case study: couvent sainte-marie de la tourette

case study: couvent sainte-marie de la tourette 

DAVID JENISTA 

LE CORBUSIER and IANNIS XENAKIS 1953-1960

“To house one hundred hearts and 

one hundred bodies in silence” 

form 

The above were the words of Dominican 

Father Marie-Alain Couturier; his commission's 

essence offered to friend and architect 

Le Corbusier for a monastery to house one 

hundred Dominican monks. Couvent Sainte- 

Marie de la Tourette (henceforth La Tourette) 

was considered to be of a genius nature and 

in order to understand the form, or rather 

forms, we must examine Le Corbusier's ideas 

on architecture as well as the culture and social 

customs of the Dominican lifestyle. We 

will also see that the genius of the form meets 

the theoretical standards of other architects. 

As Le Corbusier states in terms of mass: Architecture 

is the masterly, correct and magnificent play 

of masses brought together in light. Our eyes are 

made to see forms in light; light and shade reveal 

these forms; cubes, cones, spheres, cylinders or 

pyramids are the great primary forms which light 

reveals to advantage; the image of these is distinct 

and tangible within us and without ambiguity. 

It is for that reason that these are beautiful 

forms, the most beautiful forms. (Le Corbusier, 29)

golden section diagram 

It is suggested that impure forms would detract 

from the beauty of a building while also 

deterring us from maximally experiencing 

the spaces within it. Le Corbusier's "geometric 

rule of the building encompasses the 

underlying forms of prismatic solids, [and] 

the application of Modulor measurements 

[is attributed] to many aspects of the interior" 

(Gans, 101). The Modulor was a system 

of proportion, of Le Corbusier's design, 

based on human measurements, the double 

unit, the Fibonacci numbers, and the golden 

ratio. It was the Modulor merged with the 

musical compositions of Corbusier's project 

manager, Iannis Xenakis, that dictated the 

language of the pans de verre ondulatoires, 

the pinwheel fenestrations, and other proportions 

of the monastery. It is the success 

of the pure forms in conjunction with Le Corbusier's 

expert experimentation with light 

and proportion that allow the monks to experience 

La Tourette for its function in a lucid 

manner rather than through the distraction 

of what could be termed 'impure forms.' 

On a much smaller scale of form, because 

La Tourette was partially cast in place, it becomes 

necessary to depict how some accidental 

forms came to be. While Le Corbusier was 

certainly not a fanatic of the Gothic style he 

did recognize that "entrusting the physical expression 

of his design to those building it was 

at once a logical acceptance of circumstance 

and a romantic act based on a neo-Gothic trust 

in the relation of the workman to the work" 

(Gans, 102). This notion is more evident when

we consider Ruskin's idea that forms were not limited by a master plan and that the form 

as derived at the hands of man; "utterly regardless of any established conventionalities 

of external appearance, knowing [...] that such daring interruptions of the formal plan 

would rather give additional interest to its symmetry than injure it" (Ruskin, 168-169). 

Le Corbusier, through his dialectic of dualities, sought to celebrate the variances and 

mistakes of human error that inevitably contributed to the genius of the final product. 

possible window configurations based on musical scores 

GLYCERINE bush (gavin rossdale) 

J’AVAIS UN AMOUR AUTREFOIS iannis xenakis 

RIVER FLOWS IN YOU yiruma 

THE VOICE WITHIN christina aguilera & glen ballard 

In terms of the monastic lifestyle we can see that the traditional spaces of the cloister 

exist as the monks expressed their needs but, "the form and space distribution was 

left up to Le Corbusier" (Henze, 8). Le Corbusier had visited several abbeys, both in 

his past and in preparation for the project at hand, that left him an incredible understanding 

and appreciation for the monastic lifestyle. He felt the monks exhibited an 

"'indissoluble binomial of the individual-collective'" (Gans, 103). Le Corbusier sought 

to embody t and materially minimalist lifestyle of the monks through a series of dualities, 

his own personal dialectic: Individual-collective; light-dark; secular-religious; 

lucid-obscure; temporal-permanent; incremental-continuous; rational-irrational; architecture-nature; 

high-low. These dualities combined with Le Corbusier's incredible 

understanding of the monks' daily life generated a series of forms in an almost harsh 

contrast to one another that expressed his notion of pure and beautiful geometries.

individual :: collective 

incremental :: continuous 

secular :: religious 

formative binomial dialectic 

dark :: light 

high :: low 

lucid :: obscure 

nature :: architecture 

irrational :: rational 

individual :: collective

I wish to venture to compare the genius of 

La Tourette to the theoretical standards of 

Paul Rudolph and his six determinants of 

architectural form. The following examination 

seeks to pull minimal examples from 

La Tourette and should offer a glimpse 

into the specific forms of the structure. 

First Determinant: Building's Environment 

In relation to the site, Le Corbusier 

sought to separate the building from the hillside 

in an effort to dominate the surrounding 

nature to reinforce his dialectic of dualities 

which reiterates Rudolph's thought that 

"religious buildings [...] should serve as focal 

points in our cities" (Rudolph, 213). 

Second Determinant: Function 

By reducing La Tourette to a mere 

function with no excesses and the maximization 

of circulation, the form that took shape 

reflected both traditional monastic values 

and Le Corbusier's personal ideas and theories. 

Interestingly enough, La Tourette exceedingly 

satisfies Rudolph's idea that the 

building should be regarded as whole in how 

it works. 

Third Determinant: Particular Site Conditions 

Simply enough the building responds 

to sun patterns, access to the site, and location 

and positioning in relation to the surrounding 

forest and valleys. The summer 

solstice generated the forms of the sacristy 

light cannons. 

Fourth Determinant: Materials 

In order to render the abbey affordable 

while reflecting the simple and non- 

materialistic nature of the monks, Le Corbusier 

resolved to use both precast and cast in place 

concrete. The monolithic nature of the form is 

reinforced by the materiality in that it expresses 

the building's eloquence and true nature, as 

Rudolph suggests it should. 

Fifth Determinant: Psychology 

Rudolph believes that this determinant 

is achieved "through the manipulation of space 

and the use of symbols" (Rudolph, 214). The 

oratory column and the main ambulatory are 

cruciform in nature and thus symbolize the religious 

nature of La Tourette. 

Sixth Determinant: Spirit of the Time 

Here is where I believe La Tourette does 

not measure up with Rudolph's values. Not in 

the sense that Le Corbusier was wrong in his 

design, but because he was correct. It could 

be argued that Le Corbusier was not concerned 

with the spirit of the times. He merely wished 

to convey a building through a binomial language 

that reflected the values and needs of 

the Dominicans. The form of La Tourette is not 

troubled with the ideas of an outside society 

and so I dare to suggest that it renders Rudolph's 

sixth determinant irrelevant. 

body 

Now that we have discussed La Tourette in 

terms of form we must consider the body; 

the building as a place to house one hundred 

healthy bodies and a strcuture that is ‘made’ up 

of one hundred (or more) bodies. In “The Medical 

Body in Modern Archtiecture,” by Beatriz 

Colomina, we find that Le Corbusier believes 

the “house is first and foremost a machine for

personal barrier 

sun 

view 

ventilation 

the healthy body and the cell 

he believed disease was bred. Furthermore, 

he reiterated a healthy body by incorporating 

the roof garden where the monks could get 

exercise. Le Corbusier so strongly believed in 

a healthy body in architecture that even the 

monks’ cells in La Tourette mimic this notion. 

The cells are completely private (unless one 

were to invite another in), including the balconies. 

They offer cross ventilation from the 

balconies into the halls through operable louvers. 

Every room looks out into nature and 

so each room receives sun light, air, and a 

view. I touched on this in terms of form, but 

Corbusier designed the monastery around a 

series of daulities. The dualaity of individual 

versus collective offers an extensive set of 

options in La Tourette where bodies become 

more densified or released throughout. If we 

extend Corbusier’s obsession to a healthy 

mind, we have only to offer one of many examples. 

People who have visited La Tourette 

have said that the building is anything but 

dreary and so we may suggest that the building 

bolsters the healthy body and mind. But 

now let us look at the Modulor. 

health, a form of therapy” (Colomina, 232). 

Clearly we are not under the impression 

that La Tourette is a house, but Corbusier’s 

five points of architecture, and his apparent 

obsession with health, as described by 

Colomina, offer insight into La Tourette as 

a healthy ‘home’ for one hundred monks. 

“Le Corbusier has long been obsessed with 

health,” (Colomina, 232) and so La Tourette 

was raised from the ground in an effort to remove 

the inhabitants from the ground where 

concentration of bodies in space

At one point Colomina offers that Le Corbusier and his colleagues removed the body as a symbol 

and something that occupies architecture and replaced it as a body that informs architecture. 

This is Le Corbusier’s Modulor and it can only be described as a genius proportioning system, 

and as previously discussed it was based on human measurements, the double unit, the Fibonacci 

numbers, and the golden ratio. 

Primitive men at all times and in all places, as also the bearers of high civilization, Egyptian, Chaldean, Greek, all 

these have built and, by that token, measured. What were the tools they used? They were eternal and enduring, 

precious because they were linked to the human person. The names of these tools were: elbow (cubit), 

finger (digit), thumb (inch), foot, pace, and so forth. . . . Let us say it at once: they formed an integral part of the 

human body, and for that reason they were fit to serve as measures for the huts, the houses and the temples 

that had to be built. More than that: they were indefinitely rich and subtle because they formed part of the 

mathematics of the human body, gracious, elegant and firm, the source of that harmony which moves us: beauty. 

(Le Corbusier, 18-19). 

27 

43 

Just as Corbusier highly regarded the primitive 

form, so he highly regards the body. And 

why should he not when he believes in the 

simplicity of forms? These tools, these ways 

of measuring, they are infinitely more impressive 

when we consider that they are the original 

tools. The beauty that Corbusier sees in 

these tools is that they are a part of a greater 

whole that is, by nature, of divine proportion. 

I will not go into detail about how the Modulor 

was derived (I would never do it justice 

considering there are two books devoted to 

70 

86 

113 

140 

226 

183 

86 

Modulor to the Test 

226 

183 

cell dimensions

technique 

The Panel Exercise 

Architectural technique is a vast and varied 

process that can be attributed to any piece 

of work worth noting. Architects employ a 

series of tools -- of techniques -- that work for 

them and that are drivers of form, concept, 

circulation, etc. Le Corbusier typically used 

The Modulor as a technique, but I wanted to 

explore a few other ideas since I’ve already 

touched on The Modulor in previous portions 

of this study. I would like to explore a diagram 

that deals with materiality of La Tourette in 

it) just that the system combines these ratios 

and mathematics and produces an infinite 

number of combinations. In his book, 

The Modulor, Corbusier describes an exercise 

in which “you take a square, say, and divert 

yourself by dividing it up in accordance with 

the measures of the ‘Modulor’. The game can 

be played indefinitely. Another version of the 

exercise is to try to decide which of the combinations 

are the most satisfactory or the most 

beautiful” (Le Corbusier, 92). The keywords 

by Corbusier here are “which of the combinations 

are the most satisfactory or the most 

beautiful.” We already know that Corbusier 

believes primary forms to beautiful, as well 

as the rudimentary tools that are our bodies; 

logically we can only conclude that any form, 

iteration, pattern, or otherwise derived from 

the Modulor is beautiful; it is not a question 

of an ugly iteration of the body, that does not 

exist out of the Modulor, it is a question of 

which iteration we find most beautiful. 

relation to the monastic lifestyle. I’ll be looking 

at concrete and how it performs functionally 

for aesthetics and design. Following that 

I want to touch on the idea of typology and 

precedent where I can use other monasteries 

for inspiration and how they are alike and 

different to La Tourette. Lastly I would like to 

endeavor on the idea of “program.” I want 

to look at how a client’s initial idea of what 

they want can be integrated into the process 

of technique.

view 

light 

thickness 

folding 

This diagram is a brief exploration in concrete 

in relation to the monastery and the monks 

choosing to live with few to no material possessions; 

the almost bare nature of the concrete 

achieves this notion. I wanted to look 

at how puncturing concrete affects a space in 

terms of light and view; wall and roof thick- 

materiality 

ness; and folding. From this exploration I find 

that I’m noticing more subtle details through 

La Tourette. I am questioning why each light 

puncture is positioned as is and how the 

thickness of roofs and walls can affect those 

punctures as well as their position.

Here I have looked at the monastery as a 

‘type.’ I took a handful of monasteries from 

around the world and created simple parti diagrams 

from each. Similarly with La Tourette. 

Then I looked at morphing all of the chapels 

into one mess. The results have shown me 

that regardless of where and when each 

monastery was built, the cloister remains a 

prominent shape in the partis. While Corbusier 

chose to explore a more direct circulation 

he still left hints of the quadrangle and the 

idea that the monastery is literally “inside the 

box” away from the world. 

typology

“To house one hundred hearts and one hundred 

minds in silence.” This quote embodies 

the entirety of La Tourette. The diagram 

reflects a triptych; The Father, The Son, and 

The Holy Ghost. The Father is representing 

the heart. The Son, God’s worldly form , is 

the body. Lastly, in silence means to be of 

program 

oneself, of their own soul, The Holy Ghost. 

The red dot signifies the lack of sound in the 

monastery and is tied into the fact that other 

well known monasteries, and many others, 

find themselves secluded, allowing both the 

monks and the building to reside in silence.

space 

In architecture we often think of space as this 

all encompassing entity; places that both are 

enclosed and open. Henri Lefebvre, in his 

writing, The Production of Space, suggests 

that the spaces we create in architecture carry 

messages, that “space indeed ‘speaks’ — 

but it does not tell all” (Lefebvre, 183). Furthermore 

Lefebvre elicits that space decides 

what may or may not happen within it. This 

idea is made apparent in La Tourette when 

we consider formal and social logics, material 

implications, and sensations and ritual. What 

I would like to suggest is that La Tourette em- 

bodies a space that speaks to ideas of minimalism 

and ritual. Some of this language 

may be blatantly readable and other portions 

perhaps slightly more ambiguous. 

As a whole, the monastery is governed 

through the formal and cultural logics of program. 

In the diagram below we see two sets 

of plans. The plans on the left illustrate a 

formal governance. Each programmatic typology 

is delineated through color; purple 

as prayer, red as dining, blue as education, 

green as living, and yellow as visitor holding. 

The message of these spaces suggest singular 

formal program cultural program

functionality, this is plausible being that the 

monks of La Tourette lead a very structured 

and strict lifestyle. On the right, the plans are 

divided out by public space (green) and private 

space (red). This is the cultural logic of 

La Tourette. Because the monks live mostly 

in solitude, public and private exist as a cultural 

boundary between the insiders and the 

outsiders. 

When we look at the church of La Tourette 

more closely we can see a new spatial ordinance 

beyond program; patterns in sensation 

and emotion. People often feel a wide range 

of sensations in a church (guilt, humility, exaltation, 

joy, redemption, relief, love, grief, 

helplessness, reverence, etc). The intensity 

of these sensations and emotions vary from 

person to person but repetition of these emotions 

and sensations are achieved through 

ritual. The rituals of prayer, mass, funerals, 

weddings, and so on. The language of this 

space becomes more mysterious. I am not 

looking to delve into Christian mythology and 

whether or not prayer and miracles are legitimate, 

what I am seeking to convey is that 

sensational space

the people who do believe in these aspects 

of religion find spaces such as La Tourette as 

representing a language as wide as the sensations 

felt within it. 

Finally I would like to discuss the material 

implications made through space. As we 

have already discussed, the Monks at La Tourette 

live a minimalist lifestyle, no ornament 

or added frills. Furthermore, Le Corbusier 

had to consider the fact that the budget for 

the monastery was relatively low. On closer 

inspection of the spaces of the monastery 

I started to realize there was a trend in the 

colors that Corbusier used. The material diagram 

below shows the colors, materials, and 

“ornaments” found throughout the monastery. 

Some mistake the stark nature of the 

spaces as being depressing when, in fact, Le 

Corbusier intentionally designed them in this 

manner. The spaces speak to a reality that 

what we truly need in life is far less than what 

we actually practice. 

COLOR 

red: the color of blood and fire; 

represents the commemoration 

of martyred saints and pentacost 

yellow: the color of light; represents 

divinity 

green: the color of plant life: 

represents triumph of life over 

death 

white: represents purity, innocence, 

and holiness 

black: represent death 

MATERIAL 

cloth: minimal and plain 

concrete: inexpensive and plain 

wood: no trim or stain 

SYMBOLS 

crucifix: only ornament in all of 

La Tourette 

material implications

sources 

A. Henze and B. Moosbrugger, Le Corbusier: La Tourette, Josef Keller Verlag, 1966. 

Beatriz Colomina, ``The Medical Body in Modern Architecture,`` in Anybody, MIT Press, 1997, pp. 284-89. 

Charles Jencks, Le Corbusier and the Tragic View of Architecture, Allen Lane, 1973, pp. 

Deborah Gans, The Le Corbusier Guide: Third Edition, Princeton Architectural Press, 2006, pp. 100-105. 

Henri Lefebvre, “The Production of Space,” in K.M. Hays, ed., Architecture Theory since 1968, pp. 178-188. 

J. Ruskin, “The Nature of Gothic,” in Stones of Venice (1853), Penguin, 2001, pp. 91-105. 

Jose Baltanas, Walking Through Le Corbusier: A Tour of His Masterworks, Thames and Hudson, 2005, pp. 134- 

165. 

K. Frampton and R. Schezen, Le Corbusier: Architect of the Twentieth Century, Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 2002, pp. 

177-181. 

Le Corbusier, The Modulor, Faber and Faber, 1948. 

Le Corbusier, Modulor 2, The M.I.T. Press, 1958. 

Le Corbusier, Towards a New Architecture, BN Publishing, 2008. 

Paul Rudolph, “The Six Determinants of Architectural Form,” in C. Jencks and K. Kropf, eds., Theories and Manifestoes 

of Contemporary Architecture, Wiley-Academy, 2006, pp. 213-215. 

Richard Weston, Key Buildings of the Twentieth Century: Plans, Sections and Elevations, W.W. Norton & Company, 

Inc., 2004, pp. 114-115. 

Yukio Fuagawa and Arata Isozaki, Global Architecture: Le Corbusier Couvent Sainte-Marie de La Tourette, 

A.D.A. Edita, 1971.

case study: couvent sainte-marie de la tourette

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