Chapter 3b: Baptism of History (On this hill....)

Sept. 25, 2011: Belfort to Thannenkirch


Having found, admired, and kissed the Lion of Belfort good-bye well before lunchtime, we three travelers (Madonna Jeanne, and Picasso) headed to one more tourist stop for the day. Bemoaning our lack of GPS for getting out of Belfort, we had a hard time finding the right road. After extensively touring the northern suburbs, we finally managed to turn our Picasso Citoën east toward the hill that overlooks the town of Ronchamp 13 miles away.  


Our destination was a chapel called Notre Dame du Haut - in English,  Our Lady of the Heights.

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A sanctuary, dedicated to Mary, had occupied the very top of the hill over Ronchamp since the Middle Ages.  Somewhat timeworn and badly in need of repair, it was finally destroyed by the bombardments of war in September, 1944.


The local Commission on Sacred Art called upon the well-known  architect and urbanist, Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris, more commonly known by his pseudonym, Le Corbusier, to design a new chapel for the site. 


Le Corbusier was a leader of the modernist movement, with a life-long interest in creating  neighborhoods, public housing and better living conditions for all economic strata. One of his most famous is the Ville Radieuse (Radiant City) in Marseille which incorporates some of his often-used elements: 1) a structure lifted off the ground on pillers, 2) a façade of non-supporting walls so that the architect can create whatever forms he wants, 3) along with a free-form floor plan, 4) unencumbered views from the windows and 5) a roof garden to substitute for the green space taken up by the footprint of the building. City-planners all over the world took his ideas to heart in the post-war housing boom to create high-density spaces. Sadly, many of these became warehouses for the poor and were criticized for isolating their inhabitants and destroying communities. One notorious example is Cabrini Green in Chicago.


When invited to design a chapel for the hill above Ronchamp, Le Corbusier said "Je n'avais rien fait de religieux, mais quand je me suis trouvé devant ces quatre horizons, je n'ai pu hésiter." ("I had never made anything religious, but when I found myself before these four horizons, I could not hesitate."). Inspired by the location, and tapping his love for organic forms, this is the building that he created.

Abandoning the straight lines of former creations, Le Corbusier used the curved forms of the hills around the site. The roof carapace, or "coque" is made of concrete, poured and hardened in wooden plank forms that left the image of the boards visible on the under surface. Between the roof and walls is a space that lets light into the sanctuary - and makes the concrete roof seem to float above the building. This works because the  concrete roof is supported by pillars, not by the walls.

The view above is the approach to the chapel and will be much improved when the small visitors building & bookshop are removed. There are new facilities being built farther back behind the photographer and this small building will be torn down to give an unencumbered perspective. I hope that's the plan.  The new building, parking lot and landscaping, still under construction, were  designed by Renzo Piano, keeping to the theme of mid-20th century architecture. 


For my former students, and Paris tourists, Renzo Piano's most
well-known building would be the Centre Pompidou, below. 
The esclator which crawls up the front is called the "chenille en verre" (the glass caterpiller).

At right, Madonna inside the caterpiller in 2005.  


This very contemporary museum and cultural center was built to house a collection of 20th century art, including Picasso, Matisse, Leger, and Duchamp, among many others. 


A walk around the chapel of Notre Dame du Haut reveals many of the same elements used by medieval cathedral builders. There are two towers, one of which is this tall one.

Note the roof
drain which empties into a sort of occasional rain storm  fountain. 




No gargoyles, though.

What looks like a wall full of oddly shaped cut-outs... 

...is in fact a stained-glass homage to Notre Dame, Mary.

For the entry into the sanctuary, Le Corbusier designed the glazed doors and the door handle. 

On this door is one of his a favorite symbols, the open hand. 


This symbol was used elsewhere by the architect, most notably in Chandigahr, India, on a 28-meter tall monument.


Le Corbusier led a team of architects to completely design this brand-new city and capital for two Indian states, Punjab and Haryana.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandigarh











Passing through the door into the sanctuary, the pilgrim sees the simple, elegant form of this holy water font.












Under the high point of the roof carapace, 

is the altar of the church.

Notice how the concrete roof seems to float lightly above the walls at the altar end of the church (above), but at the opposite corner (below), one feels the weight of it.

Perhaps that is why the confessionals are placed there, the roof being a symbol of the weight of one's conscience? 

Notice the industrial materials used for the confessionals and other elements of the interior.

The pulpit is, like the roof shell, concrete and also shows the imprint of the plank forms.

These elements are hard-edged and feel harsh in isolation. But, like the medieval cathredral builders, Le Corbusier used light and color to infuse the whole with softness and mystery.

Color glows from deep pockets cut into the thick stucco walls.

Diffuse light from the top of the tallest church tower...

See the tower photo above for the exterior view of this wall.

...lights the little chapel below, dedicated to 
Mary.










 

Facing the altar, from the fourth pew.

The building has the cool, sheltered feeling of interiors created in very hot climates. So it is no surprise to find out that Le Corbusier found some inspiration for it in the Mosque of Sidi Brahim in Algeria.

http://www.discoverislamicart.org/database_item.php?id=monument;ISL;dz;Mon01;29;fr


Take a walk around the hilltop outside the church, and you see the panorama of the surrounding hills.

The Carillon designed by Jean Prouvé.

  

An old grave marking stone with a simple, rather irregular cross graved onto the top.






























On the exterior of the altar wall in the church, is another, outdoor altar for celebrating open-air services.

A statue of Mary was rescued from the old ruined church and placed in the window above and a little left of the cross. The statue can be turned to face the interior congregation or toward the outside during an outdoor mass.


Worshippers sit on a large lawn or on a ziggurat made from the stones of the medieval church.

Next to the ziggurat is a memorial post with a dove on top. The old church was not the only victim of violence on this hill in World War II. 


The inscription reads "On this hill in 1944 French people died for peace". 
























In some ways, it may seem to us that Le Corbusier was an odd choice to design this chapel. He who admired industrial materials and elements in his structures, was inspired by the natural beauty of site to mimic the curved lines of the hilltops and natural forms. He who created housing blocks in urban areas and drew inspiration from the Citroën factory, was to design a pilgrimage church on a remote hilltop. And he who was a self-proclaimed atheist, from a Protesant Swiss family and who claimed roots in the heretical Cathar movement wiped out in 1208 by the Catholic church and French king, was asked by the traditional Roman Catholic hierarchy to create a spiritual space on ancient sacred ground.


But to visit his creation, is to realize that he was the right choice. He succeeded in creating an awe-inspiring space, just like those ancient cathedral builders of the Middle Ages.


If you wish to find out more about Notre Dame du Haut, and other architecturally interesting buildings of the world, I recommend this link for its fine photos and interesting descriptions:
     http://www.galinsky.com/buildings/ronchamp/
The article there does a fine job of describing the complexities of this seemingly simple chapel.


Dazzled by visits to the impressive Lion of Belfort, and now this wonderful chapel (all in one long morning!), it was time to turn our attention to a less high-brow visit - a lunch stop!  Preferably a long, lingering French-style lunch on a terrace. That proved harder than our hunger pangs would allow because hordes of people seemed to be out for a late Sunday lunch in all the little towns we encountered.  One was packed with cars & people because of a local festival. We began to despair and pulled into a rather non-descript pizza place with rowdy "youts" hanging out at the outdoor tables. 

Once inside, we looked over pizza menues and were ignored for quite a long time. Which made we two VERY hungry patrons VERY grumpy. Finally we ordered a pie topped with local cheese and Montbéliard sausage, plus salad.


It was a great meal. Simple and delicious, made with local ingredients. The typical French-style green salad (always made only with greens, dressed with vinaigrette) did look a bit different than usual so when the owner came over I asked him why the dressing looked creamier, more opaque than the usual. He smiled and said that it was their own home recipe. "Really" I responded. "How do you make it?" His answer still makes me laugh. He said "You start with a liter of Dijon mustard." 


So for those of you who want to make enough vinaigrette dressing for a very huge crowd, here's his recipe:
1 liter of mustard
1 glass of vinegar  (I know. There are many sizes of glasses.)
3 liters of olive oil
1 liter of water
And the secret to the creamy texture is - (trumpet sound) -  an immersion blender to mix it all. We know that because he brought out the equipment to show us. And now I know how to say "immersion blender" in French - "mixeur à soupe".


Well-fed and happy, we set off to find the shortest, fastest route to our next stop - a beautiful village in the Vosges Mountains of Alsace. 

Thannenkirch, Alsace

Here at last our trail would meet up with the trail of the 409th Infantry.


P.S.  I am finding that when I click the button that converts my draft copy to a preview of the final version that you folks see, odd things happen to the spacing. It is not my decision to randomly insert vast spaces between paragraphs. Nor to move small pieces of sentences away from rest and dangle them in an odd manner. But I will now give up on trying to outwit "Blogger" and just publish