Ronchamp

Notre Dame du Haut

Ronchamp

Location within Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region

Ronchamp

Coordinates: 47°42′03″N 6°38′02″E / 47.7008°N 6.6339°ECoordinates: 47°42′03″N 6°38′02″E / 47.7008°N 6.6339°E

Country

France

Region

Bourgogne-Franche-Comté

Champagney

Rahin et Chérimont

Government

• Mayor (2008–2014)

Jean Claude Mille

Area¹

23.54 km² (9.09 sq mi)

Population (2006)²

2,961

• Density

130/km² (330/sq mi)

Time zone

CET (UTC+1)

• Summer (DST)

CEST (UTC+2)

INSEE/Postal code

70451 /70250

Elevation

320–790 m (1,050–2,590 ft)
(avg. 353 m or 1,158 ft)

¹ French Land Register data, which excludes lakes, ponds, glaciers > 1 km² (0.386 sq mi or 247 acres) and river estuaries.

²Population without double counting: residents of multiple communes (e.g., students and military personnel) only counted once.

¹ French Land Register data, which excludes lakes, ponds, glaciers > 1 km² (0.386 sq mi or 247 acres) and river estuaries.

Ronchamp is a commune in the Haute-Saône department in the region of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté in eastern France.

It is located between the Vosges and the Jura mountains.

Mining began in Ronchamp in the mid-18th century and had developed into a full industry by the late 19th century, employing 1500 people. The museum looks back at the miners' work, the techniques and tools they used, and their social life. A collection of miners' lamps is also on display.

The chapel of Notre Dame du Haut, designed by Le Corbusier, is located in Ronchamp. The Chapelle Notre-Dame-du-Haut, a shrine for the Catholic Church at Ronchamp was built for a reformist Church looking to continue its relevancy. Warning against decadence, reformers within the Church looked to renew its spirit by embracing modern art and architecture as representative concepts. Father Couturier, who would also sponsor Le Corbusier for the La Tourette commission, steered the unorthodox project to completion in 1954.

This work, like several others in Le Corbusier’s late oeuvre, departs from his principles of standardization and the machine aesthetic outlined in Vers une architecture. In this project, the structural design of the roof was inspired by the engineering of airfoils.

The chapel is clearly a site-specific response. By Le Corbusier’s own admission, it was the site that provided an irresistible genius loci for the response, with the horizon visible on all four sides of the hill and its historical legacy for centuries as a place of worship.

This historical legacy weaved in different layers into the terrain — from the Romans and sun-worshippers before them, to a cult of the Virgin in the Middle Ages, right through to the modern church and the fight against the German occupation. Le Corbusier also sensed a sacral relationship of the hill with its surroundings, the Jura mountains in the distance and the hill itself, dominating the landscape.

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Wikipedia