The Arrival1
The convent Sainte-Marie de La Tourette 2 is one of the most extensively examined buildings of the latter half of the twentieth-century. It has been analysed and described from a multitude of perspectives and angles, providing a projective surface for a variety of architectural convictions3. Nevertheless (or rather precisely because this overabundance of existing interpretations allows to take a rather personal look) this essay attempts to establish yet another specific reading – adding no more than a footnote to “this monastery of rough concrete … [which] does not talk by itself. It lives on the inside. It is inside that the essential happens 4”
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1 When I stepped out of the bus at what supposedly was the station I found myself enclosed in a diffuse white sphere. I looked around, hoping to find some clue as to which direction I would have to go, but this urge was promptly refused by the thick curtain of fog around me. Here I stood, seemingly alone in my own personal bubble. As nearly any visual examination of my surroundings was prevented by the sea of fog around me, I did as one does if lost on the vast depths of the ocean today: I resorted to the GPS capacities of my smartphone. Thus looking from an abstracted perspective of a bird above me at what I could not see in person, I kept following the small GPS arrow that moved along the curving streets leading up the hill. All the time the small dome around me followed my every movement, giving my approach the character of walking in an endless succession of short corridors while not having any idea what is going on in the spaces around. After about fifteen minutes the lights vaguely piercing through the hazy curtain decreased indicating that I must have left the town behind me – which my navigation system confirmed, promptly afterwards. I had lost my link to the outside world, but at least there was not much I could do but follow the one small road up the hill that I was on. While walking on this street flanked by what must have been open fields, a rather claustrophobic atmosphere established itself within the nebular space that surrounded me. It was only me, the ground and the occasional trees, fences or utility poles that passed through. Until suddenly, an oddly geometric cliff invaded into my misty sphere – I had arrived after all. Gradually more and more of the building passed by and then I finally entered through the free standing gate – which for once was inserted into a wall, albeit one of ephemeral mist. On the porch I headed to the reception and eventually passed from one inside to the next. In the English context the building is commonly referred to as a monastery, while in French it 2 is a couvent, a convent. While the modern use of the word convent refers almost exclusively to female monastic communities, the original sense “of a group of men or women living as a religious order, is first recorded about 1230 as cuvent, which became obsolete by the late 1600’s.” (Barnhart, 1995, p.159) As the terms have diametrical etymological origins (monastery: “from Greek monázein to live alone” (Ibid., p.485); convent: “from Latin conventus … assembly”(Ibid., p.159) and thus different connotations, this essay will nevertheless rely on the term convent, as it provides a more precise reflection of the (original) function of the edifice. This is emphasized by the fact that Dominicans do not refer to themselves as monks but as friars. The most influential account has probably been the article by Colin Rowe, first published in 3 1961, which sets off with a comparison of the church wall in La Tourette to the famous “blank panel” of Le Corbusier‘s house in La-Chaux-de-Fonds (Rowe, 1982, p.186) – an analogy with which Rowe might have been hinting at his treatment of La Tourette as a screen, a projective surface for his own architectural convictions. 4
Le Corbusier, in: Petit, 1961, p.20
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The Approach
“To kill God and to build a Church is the constant and contradictory purpose of rebellion.5“ Le Corbusier did not believe in God – at least that is what he declared6. But despite his proclaimed atheism he was very proud of his family’s heretic, but nonetheless deistic, Cathar (a Manichaean sect prevalent in southern France in the early middle ages) heritage7. The proverbial Manichaean dualism8 embedded in Le Corbusier’s consciously assumed heritage is reflected – and elevated to a dialectic approach – by his constant struggle to reconcile opposites with his design proposals9. This aspect is at the core of Colin Rowe’s essay on the convent, in which he characterizes Le Corbusier as an “architectural dialectician, the greatest10”. He comes to the conclusion that the convent is the physical manifestation of a scholastic debate and continues to remark “that at La Tourette, all elements can be referred to two distinct structures of argument 11”. To underline this thesis he supports it with several analyses of distinct elements (or rather parti) of the building. These observations are united by the fact that they are almost exclusively concerned with the outer appearance of the building: his entire description seems to encircle the building, but never touches upon its interior. He thereby ignores the relationship of inside and outside, one of the most fundamental dialectical correlations12 - and probably the most essential dialectic related to architecture. Particularly in the case of La Tourette it appears to be this very subject that offers a clue to understand the building’s condition and in consequence its unique interdependency of program and form. But before even attempting to deliver a solution for this task, we should first analyse the given condition – and what would be better suited to do so than to go on a architectural promenade around the convent – after all it was Corbusier who said that “an architecture must be walked through and traversed.13”
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5 Camus, 1951, p.103 – As Simon Richards points out, Le Corbusier had attentively read and marked his personal copy of The Rebel and from his notes it appears that he was deeply interested in the theme of human revolt as analysed by Camus. Later Corbusier also sent a copy of the draft of the Poème de l’Angle Droit to Camus. (Richards, 2003, p.175) He did not believe, but he was not a resolute atheist – he preferred to say: “I don’t know.” 6 (Wogenscky, 2006, p.18) 7
cf. Samuel, 2007, p.12
“Manichaean … 1 … of or relating to Manichaeism. 2 of or characterized by dualistic contrast 8 or conflict between opposites.” (Pearsall, 1999, p.867) 9 Le Corbusier tried “to reconcile the irreconcilable, that is, to reconcile such polarities as private and public, individuality and collectivity, personal and impersonal, unity and diversity--just to name a few examples…” (Serenyi, 1967, p.277) 10
Rowe, 1982, p.194
11 Ibid. p.196 – The reading of La Tourette in terms of a dialectic is probably sparked by Colin Rowe, and then picked up by – to name a few – Charles Jencks, whose focus is expressed in his statement, that the “opposition between rectilinear building and curving meadow becomes the main drama” (Jencks, 2000, p.330), Hubert Damisch who elaborates on the dialectics of space and thought (Damisch, 2005), Pier Vittorio Aureli, who distinguishes the coexistence of formalism and functionalism, resulting in what he calls a liturgical space (Aureli and Giudici, 2013) – and so on. Gaston Bachelard writes that, when employed metaphorically, this dialectic “has the sharp12 ness of yes and no, which decides everything … Philosophers, when confronted with outside and inside, think in terms of being and non-being.“ (Bachelard, 1958, p.211) 13
Le Corbusier, 1999, p.44
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The Cloister
La Tourette – like the majority of buildings – is accessed from the outside; but what exactly is the outside in this case? The convent has been erected on the slope of a valley, not far from a small chateau, from which two ways lead to the monastery: there is the official visitor’s access that runs parallel to the eastern side of the building, and there is a less prominent road that passes through the slanted grassland and approaches the building from below. Upon arrival the visitor is confronted to the massiveness of the bare northern wall of the church, leaving him “cold-shouldered14” by the building. But maybe we should not hastily rush to the building – only to expose ourselves to its renunciation – and pay some attention to the meadow on our side. From Le Corbusier’s sketches we know that he conceived his idea with utmost focus on the context of the actual site. In a talk with the brothers of the convent he emphasized that the building (and thus the meadow bordering it on two sides) is “surrounded by forest 15”, thereby suggesting that the meadow is not an open outside, but could to some extent be considered an inside16. If this is so, would the path under the trees then not constitute an arcade around a sloped cloister17? In any case, this “court” is caught in a somewhat ambiguous state: it oscillates between inside and outside, with the ground seemingly unable to decide whether it is “floor” or “wall,” tending towards horizontality, but nevertheless obstructing a spontaneous passage18. The Peristyle
Thus moving, or rather climbing, up the slope towards the monastery we do not face a gate or an entrance, but find ourselves under the building itself. Here, on a terrain half topped by grass extending inside from the outer meadow, half covered with muddy sand, we are left clueless as to what purpose this semi-open space serves. The one thing that we can tell, is that the emblematic columns of a traditional cloister were in fact not entirely replaced by the trees around the meadow, but have only been substituted in their function as a framing device, and have resorted to a more elemental role: that of supporting the building – thus turning into point number one of modern architecture. But these columns do not seem to have a strictly functional purpose, sometimes lifting the building just enough to make the visitor wonder whether he could sneak through underneath it. Additionally, one gets the impression of having stumbled into a structural cabinet de curiosités, packed with all kinds of pilotis: from rather conventional round and rectangular pillars to the cross supporting the oratory and the abstracted stalactites stretching from the underside of the building into the ground. Other than being the site from where the building has been lifted up, this place seems to serve no purpose – which goes
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14
Rowe, 1982, p.187
15
Petit, 1961, p.20
16 In Vers une Architecture we are presented with a drawing of a primitive temple. The drawing does not only show the tent-like temple itself but includes the surrounding fence. Nevertheless its caption states merely primitive temple: apparently the fence and especially the framed court are seen as part of the building. It seems as though the forest assumes the role of this fence in La Tourette. (Le Corbusier, 1923, p.134) 17 As Aureli and Giudici (2013, p.114) have pointed out, the circumambulation of the building has become an essential part of any architectural critic’s visit to the convent. Somewhat similar to the traditional cloister where the courtyard is only – if at all – traversed 18 on specific paths, while the regular circulation takes place under the surrounding arcades.
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as well for the interior “courtyard” formed by the four parts of the building, which appears to serve exclusively as a container for the array of architectural “objects” assembled here19. Through the composition of pillars and volumes an array of virtual spaces is created20 – which are today used as makeshift garages for mopeds and cycles. In this abandoned place we are directly confronted to the notion of being neither inside, nor outside. In the lower part the underside of the convent hovers above us like a ceiling, while on the upper side the terrain almost attaches to the ground – within only a few meters we are either under, or next to the building. But even here, directly adjacent to the interior there is no entry, except for the north-eastern appendix of the cruciform corridor system, which is open towards the inner courtyard – but was meant to be glazed as well and is still cut off from the building by a door21. Thus we are compelled to walk around the block, ascend to the main road, and approach the building as any other casual visitor22. The Arch
The entrance to the convent is marked by a free-standing gate, a doorframe without a wall, which constitutes a symbolic threshold between profane outside and spiritual inside23. The rather thin profile of this gate appears to have been extruded horizontally, forming a truncated corridor, which constitutes an entry procession where we pass from the outside, into an inside, only to step outside again just when we have actually “entered” the convent. This inornate, not-so-triumphal arch is part of an array of different architectural artifacts that frame an open-air vestibule: the amorphous pavilion of the reception, a pair of bare concrete benches, a small elementary balustrade and two bulky concrete chunks. The space constituted by these objects does not have the semblance of having been designed from scratch, but rather that of a collage of different objet trouvès – which could be read as a preliminary remark articulating the incorporation of the “outside” into the scheme, contra the self-referentiality of the design24. In a way we find another, small scale, iteration of this proposition embodied within the two “rocks” which are made up of rubble from the construction site itself – at least if the reports of their formation are to be believed25. The Salon
When entering the main body of the building from this “anteroom”, we find ourselves in a rather “undecided” place, urging the visitor to keep going: either ascend towards the cells via a stairway or follow the corridor to the communal spaces. Figuratively we are standing at the junction between the etymological differences found in the terms monastery and convent. A majority of the
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19 Of which the oratory clearly evidences “the immediate influence of Le Thoronet.” (Braunfels, 1972, p.230) 20 “Walking among the pilotis stokes one’s sculptural imagination, in contrast to the interior functional places of the monastery which are regulated by the Modulor.” (Potié, 2001, p.46) 21
At least if we follow the plan of “niveau 2” still published in most journals and books.
22
cf. Rowe, 1982, p.187
Flora Samuel (2010, p.188) notes that “in the floor a grating for the cleaning of shoes spans 23 only half the width of the frame, as if waiting for a single file procession of monks to enter in. It is this – like so many spaces of monastic existence – both open to the air and under cover, that marks the vestibule of the building.” The intentional nature of this analogy is indicated by the fact that an earlier plan of the entry 24 shows walls on its sides – which has been altered into the state we find today. However some assert that this only happened due to budget reasons and that, “as it is, the composition does feel unsatisfactory.” (Samuel, 2013, p.136) 25
cf. Potié, 2001, p.32
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building is taken up by communal spaces, as it was initially not intended to be solely a monastery, but an educational centre for the Dominican order26. In La Tourette, as in most monasteries, it is predominately through the reciprocity of individual and communal spaces and specifically in the way they reflect the daily routines, the liturgy of the community, that the “monastic condition27” is translated into architecture. The different spaces are connected by corridors, most apparently by the cross-shaped, partially slanted passage in the central courtyard which focalizes in the atrium28. When walking through these passages, the undulating glass panes29 that structure the window panels of the corridor create “a peculiar fluctuating rhythm to the experience of space30”. But once we halt and focus our view a sense of spatial layering ensues. The intercepting vertical bars of the windows, the columns of the interior space, and the multitude of pillars and structures in the courtyard inextricably superimpose each other. Entering the refectory from the atrium we encounter a similar approach to fenestration, but this time the outcome is simultaneously more understated and more radical. The room itself is almost completely glazed on the two long sides. The one side faces the interior courtyard, or rather the above-mentioned corridor at a distance of only a couple of meters and the outside here thus only reveals another interior. But the other side of the room is much more interesting. Here the glass front faces the valley, but the resulting impression is not that of a panorama: the view does not transpose the beholder into the valley, but projects the valley back into the room, onto the glazing, which is not an opening,31 but a screen – or rather many small screens, through which the landscape is fragmented. The vertical slabs that structure the glass panes have been said to “block what would otherwise be a stunning landscape view32”, but this is obviously intentional: the outside is not to be exhibited but to be incorporated33. As a result of the undulating glass panes the panorama is decomposed into a multitude of framed images reminiscent of a salon-style hanging. The Crypt
Let us now head from the monastic “salon” to another communal, but entirely different space. On the northern end of the corridor we are approaching a corridorwide bronze door. This can be rotated ninety degrees to open up entirely, but we will just use the small – but heavy – nautical hatch that is cut into the main door. In having to stride over the high doorstep, while at the same time being forced to lower our head in order not to bump it on the upper edge of the opening, we do not just walk in, but truly enter the inside of the church. Here we understand why almost every critic that has dealt with the convent has compared the church to a boîte à miracles34. Its austere interior, composed almost completely of béton brut, constitutes a bare box that is animated by a number of geometric incisions “where light penetrates only through orifices so artfully twisted that they allow not the slightest
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26 “La Tourette Priory functioned as a place of study for around 80 young Dominicans and teachers for 10 years … Very quickly however the Priory revealed itself to be too large for two reasons. Firstly, the Vatican II Council in Rome … had radically changed Catholic liturgy and its associated way of life. Secondly, the evolution in France of modern society, linked with the May ‘68 riots, provoked a crisis in the Catholic church, and the number of young people keen to become a priest decreased dramatically” (du Payrat, 2002, p.105) 27 “Once more, the decisive core of the monastic condition is not a substance or content, but a habitus or a form.” (Agamben, 2013, p.57) For Martin Purdy (1977, p.307) “the continous form of the traditional cloister admitted end28 less perambulation, a far more apt symbol of monastic existence than can be gleaned from the crossshaped routes at La Tourette, which are mere circulation passages.” However Le Corbusier never intended this space to be the cloister which was supposed to be on the roof, or even – as we have argued above – embedded in the surroundings. Furthermore it is interesting to note that in German this element is called Kreuzgang – “cross-corridor”, which is however not derived from its shape but from the processional crosses carried through there. (Altmann, 2011, p.29) Moreover, in the first (diagrammatic) ground-plan of a monastery known today – the St. Gall plan – the paths through the courtyard of the cloister have the shape of a cross. Iannis Xenakis, who had worked out the system and the composition of the glazing, named 29 them so, “because of the undulation of the densities.” (Xenakis, 1987, p.146) 30
Samuel, 2013, p.144
31 The glass elements can literally not be opened, furthermore the actual openings – the swivel ventilators – are opaque. 32
Aureli and Giudici, 2013, p.113
33 In a meeting with the brothers of the monastery Le Corbusier remarked: “But panoramic views are not worth much in general. They are empty, without substance.” (Petit, 1961, p.28) 34 Probably the earliest application of this theme to La Tourette was by Colin Rowe (1982, p.197), who compares the church to the stage for the open air theatre at the Tokyo Museum – a rather formalistic likeness, which nevertheless provides a quite suitable term.
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glimpse of the outside but illuminate or color the decorations of a pure inside.35“ The pure geometry of the nave is kept free of any corporal intrusion and “the parts that enable light to be captured and sound to resonate – develop outward from the church.36” At an early phase of the project it was even considered to put a huge paraboloid on the roof to project the sound of the (electronic) bells into the valley37 – which has later been romanticized into the idea of projecting the liturgical chants38. Pushing out of the northern wall there is the side chapel (also often referred to as the crypt) which can be accessed through the sacristy, from where we then descend into a narrow tunnel underneath the church that leads us into its innermost – indeed it almost feels as though it leads into the bowels of the earth itself. This small “cave,” which is illumined by three circular light “cannons” in the ceiling, was intended for the friars to celebrate morning mass by themselves39 and there are seven individual altars in the room, each stepping down a bit further in keeping with the inclination of the ground. This stepped slope triggers an interesting observation: on this innermost part of the church the outside – in the form of the terrain of the site – is abstractly reintroduced. Additionally the cavern bulges out as though it was trying to break free and abandon its state of absolute introversion. But the absolute futility of this revolt only intensifies the feeling of being in a place of pure interiority. The Cella
Let us then retreat from this cul-de-sac, this “lowest part which provides the ‘highest’ 40 ”, and wander back through the corridor, up into the living quarters. For the average visitor some of these areas are marked as “off-limits” by small signs, but this nothing compared to the state before 1968 when “the hallways were literally blocked by grated metal screens in the corridors.41” It was also this period, when the cells for the one hundred brothers, that were initially meant to dwell here42, were still occupied – today most of the rooms are empty, and open for anybody to enter. Upon doing so we are confronted to what appears to be bare necessity: a sink, a shelf, a bed, a table, a window, a loggia – no more, no less. Here Le Corbusier had the chance to actually realise himself what had so immensely influenced him as a young architect: a monastic cell43. The term cell is derived from the latin cella, which originally described a small room. Interestingly the it was first used in a monastic context and the nowadays prevalent biological sense was only introduced in the seventeenth century44. This monastic cell is not only a disconnected, introverted space, but also the physical “representation of interiority45“ as a mental state itself. Paradoxically it is this physical and metaphorical internment that enables the mind to “open up”46, which indicates that the cell, this “autonomy of the interior47”, is not a means to itself but a threshold. In the cells of La Tourette this condition finds its expression in the dialectic between the interior and the exterior48. The opening of the loggia technically offers – dependent on the orientation of the cell
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35 Deleuze (1991, p.233) ends his sentence, by directly referring to the convent: “…(is it not the Baroque spirit which, in this sense, inspires Le Corbusier in the La Tourette abbey?)” 36 (Potié, 2001, p.54) Iannis Xenakis remembers:“Suddenly we realized that the Dominicans made use of an organ but that there was no place for it in the church. I designed a kind of concrete “knapsack” on the exterior of the church’s west side, at the end of the choir.” (Xenakis, 1987, p.147) 37
cf. Ibid.
38
cf. Potié, 2001, p.56
39 “The lower church is the innermost domain of the monastery; here every morning, as mass is celebrated in silence, hope rises afresh.” (Henze, 1966, p.13) 40
Le Corbusier in: Petit, 1961, p.28
41
F. Samuel, 2013, p.139
42 The task presented by Father Marie-Alain Coutourier to Le Corbusier was to “create a silent dwelling place for one hundred bodies and one hundred hearts” (Potié, 2001, p.7) 43 Most notably his stays at the Charterhouse of Ema (the Certosa del Galluzzo) in 1907 and at the Mount Athos in 1911. 44
cf. Online Etymology Dictionary, 2013
45 Roland Barthes (2002, p.52) notes in his outline for his How To Live Together lecture series: “Clearly, cella = representation of interiority” The Benedictine Peter of Celle (sic) wrote on this capability of the cell in his essay On Aff46 liction and Reading from around 1160: “The mind has a more extensive and expansive leisure within the six surfaces of a room than it could gain outside by traversing the four parts of the world.” (Petter of Celle, 1987, p.139) With regard to La Tourette a student friar wrote, almost precisely 800 years later, that “the wall, less than a meter away from our eyes, is the calm and lone witness of this exhausting quest, always to be resumed, always to be continued.” in: Petit, 1961, p.74 47 “The monad is a cell, more a sacristy than an atom … The monad is the autonomy of the interior, an interior without exterior” (Deleuze, 1991, p.233) 48 “Here the design concept is grounded on the dialectical relationship between the desk and the loggia, with the glazing acting as a hinge that visually connects the two spaces.” (Potié, 2001, p.38)
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- a panoramic view of the landscape, but – despite the fact that the entire width of the cell is opened up – one does not have a substantial impression of looking outside, but rather one of viewing a projection on a wall. Due to the limited space in the cell, the point of view towards the outside is almost as constrained as in linear perspective – but here we are not provided with geometric vanishing lines that could create a considerable dimension of depth. This “flattened” vista is – framed by the loggia and the windows in the partition wall – neither inside nor outside, but the amalgamation of the former opposites: the exterior becomes part of the interior49. Conversely this does not apply however, as the outside does not really disclose anything about the interior: in fact the uniform facade does not even really display that there is an interior at all50. Also on the other end of the cell, in the corridors – which have “concrete flowers” at their ends to block the luring view of the outside – the impression is dominated by uniformity (an expression of the democratic ideal of the Dominican order or mere functionalism?), which goes so far that the numbered doors need name plates to distinguish them from one another. In fact the uniformity extends beyond the individual corridors and extends to the layout of the cell floors themselves, which must have been regarded as being completely interchangeable by Le Corbusier as he never published the plans of both floors but only one – even though there are differences in the layout51. The Hortus Conclusus
One of these differences is the single staircase that leads from the upper floor to the roof, where we find the walled garden. Let us for a moment not look at the situation as it is now, but as it was intended. The first idea was to put the cloister on the roof but this was quickly given up52; the next phase is pretty similar to the build state we find now: a walled, grass covered terrace on which some sculptural objects – such as the iconic belfry – are distributed. But there is one main difference: today the parapet is considerably lower, clearing the view of the dramatic landscape around the convent. As originally intended the wall was 1.83m high53, obstructing the panorama for the majority of people. Corbusier was well aware of the view, stating that the terrace “was in the face of the entirety of this natural spectacle” – but then he goes on to proclaim that “it is beautiful because one does not see it.54” As mentioned, this state was not achieved but if we lower our point of view, we can understand what the impression would have been. The garden is completely covered by the celestial canopy and the open terrace transforms into an enclosed space. If one assumes that usually “it is from the very fact of concentration in the most restricted space that the dialectics of inside and outside draws its strength,55” then Le Corbusier proves the opposite: here on the roof, not even inside the actual building, he creates a space that one knows to be completely outside, but perceives as essentially inside – at least until one straightens up again.
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49 Le Corbusier states in a booklet (quoted in: von Moos, 2009, p.293) on his house on Lake Geneva, that “to make landscape interesting, one must take the radical decision to limit it, to give it certain dimensions” – the composition of the outside thus becomes part of the design of the interior. 50 Colin Rowe (1982, p.189) describes his impression that “the conditions of its visibility lead … to an awareness of ranges of verticals implicated in quick succession, of the returns of balconies rather than the presence of windows at their rear.” 51
The differences can be seen in the building‘s escape plan.
52
cf. Xenakis, 1987, p.144
53 At least if we assume that this is what Phillipe Potié (2001, p.34) refers to when providing this Modulor measure as the current measurement of the wall – which it is clearly not. 54
J. Petit, 1961, p.28
55
Bachelard, 1958, p.229
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Inside Out
“With me you will have paradoxes all the time.56” Here, back on the outside – and at once in what one could call the convent’s (impeded) absolute inside – the tour comes to an end. Apparently this excursion was not so much of a promenade, but more of a guided tour focusing on selected situations and impressions. But effectively this staccato corresponds to the sensation the actual building itself evokes in the user: “a strange feeling of witnessing a neverending series of non-sequitur architectural episodes57.” Only through movement, in the actual motion from one episode to the other, do we experience any relationship between inside and outside58, and more specifically between inside and inside. As we have seen in the architectural episodes described above, each of these insides appears to be absolutely introverted, turned inwards and self-contained. It is interesting to note here, that quite a lot of these scenes are anticipated in the Marseille Unité: the roof garden, the narrow layout and the loggias of the living units59, the communal spaces, et cetera. But in Marseille the spatial impressions correspond to a uniquely proficient translation of a profane content60, and – despite its formal expressiveness – the Unité clearly adheres to a rational program, while at La Tourette the program is “transcended” by the spirituality of the task. The edifice is not built around a function, but around a purpose – it is the embodiment of an ethos. The convent thus constitutes a pure “ascetic space”, an environment that “makes the user aware of his own body and his relationships to his surroundings61” – and it is exactly this awareness that sets La Tourette apart, because, in essence, any architecture creates a surrounding and thus an inside. As it is obviously not concerned with the making of space – this is already there – but with the framing of it, architecture is essentially about creating or rather defining an inside within an outside. But clearly this kind of spatial definition is not limited to architecture alone: during a storm the rain forms a curtain around the treetop; in a dark night the light of a candle suffices to create a space; in the mist a dynamic interior encloses around the wanderer... The major difference is that the convent not only constitutes a space, but that through this space we are made aware that we are in it. Furthermore the inside is not merely around us, but rather “we are an integral part of the interior62”, and we are consciously experiencing this reciprocal relationship between us and the space we are in. But being inside space, means that it forms the outside – which only demonstrates the obvious: that every interior is at the same time an exterior63. In this sense any inside is part of a nesting of insides – an endless Matryoshka doll, where the outside of every layer is nothing but the inside of the former. This ubiquitous layering of different levels of interiority is clearly articulated and conceptually emphasized in La Tourette: it suffices here to recall the case of the sacristy, tied in between the church and the slope, visible and almost palpable from
32
56
Le Corbusier in a conversation with the convent‘s community. In: Petit, 1961, p.28
57
Aureli and Giudici, 2013, p.114
58
cf. Xenakis, 1987, p.144
59 Actually the moulds for the loggia‘s concrete panels of the Unité in Rezé-les-Nantes were reused in La Tourette. (Potié, 2001, p.94) 60 With view to these similarities it seems interesting to recall Peter Serenyi‘s (1967, p. 286) impression “that, ideally at least, each apartment of the Marseilles Block is designed for a single human being, living completely alone, while sharing the advantages of a larger collective order.” 61
Aureli and Giudici, 2013, p.117
62
Arnheim, 1996, p.48
63 The only thing that one could actually consider to be exclusively an outside is space itself: “a boundless, three-dimensional extent in which objects and events occur and have relative position and direction.” (Encyclopaedia Britannica Online, 2014)
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the nave – actually forming an underlying transept – but then not accessible for the ordinary user. What we have denoted as a series of architectural episodes above, could then more accurately be described as a juxtaposition – a spatial montage64. There is no absolute category of inside and outside, just as there is no measure to them – as terminologies they only function dialectically65 – which is why there can be no such thing as an autonomous in- or outside: they only exist as an antitheses to each other,66 that do not adhere to exclusiveness but to simultaneity. But embedded in this omnipresent polarity there is a perceptible tendency in the convent – the introverted nature of the spaces in La Tourette does not constitute a stagnant ‘insideness’ but rather a quasi-dynamic inwardness67. It is not that these spaces are interiorised, but that they interiorise. We only have to remind us of the lighting in the church or the windows of the cells, to see that the outside is constantly projected inward68. A tendency which ultimately jumps over on the user himself – the building collapses the space within the user’s mind – the ultimate inside. Which then opens up to the most exterior imaginable. And we are faced with one climactic paradox: that through the very sculptural formalism that characterizes the Convent of Sainte-Marie de La Tourette, a most essential quasi-abstract space is created – and the inwardness of architecture is rendered69.
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64 In A Dialectic Approach to Film Form Sergej Eisenstein (1949, p.45), the ‘father of montage’ writes: “According to Marx and Engels the dialectic system is only the conscious reproduction of the dialectic course (substance) of the external events of the world. Thus: The projection of the dialectic system of things into the brain into creating abstractly into the process of thinking yields: dialectic methods of thinking; PHILOSOPHY. dialectic materialism – And also: The projection of the same system of things while creating concretely while giving form yields: ART” 65 Jean Hyppolite (1997, p.165) writes: “These words of representation, inside and outside, fit a nature that realises the absolute Idea in spatial indifference, but they are nothing but dialectical terms in the absolute form or in the element of the Logos.” 66 And they constantly renegotiate their opposing positions: “Outside and inside are both intimate - they are always ready to be reversed, to exchange their hostility” (Bachelard, 1958, pp.217f) Inwardness understood here as both “internal quality or substance” and “fundamental nature: 67 essence”. (Merriam-Webster, 2014) 68 Arata Isozaki (1971, p.7) writes that “the interior of La Tourette involves you in some sort of vortex…” 69 And that could maybe explain the building‘s continuing prominence – despite the fact that, already 15 years after its inauguration, “as a lasting response to the problem of twentieth-century monasticism, it has already proved a failure” ( Purdy, 1977, p.308)
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Winston Hampel Marina Lathouri / History & Critical Thinking Architectural Association 2014
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