Curator, Barry Bergdoll: This is Le Corbusier’s pilgrimage church at Ronchamp in eastern France, built in the mid 1950s.
Architect, Jean-Louis Cohen: The building comes as a surprise for all his followers. No one would have expected a shape such as Ronchamp—a lyrical building, a building in which many previous ideas are integrated. Ronchamp is full of Le Corbusier’s recollections of his travels and his various experiences. Shapes that come from the observation of Roman graves, shapes that come from organic objects such as a crab shell found on a beach of Long Island.
Le Corbusier very explicitly remembers his experience of the Athens Acropolis. The Parthenon on top of the hill, is an image that Le Corbusier has in mind.
At the same time, Ronchamp is also the response to a specific landscape. The church is located on top of a hill, surrounded by the horizons of a series of plateaus and mountains, that are rather similar to the landscape of the Jura Mountains, so familiar to Le Corbusier from his childhood.
Ronchamp is a place where playing with, light, playing with color, playing with site, are integrated in a comprehensive statement. It is Le Corbusier’s unified work of art.