcast information
literature
- Le Corbusier, Hans de Soeten, Thijs Edelkoort: La Tourette. Delft University Press, 1985.
- S. Ferroet: Le Couvent de la Tourette de Le Corbusier - Monographie du Directeur Scientifique. 1985.
- Alfred Werner Maurer : “La promenade architectural” - architecture as a space of movement sequences of the liturgy in the monastery building La Tourette. Nice 2006.
- Henze, Moosbrugger: La Tourette, Le Corbusier's first monastery building. 1963.
- Francois Biot, Francoise Perrot (eds.): Le Corbusier et L'architecture sacrée, Sainte Marie de la Tourette Eveux. Lyon 1985.
Web links
Remarks
- ^ L'œuvre architecturale et urbaine de Le Corbusier . Entry in the tentative list of UNESCO on their website, accessed on April 10, 2014 (French)
- ↑ UNESCO dossier Le Corbusier signed in Paris . Press release of the Swiss Federal Office for Culture, January 30, 2008, accessed on April 7, 2014
- ↑ Joseph Hanimann: Whole or not at all Süddeutsche Zeitung, June 29, 2011, accessed on April 7, 2014
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