ronchamp, notre dame du haut

Playing my Corbusian cards like they’re going out of [international] style, I visited Ronchamp today. I intended to spend half a day there and half a day at a canal lock he designed—what with trying to stay within my fundamental underlying initial infrastructural framework and all—but there was only one bus to the lock at noon, sans return. So I was proud to dedicate a day to the chapel, which turned out a fitting move on account of its richness and relatively remote location. I’m showing the chapel in its classic contrapposto here because it encapsulates several features in one go . . . and because it was one of the few sunny photographs managed to snatch. At the same time, it strikes me that such a faux-totalizing view tends to construe the masterpiece as more of a toadstool or clog-stand, dispensing with the roving complexity that marks its true genius. There is a lot to this building that the photograph doesn’t show, and even if I couldn’t see it (said with brow-furrowed gravitas), I at least got to take a gander.