Zephyr
Active Member
Homage B1 - Le Corbusier's Final Project
We have been careful to identify the so-called "White Knight" of Modernist Architecture, Richard Meier, with the more Purist or white period of Le Corbusier. But as we all know, after WWII, Le Corbusier embarked on what we now refer to as Brutalism, which focused on the raw concrete finish. When Meier used concrete, he tended to look for a non-Brutalist finish. The best example of this was the Jubilee Church, which resembles none of Le Corbusier's brutalist work, nor any of his churches.
But there is one church that Le Corbusier planned but never saw finished - his last project - St. Peter's Church in Firmiry France. Firminy has less than 20,000 people, and is near the better known town of St. Etienne in the Loire Valley. He envisioned what his biographer Jean-Louis Cohen termed a "concrete testament" to the church, a kind of simplified counterpoint to his famed church in Ronchamp, France - Chapel of Nôtre Dame du Haut.
This church, while classified as Brutalist, is nevertheless touched upon in two Meier projects. But first let us examine Le Courbusier's work, that was finally completed some forty plus years after his tragic death.
> CLICK HERE for Aerial Line Drawing > CLICK HERE for Elevation Line Drawing > CLICK HERE for Main Floor Plan
All Line Drawings © FLC
Above photos © Le Monde
Left to right above - © 2005 Wexner Center for the Arts, The Ohio State University; © Le Monde
We have been careful to identify the so-called "White Knight" of Modernist Architecture, Richard Meier, with the more Purist or white period of Le Corbusier. But as we all know, after WWII, Le Corbusier embarked on what we now refer to as Brutalism, which focused on the raw concrete finish. When Meier used concrete, he tended to look for a non-Brutalist finish. The best example of this was the Jubilee Church, which resembles none of Le Corbusier's brutalist work, nor any of his churches.
But there is one church that Le Corbusier planned but never saw finished - his last project - St. Peter's Church in Firmiry France. Firminy has less than 20,000 people, and is near the better known town of St. Etienne in the Loire Valley. He envisioned what his biographer Jean-Louis Cohen termed a "concrete testament" to the church, a kind of simplified counterpoint to his famed church in Ronchamp, France - Chapel of Nôtre Dame du Haut.
This church, while classified as Brutalist, is nevertheless touched upon in two Meier projects. But first let us examine Le Courbusier's work, that was finally completed some forty plus years after his tragic death.
Le Corbusier's Eglise Saint-Pierre
1971-2006
Firminy-Vert, France
1971-2006
Firminy-Vert, France
> CLICK HERE for Aerial Line Drawing > CLICK HERE for Elevation Line Drawing > CLICK HERE for Main Floor Plan
All Line Drawings © FLC
Above photos © Le Monde
Left to right above - © 2005 Wexner Center for the Arts, The Ohio State University; © Le Monde
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