Samuel Medina
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ast Friday, a nun gave warning that the
Chapel of Ronchamp, considered by many to be one of the key architectural works
of the last century, had been vandalized. When police arrived on the scene,
they found signs of forced entry: a stained-glass window, one of many executed
by Le Corbusier, was broken and a concrete trunk was missing. As Le Monde
reports, the intruders had also attempted to gain entry via a door. The overall
damage was, according to some, “priceless” because the stained-glass had borne
an original illustration by Le Corbusier. An initial assessment from the
department of historical monuments found the window to be irreparable.
The Fondation Le Corbusier, which protects
the architectural and artistic works of Le Corbusier, urged that emergency
measures be taken to secure the protected site. The statement, delivered by
Antoine Picon, President of the Fondation, called on the Association Oeuvre
Notre-Dame-du-Haut to “better protect the heritage of the twentieth century and
that of Le Corbusier in particular.” Picon also took the opportunity to point
to the church’s poor structural and cosmetic state, citing in particular
“moisture problems, infiltration and poor preservation of masonry.”
Ronchamp is one of Le Corbusier’s most idiosyncratic
buildings. The church’s design blends traditional Catholic affects (the
crucifix, an effigy of the Virgin Mary) with the architect’s own personal
lexicon of symbols. The hand-painted, ceramic door on the church’s west wall
contains vague, some might say, crude symbols that have little to do with the
history of ecclessiastical architecture and design. The same goes for the wall
of modular stained-glass windows, which recreates medieval glazing in modernist
fashion. The broken stained-glass has been reported to have been signed by the
architect himself, though images of the intact window seem to contradict them.
Nearly 80,000 tourists visit Ronchamp annually, while the parish continues to
use the church for services.
Source: Arch Daily
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