La Tourette Study Trip

As part of my final year study at the University of Limerick I stayed in La Tourette monastery in France for one week. I wanted to discover themes of society and nature in relation to the monastic life of the monastery. I was also hoping to uncover some of the secrets the architect (Le Corbusier) had to offer at first hand. I had previously studied the Venice hospital and discovered some fascinating truths about the structure. I stayed in one of the living cells in the silent monastery with others in my class for the week and this was an integral experience to understanding the logic of the buildings design.

Light is the most important aspect to this building. La Corbusier is very selective in its use. It is expertly used in the chapel where morning light is given colour that illuminates the pews for morning prayers.
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​The bedroom cells surround the exterior perimeter of the monastery.  They are compact and utilitarian in their arrangement. The cells have a sink, wardrobe, bed, table and chair. The arrangement of these items is non negotiable and remain as the architect wished. The width of the bedroom will not allow the bed to be orientated  width-ways and the chair is not wide enough to fit through the balcony door.

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Sainte Marie de La Tourette is built on a steeply sloping site near Lyon in France and was one of Le Corbusier‘s last completed buildings in Europe. Design work began in 1953, and it was constructed between 1956 and 1960. The structure is still in use with around twenty monks still residing in it. It is considered one of his most important works and is part of UNESCO’s world heritage list.
The surfaces of the building make use of rough textures to deal with light in a multitude of ways. The roughness also can be attributed to the on site manufacture and assembly of the building elements. For example the balcony wall is an ensemble of precast panels.

Hand drawn sketch showing the buildings relationship with the ground.

The monastery employed modern building techniques. The terrace walls were prefabricated on site and lifted into place.
The building is raised on pilotis – a recurring characteristic in Le Corbusier’s work – with horizontal strips of windows that are intended to provide equal light for the rooms inside. Xenakis worked extensively on the layout and design of the windows, as he did at the architect’s projects in Chandigarh, India. Flat roofs covering access ramps and cloisters are covered with grass – a feature Le Corbusier said was important in his work to compensate for the green space covered by the building. The green spaces on the roofs were initially used as gardens and the parapet walls were deigned to be one meter higher than they were built to give an unadulterated experience with the sky.