Chapel at Ronchamp, (Roncahmp); 1955 Jiahao Wang

Name: Chapel at Ronchamp

Architect: Le Corbusier

Time: 1995

Chapel at ronchamp built in 1955, and it is one of the famous and important examples of twentieth-century religious architecture. It located in Roncahmp, France. 80,000 people will come here and visit this amazing building every year. This building designed by Le Corbusier, and it was Le Corbusier later architecture style. People thought it was more extreme design, but this design is pretty simple. It only has two entrances. One is a main altar, and another one is under the towers. This building is very small, but it is pretty powerful and interesting because it was singular of Le Corbusier design. Le Corbusier said he pretty liked this design because this location was very special. One reason is we can see skylight in four sides, so it has a pretty nice view. Another reason is Romans liked sun so much, and they thought sun was their belief. In this location, we can see sun in anytime anywhere, so it is a super nice location for the chapel. This chapel is very similar with Acropolis’, but it is different. When you across this building, you can not see anything until you reach the top, so it is very interesting.

When you are on the top of this chapel, you will get a amazing view in all directions.

The structure of this building is made of concrete and stone. The interior walls are white, and the ceiling is gray. The roof of this building is pretty interesting because this roof allow a strip of light to enter this building, so it makes this building feel more open. Another interesting point of this roof is that the concrete roof was planned to slope toward the back. When it is raining, the water will follow this slope and down onto the raised, so it will become a interesting fountain. It looks like it is national, but it is not. This is the most interesting point. It has a small stained glass, and this small glass are set deep into within the walls. The designer Le Corbusier signed his name on it, and this is the only stained glass in this building, On January 17, 2014, this building became the target of a break in, so this only stained glass was broken in that time.

This is a pilgrimage chapel. On special feast days, several thousands people will come here and attend. There has a outside altar, so people can stand outside to attend. Another interesting design is A famous statue of the Virgin Mary was set in a special glass box, and this box can be rotated, so the Virgin Mary can face the inside and outside of this chapel. If the outside visitors want to see the Virgin Mary, we can rotate it to toward outside. I think this is a pretty special and useful design because this design makes the Virgin Mary can face all the visitor. It means Virgin Mary forgive everyone. This is a belief.

Source: The Chapel at Ronchamp

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notre_Dame_du_Haut