MIT Libraries homeDome

View from the south approach; "Surrealism is a key to other late works of Le Corbusier, most notably the church at Ronchamp, France, of 1950-1954... Notre-Dame-du-Haut was a more extreme statement of Le Corbusier's late style. Programmatically,...the church is simple--an oblong nave, two side entrances, an axial main altar, and three chapels beneath towers--as is its structure, with rough masonry walls faced with whitewashed Gunite (sprayed concrete) and a roof of contrasting béton brut [raw concrete]. Formally and symbolically, however, this small building, which is sited atop a hillside with access from the south, is immensely powerful and complex." pp 542-524 Source: Trachtenberg, Marvin; Hyman, Isabelle; Architecture, from prehistory to post-modernism : the Western tradition, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1986 (0810910772) (accessed 1/4/2008)