Sainte Marie de La Tourette
| Convent Sainte-Marie de La Tourette | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| General information | |
| Type | Convent |
| Architectural style | Modernist, International |
| Town or city | Éveux, Rhône-Alpes |
| Country | France |
| Construction started | 1956 |
| Completed | 1960 |
| Renovated | 1981 |
| Design and construction | |
| Architect | Le Corbusier |
| Website | |
| http://www.couventlatourette.com/ | |
| Official name | The Architectural Work of Le Corbusier, an Outstanding Contribution to the Modern Movement |
| Type | Cultural |
| Criteria | i, ii, vi |
| Designated | 2016 (40th session) |
| Reference no. | 1321-015 |
| State Party | France |
Sainte Marie de La Tourette is a Dominican Order priory on a hillside near Lyon, France designed by architects Le Corbusier and Iannis Xenakis and constructed between 1956 and 1960. Le Corbusier's design of the building began in May, 1953 with sketches drawn at L'Arbresle, France outlining the basic shape of the building and terrain of the site. La Tourette is considered one of the most important buildings of the late Modernist style.
In July 2016, the building and several other works by Le Corbusier were inscribed as UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
Under the instigation of Marie-Alain Couturier the Dominicans of Lyon charged Le Corbusier with the task of constructing the priory on a hillside at Éveux, near Lyon.
The building contains a hundred bedrooms for teachers and students as well as study halls, a hall for work and one for relaxation, a library and a refectory. There is also a church, where the friars worship and pray, which connects all the parts (the achievement of the traditional cloister form is rendered impossible here by the slope of terrain). On two levels, the loggias crowning the building (one for each acoustically isolated monk's cell) form brises-soleil. The study halls, work and relaxation halls, as well as the library occupy the upper-level. Below is the refectory and the cloister in the form of a cross leading to the church. And then come the piles carrying the four convent buildings rising from the slope of the terrain left in its original condition, without terracing.
The structural frame is of rough reinforced concrete. The panes of glass located on the three exterior faces, the so-called "pans de verre ondulatoire" ("undulating glass surfaces"), were designed by Xenakis, and are similar to those of the Secretariat at Chandigarh on which Xenakis also worked. On the other hand, in the garden-court of the cloister, the fenestration is composed of large concrete elements reaching from floor to ceiling, perforated with glazed voids and separated from one another by "ventilators": vertical slits covered by metal mosquito netting and furnished with a pivoting shutter. The corridors leading to the dwelling cells are lit by a horizontal opening located under the ceiling.
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Wikipedia