Sunday, October 16, 2005
RONCHAMP WAS NEVER CONSECRATED
Lee Penn sent in this article from "The Tablet" about the Chapel of Notre Dame du Haut at Ronchamp, a famous Catholic pilgrimmage destination because of its very unusual construction. Apparently it has been discovered that the chapel was never consecrated. That has been remedied. The last paragraph of the article is interesting:
THERE ARE, she claims, several clues in the design for Ronchamp that hint at Le Corbusier’s interest in blending Marian devotion with a sensitivity towards older mother-goddess cults – something that the discovery of the remains of ancient temples on the chapel site only reinforced. “There’s this idea that the three towers of the chapel represent Mary; his mother, Marie; and his wife, Yvonne; and the swollen, rounded and curved shape of the building suggests an interest in expressing an ancient female archetype,” says Dr Samuel. Other people would point instead to the seemingly emphatic Christian references in the building – the roof representing St Peter’s barque or Noah’s ark itself, or even the Church. Whether the official disquiet about the theological adventurism of Couturier and the spiritual pluralism of the chapel’s architect would have prevented its consecration is not known, but it does suggest a desire by the central ecclesiastical authorities to withhold their full sanction of the project and a wider unease with the then emerging cultural and generational shift towards the exploration of non-Western systems of thought. “All works must be formed spiritually first,” said Le Corbusier, and it only takes a visit to Ronchamp to realise that a convincing sense of the sacred doesn’t require official approval.
It's too bad Mark Irving didn't read the series of articles in "Architronic", the architecture journal originating in the School of Architecture at Kent State University, titled "Architecture and Theosophy." Susan R. Henderson, the editor of the series, discusses Le Corbusier's influences in her contribution titled "J.L.M. LAUWERIKS AND K.P.C. DE BAZEL: ARCHITECTURE AND THEOSOPHY"
