La Tourette was built as a Dominican priest school. This meant to Corbusier that he had to design a machine to enable one hundred men to live together in a community with strict rules – men who prepare for their priesthood by study and meditation. Dominican rules and daily routines got to be the basis for the program. There is a balance between work and prayer, solitude and forgathering. Corbusier successfully created a silent place of meditation, study and peace.
Concrete cracking, defective insulation and dangerously installed electricity, calls for a complete restoration of La Tourette. It's now closed and I visited here a few days ago. Not a soul was to be seen. It was silent and beautiful. I studied Le Corbusier when I was an architect student and I fell in love with his brutalism style.
I did not get into the convent itself, but things were lying about, broken windows and even some graffiti in places. Not what I expected coming from one of Le Corbusier's most famous buildings!
Anyways, hope you like the pictures... I'm sure if this was in the UK it would be described as an "eyesore"
Concrete cracking, defective insulation and dangerously installed electricity, calls for a complete restoration of La Tourette. It's now closed and I visited here a few days ago. Not a soul was to be seen. It was silent and beautiful. I studied Le Corbusier when I was an architect student and I fell in love with his brutalism style.
I did not get into the convent itself, but things were lying about, broken windows and even some graffiti in places. Not what I expected coming from one of Le Corbusier's most famous buildings!
Anyways, hope you like the pictures... I'm sure if this was in the UK it would be described as an "eyesore"
Sal
