Ronchamp in the spotlight. The feature of a shocking building in the 50s journals. (original) (raw)

Although currently it is largely accepted that Chapelle Notre-Dame du Haut at Ronchamp is one of the milestones in Le Corbusier’s works, there is no less agreement in saying that it was one of the most controversial of his works and one turning point in modern architecture, not only in terms of digging a grave for functionalism but to opening a window to a wide bunch of architects and works that would have been excluded from history and maybe forever otherwise. In order to recall its importance, we must look back to how architectural journals featured Ronchamp in the mid fifties as, on one hand, Le Corbusier was not a young architect but a very well known and respected one with an international reputation and therefore, it was not easy to criticize his works and, on the other hand, Ronchamp was such a shocking building for many colleagues who had no choice but writing about it that somehow they were between the Devil and the deep blue sea.