Sainte-Marie-de-la-Tourette Monastery

Project

Designed to house a hundred monks (pupils and teachers) the monastic complex was made up of a church, a chapter room, classrooms, a library, a refectory, visiting rooms, kitchens and individual cells.

The programme corresponded to the three primary functions of monastic life: living on the site, studying, and praying.

In this concrete edifice of pure geometrical volumes and Brutalist textures, Le Corbusier deployed a palette of devices for controlling natural light, sculpting interior space and volumes. These included “light cannons”, “machine guns”, horizontal and vertical slits, light wells, sun shields, loggias, and glass panels. Inspired by Cistercian monasteries and organized on a square plan, the monastery of La Tourette is made up of two distinct main buildings: the U-shaped monastery and, closing it off to the north, the church. The three wings of the monastery rest on a frame of concrete posts and beams. The two upper levels are assigned to the living quarters and house the monks’ cells. These are organized functionally and articulate from outside to inside, following the natural decrease in luminosity: a loggia for meditation, then a well-lit work space and finally a resting place with a bed, separated from the  toilet area by a built-in wardrobe.

The cells materialize Le Corbusier’s research on minimal individual dwellings and have Modulor dimensions: 5.92 m in length, 1.83 m in height and in width 1.83 m for the friars and 2.26 m for the fathers.

The lower floors are assigned to shared activities: classrooms, library, oratory, chapter room, refectory and kitchen. The cells are recognizable from their loggias, with  prefabricated panels incorporating stones. On the lower floors, the free and independent facades of the supporting structure allowed Le Corbusier to vary his treatment of the elevations. Towards the courtyard, he uses Z or H shaped glass panels, prefabricated modules with alternating opaque (concrete) and glazed sections. Towards the outside, he uses pans ondulatoires, undulating sections made up of concrete mullions arranged at varying distances and forming “waves”.

These undulating sections, probably inspired by construction techniques seen in India, were designed jointly with Iannis Xénakis. It was at La Tourette that they were used for the first time and that all their technical and poetic potential was used to advantage.

The monastery is surmounted by a roof terrace conceived as a space for meditation, the high concrete parapet protecting the monks at prayer from the risk of distraction. In the absence of a cloister, impossible to build on the sloping terrain, the different structures are connected at ground floor level by corridors forming a cross and called conduits. Construction on pilotis (stilts) provides a solution to the problem posed by the steep slope of the terrain.

The church is a shuttered concrete parallelepiped with meticulously designed formwork. It is lit by a light well and by horizontal and vertical slits with coloured surfaces, bringing to the interior constantly varied lighting effects. The crypt and sacristy adjoining the church are fitted with oblique light sources known as “light cannons” or “machine guns,” some of them polychrome.