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ARCHITECTURE INTERRUPTUSWexner Center for the Arts

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Eglise Saint-Pierre de Firminy-Vert

This publication accompanies the exhibition Architecture Interruptus Wexner Center for the Arts The Ohio State University January 26–April 15, 2007

CuratorMegan Cavanaugh Novak Curatorial Assistant Rachel Choto

Exhibition Designer Patrick Weber

Graphic Designer Wendy Qi

Architecture Interruptus was organized by the Wexner Center for the Arts. Major support is provided by Capgemini, NBBJ, and the Greater Columbus Arts Council.

The catalogue is made possible by a generous gift from Elise Jaffe and Jeffrey Brown. Additional support for the exhibition comes from Linda and Jim Miller, auto·des·sys, The Columbus Chapter of The American Institute of Architects, Robert and Sally Wandel, Merilynn and Tom Kaplin, Myers Financial Services LLC, the Corporate Annual Fund of the Wexner Center Foundation, and Wexner Center members.Accommodations are provided byThe Blackwell Inn.

Published by Wexner Center for the Arts The

Ohio State University 1871 North High Street Columbus, Ohio 43210-1393 USA Tel: +(614) 292-0330 Fax: +(614) 292-3369 www.wexarts.org © 2006 Wexner Center for the Arts The Ohio State University Library of Congress Control Number: 2006939610ISBN 10 Digits: 1-881390-42-X ISBN 13 Digits: 978-1-881390-42-8 Distributed by D.A.P. Distributed Art Publishers, Inc. 155 Sixth Avenue, 2nd Floor New York, New York 10013 USA Tel: +(212) 627-1999 / +(800) 338-2665 Fax: +(212) 627-9484 www.artbook.com

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director’s foreword introduction

15

4556drawings

construction

documentationgrandeur is in the

contents

a time for freedom

contemporary photographs

9josé oubreriecontemporary 2239

6273

86intentionhistorical

drawings

acknowledgments

1960 1965 1975 2003 20061971

8

director’s forwordsherri geldin

If, as one leading critic proclaims,

the Eglise Saint-Pierre de Firminy-Vert is “almost

a triumph for Le Corbusier,” it is in any case

an unqualified triumph for José Oubrerie,

the architect who, against all odds, brought

the church to fruition some forty years

after it was begun. As a young apprentice

in Le Corbusier’s atelier, Oubrerie worked

closely on the church, only to see the

project founder upon the master’s death

in the mid-1960s. With only its concrete

foundation poured, the project remained

for decades relegated to preemptive

ruin—a poignant vestige of what had

never been and what might never be.

Meanwhile, Oubrerie established his own

reputation as a professor and an architect

with masterworks as the Miller House

in Kentucky and the French Cultural

Le Corbusier and José Oubrer ie

9

Center in Damascus, Syria. But he never

forgot the Firminy church; over time his

relationship to the project would transform

from an architectural to an existential

commitment. As Oubrerie writes,

What does it take to defy architectural historians, experts, Corbusian zealots or detractors...if not something which

was initiated in the 60s, born out of one of the constant dreams of one singular man who transferred the task

to one of his then assistants to continuously diminish the part of the unknown, to bring to existence this

thing which kept growing in the 70s to the point of being partially cast in concrete and became suddenly

frozen awake? What is it even more to be called upon three years ago to bring out of this long coma

such a project which did not want to die, having been strong enough by itself, by its own nature and its

antecedents, to resist demolition....

And herein lays both crux and crucible: a rare

convergence of supreme will, fortune, talent, and

tenacity that conjures from abandoned dreams a

concrete reality, despite improbable odds and rampant

skepticism in the academy of peers. For what does it

mean to posthumously complete the work of another,

especially when the other in question is long since

enshrined in the pantheon of architectural gods?

Moreover, how dare something at once aspire to the

historic and the contemporary? With what audacity

and cheek does the one-time apprentice take up the pen

and summon the redress of the master’s original design

intent, now proven ill-conceived?

10

This small church,

situated in the town

of Firminy about an

hour outside of Lyon,

was originally designed

by Le Corbusier in the

early 1960s. It was to be the

fourth in a suite of projects by

the famed architect in Firminy,

part of a visionary mayor’s civic plan

to create a new, green city out of a shabby

industrial town. After several iterations of the

design, which initially sprang from the unbuilt Le

Tremblay church project of 1929, Le Corbusier passed

The design itself also reflects a sense of “newness.” Although the outward “style” of the building might seem rooted in retired modernist or brutalist ideals, the ideas embedded in the project are still remarkably current.

11

exhibition

nor the Firminy church is

just about Le Corbusier, or even just

about him and José Oubrerie. In fact, both

are undeniably more about the iterative process

of design, the compromises that are created

by people working together, the changes that

happen as new information arises during the

design process. These effects are magnified by

the incredible talent of the two architects and

the immense stretch of time that has extended

from the first breath of the project until its

eventual, emphatic completion more than forty

years later.

Although the Firminy church poses many

questions with no real answers, it is safe to

say that José Oubrerie was the driving force

behind the pages reserved for completed

projects, comes from him. As Anthony

Eardley details in his essay, first published in

1981 and reprinted here, Oubrerie became

intimately involved in the design of the church

as soon as Le Corbusier received the initial

commission in 1960. Aside from some of the

earliest sketches, many of the drawings from

Le Corbusier’s studio were actually penned

by Oubrerie while he worked there on the rue

away in 1965 before

the Firminy church had

even reached its final design stage,

much less been built. José Oubrerie, the

young apprentice working on the church with

Le Corbusier, picked up where his teacher left

off, and continued the evolution of the project’s

design. There were many fits and starts through

the design and the eventual construction of the

building, but today, the Firminy church stands tall,

a monument to Corbusier’s legacy and practice, and

to Oubrerie’s tenacity and persistence.

As you can probably imagine, the task of writing

about Le Corbusier and this “last” of his buildings

is fairly daunting. Luckily for me, neither this

12

introductionmegan cavanaugh novak

In November 2006, the Eglise Saint-

Pierre de Firminy-Vert was finally

unveiled to the public... This small

church, situated in the town of Firminy

about an hour outside of Lyon, was

originally designed by Le Corbusier in

the early 1960s. It was to be the fourth in

a suite of projects by the famed architect

13

19601965

19752003

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in Firminy, part of a visionary mayor’s

civic plan to create a new, green city out

of a shabby industrial town. After several

iterations of the design, which initially sprang

from the unbuilt Le Tremblay church project

of 1929, Le Corbusier passed away in 1965

before the Firminy church had even reached

its final design stage, much less been built.

José Oubrerie, the young apprentice working

on the church with Le Corbusier, picked up

where his teacher left off, and continued the

evolution of the project’s design. There were

many fits and starts through the design and

the eventual construction of the building,

but today, the Firminy church stands tall, a

monument to Corbusier’s legacy and practice,

and to Oubrerie’s tenacity and persistence.

As you can probably imagine, the task of

writing about Le Corbusier and this “last” of

his buildings is fairly daunting. Luckily for

me, neither this exhibition nor the Firminy

church is just about Le Corbusier, or even

just about him and José Oubrerie. In fact,

14

of another, especially when the other in question is

long since enshrined in the pantheon of architectural

gods? Moreover, how dare something at once aspire

to the historic and the contemporary? With what

audacity and cheek does the one-time apprentice take

up the pen and summon the redress of the master’s

original design intent, now proven ill-conceived?

And how does one reconcile the ambiguity of authorship in a project that looms so large on the landscape of architectural history?

These are the questions we seek to probe in

presenting Architecture Interruptus at the Wexner

Center for the Arts. In doing so, we also honor

the unlikely accomplishment of José Oubrerie,

a colleague who for the last fifteen years has

contributed to the intellectual and creative energy

of Ohio State’s Knowlton School of Architecture as

professor, agitator, and mentor, even as he has lent

his talents to the Wexner Center as exhi- bition

designer and, more importantly, as devilish advocate

and interlocu- tor. That a former student, Megan

Cavanaugh Novak, eagerly assumed the role of

exhibition curator, and a long-time friend and

15

Knowlton School colleague, Jeffrey Kipnis, agreed

to contribute a critical essay to this catalogue is

testament to their keen regard for Oubrerie and his

talents. But make no mistake: this exhibition and

catalogue stand completely on their own merits, as

rigorously conceived and vetted as any the center

would undertake. In that regard, the Firminy

church uniquely and simultaneously embodies dual

but rarely convergent Wexner Center mandates: to

focus on newly created work in all disciplines and

to illuminate the historical context from which such

work emerges.

Here, in one project, we can at once illustrate

that which is quintessentially Corbusian and that

which bears the distinctive hand of Oubrerie circa

2006. Moreover, we are able to discern where the

one-time assistant has acted primarily as preserva-

tionist, and where he has deliberately reinterpreted

and even wholly reconceived crucial elements of

the design. As such, the church becomes a true

dialogue across the decades, not between teacher

and student, but between peers. And one has to

surmise that Le Corbusier would deem his legacy

well served.

This was by no means an easy project on which

to cut one’s curato- rial teeth, and I would like to

recognize the fine work done by Megan Cavanaugh

Novak to orchestrate every aspect of this exhibition

and its accompanying catalogue. She joins me in expressing our abiding

appreciation to the Fondation Le Corbusier for its generous cooperation

in lending precious historical material to the show. We also thank the

Musée d’Art Moderne de Saint-Etienne Métropole, and the Centre

Canadien d’Architecture Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montréal, for

their kind assistance in lending works.

Similarly, we both convey our thanks to Romain

Chazalon, who has worked closely with Oubrerie over

the last several years to bring the church to completion,

and also assisted in planning the exhibition. We are

grateful to Jeffrey Kipnis for his keen insights and

suggestions along the way, in addition to his sweeping

yet meticulously honed essay for this catalogue. I

thank Helen Molesworth for her project oversight

and the entire Wexner Center exhibitions team for

their significant contributions to the realization of the

project, particularly Patrick Weber, the lead ex- hibition

designer for the show. I would also like to express my

thanks to Wendy Qi, our guest graphic designer, for

his superb visualization of this publication and several

related materials, and to Editor Ann Bremner for her

always graceful and sensitive ministrations to text. We

16

are delighted that Luis Burriel Bielza was able to

visit the church upon its completion and provide

entirely new photographs for this catalogue.

For their dedicated efforts to raise both awareness

and funding for the exhibition, I’m proud to

recognize the center’s marketing and commu-

nications department under the leadership of Jerry

Dannemiller and its development department, led

by Jeffrey Byars. Under the strategic guidance of

Deputy Director Jack Jackson, they (and so much

else at the center) flourish. I am blessed with a

supremely creative and dedicated staff, as well as a

cadre of devoted volunteers, and while they more

than deserve individual recognition, this collective

expression of thanks will have to suffice for the

moment. Similarly, I am exceedingly fortunate to

have a Board of Trustees that is unparalleled in the

country for its stead- fast commitment to the not-

always-easy mission of being a laboratory for the

contemporary arts. For their unwavering support

and encourage- ment, I salute them.

The center’s trustees join me in recognizing those

generous individual and corporate donors who

have made Architecture Interruptus pos- sible.

We are enormously grateful to Capgemini, NBBJ,

and the Greater Columbus Arts Council for

their significant commitments of support to this

endeavor. In addition, I express my profound

appreciation to national architecture patrons Elise

Jaffe and Jeffrey Brown, whose splendid

gift made this publication possible. I am also

pleased to acknowledge additional exhibition

support from Linda and Jim Miller, auto•des•sys,

The Columbus Chapter of The American Institute

of Architects, Robert and Sally Wandel, Merilynn

and Tom Kaplin, Myers Financial Services LLC, the

Blackwell Inn, the Corporate Annual Fund of the

Wexner Center Foundation, and Wexner Center

members.

Finally, I express my utmost esteem, affection and

appreciation to José Oubrerie, whose conviction

and tenacity have kept the Eglise Saint- Pierre

a vital (if dormant) force for so many years.

“Today,” he notes, “as a new phoenix, the ugly

lost object has transformed itself...into a powerful

sculpture whose outside convexity reorganizes its

surroundings and inside concavity reorganizes our

feelings and thoughts.” No small feat indeed, and

inconceivable without Oubrerie’s respectful yet

radical intervention.

José Oubrerie’s comments appear in “Folio: 500 Words for 45

Years,” Cornell Architecture, Art, Planning NEWS01 (Fall 2006),

p. 21.

Eglise Saint-Pierre de Firminy-Vertddddd

17

Eglise Saint-Pierre de Firminy-Vertddddd

contemporar y photographs

exter ior,detail of gutter system

exter ior,detail of gutter system

inter ior,detail of pulpit

stairs in sanctuary

contemporar y drawings

east façade

mass plan

30

grandeur is the intentionanthony eardley

31

1975 2003 20061971

Firminy is a mining, steel, and textiles town of

some 25,000 people in the southern Auvergne.

It lies in an undulating landscape at the head

of a narrow region sprawling from the Rhone

through St. Etienne, blackened with smoke

and soot, and containing some half a million

people. In the nineteenth century it was

the scene of feverish industrial activity.

In 1914 Baedeker’s guide to Southern

France afforded Firminy’s urban and

architectural heritage just two lines of

text; the remaining two lines advised the

visitor as to the means of transportation

to somewhere else.1 However, it is not

this jerry-built and unsanitary old fabric,

shaken by mining subsidence and reduced

to rubble in the frenzy of European postwar

urban renewal, but rather the adjacent

“green” Firminy which contains the last of

Le Corbusier’s buildings to be realized, the parish

church of Saint-Pierre de Firminy-Vert.2

This last work was actually commissioned in the

spring of 1960. Le Corbusier undertook it with

reluctance, and serious misgivings, which were

overcome only through his deep friendship for the

mayor of Firminy, Eugène Claudius-Petit. Indeed,

even the Parish Association commissioned the

work with some apprehension, for despite the

encouraging impetus of the radical transformations

suddenly taking place about them in a town which

had been “practically abandoned by municipal

officials of every political color for half a century,”3

they found themselves ill-equipped to assume the

32

22LeCorbusier,Aircraft;L’avionaccuse... (London: The Studio, Ltd. 1935), p. 95.

23 Ibid., p. 96. 24 Mise au point, op. cit., pp. 59–61. 25 Paul Turner, in his invaluable study of The Educa-tion of Le Corbusier observes that in his reading of Ernest Renan’s Vie de Jesus during the period 1908–1909, the young Charles-Edouard Jean-neret marked passages which “reveal the rather startling fact that Jean-neret actually identified himself with the figure of Jesus, and was seeking parallels between Jesus’ career and that which he himself was embark-ing upon...Indeed, Jeanneret seems to have read Nietzsche (Zarathustra) and Renan together, seeking out in both books the traits of the arche-typal revolutionary prophet and reformer—and then relating these traits to his image of his own similar destiny.” Paul Venable Turner, The Educationof Le Corbusier (New York: Garland Publishing Inc., 1977), pp. 62, 64.

27LeCorbusier,Oeuvrecomplète1946– 1952, op. cit., p. 25.

28 Le Corbusier lui-même, Jean Petit, editor (Geneva: Editions Rousseau, 1970), p. 100. Apart from the secular aspects of this pro-posal it is clear that Le Corbusier’s ciconsotganratprheyc,oausrsies

etovipdaegnat,nfor enxaatmurpale, in Ronchamp, was a constant source of distress to the ecclesiastical authorities. While it is impossible to identify the full panoply of references and stimuli, it is pcroasbs-isbhleltloacnldaiamircthraft-tiwn iandgdwitihoinchtoshthaeped the roof, other memories permeated the form of Firminy-Vert. Among these one may select the old Greek colony in Archachon, danradwAnmwéidthéepO-rozteon-Pfaunritsitnstuhbetlseutymb-myehrimofself 1918 (Le Corbusier, Une maison—un palais: A la recherche d’une unité architecturale, Paris: Cres, 1928, p. 47); the Serapeum at the Villa Adriana, Tivoli, already evoked 71 in connection with the light shafts for La Sainte-Baume (Le Corbusier, Oeuvre complète 1946–1952, p. 31); the megalithic Ggantija (Giant’s Tower) on the Maltese island of Gozo (Une mai-son—un palais, p. 39); elements of the Arab cities of Ghardaia and the Mizab (Le Corbusier, Radiant City, New York, 1967, pp. 230–233), and African cer-

33

emonial masks which he had studied in the Trocadero in his youth (L’Esprit Nouveau nos. 21, 22, see “Nègres” by Julian Sant- Quetin).

29 “Le Corbusier and the Theological Program,” op. cit., p. 291.

30 Some indications as the reasons for his refusal are contained in his response to Karel Teige’s criticism of the Mundaneum project of that period when he replied, “You say ‘needs pose programs: factories, railway stations, and not churches or palaces; at the present time, nothing can become ar-chitecture which is not dictated by so-cial and economic needs.’ I have never believed, nor written anything else; and to show you the subtlety which can animate this belief, let me tell you that last year I refused, very politely, to build a very big church, even though I was authorized to apply the most modern methods to the project. I felt

that reinforced concrete simply couldn’t become a true expression of a Catholic cult, which is formed by the dense stratification of secular usages which derive their vitality as much from the form that has been conferred vupon them as from the principle, and which our memory has retained.” See Kerel Tiege, “Mundaneum,” originally published in Stavba no.7 (Prague, 1928–1929), pp. 145–155. Translated in full by Ladislav and Elizabeth Holovsky and Lubamir Dolezel in Opposi-tions 4 (New York: October 1974), pp. 83–91. See also Le Corbusier, “In Defense of Architecture.” This article was written in 1929 in response to the Teige attack cited above, and was intended for publication in Stavba. It first appeared in French in L’Architecture d’aujourd’hui (Paris, 1933), and is published in full in Oppositions 4, pp. 92–108, trans-lated by Nancy Bray, André Les-sard, Alan Levitt, and George Baird. My version of this passage differs slightly from theirs.

31 Stanislaus von Moos, Le Corbusier; Elements of a Synthesis (Cambridge, Massachusetts: M.I.T. Press, 1979), p. 258.32 “Le Corbusier et son atelier rue de Sèvres 35,” Oeuvre complète 1952–1957, p. 94.

33 NormaEvenson,Chandigarh(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966), p. 82. 34 Le Corbusier, intro-duction to The development by Le

34

Corbusier of the Designfor L’Eglise de Firminy, a church in France, Keller Smith Jr. and Reyhan Tansal, editors(University of North Carolina at Raleigh: Student Publications, vol.14, 1964), p. 5.

35LeCorbusierhadanacutedistastefor the clutter of extensive church seating: “They can get down on their knees, the Good Lord is quite entitled to that! Because all these types sit in the churches, including Notre Dame, (and) I don’t agree at all!” Le Corbusier lui-même, p. 184. In the end, of course, he was to lose this battle at Firminy as a result of the necessity to warp the church floor up and over the day chapel in order to accommodate the congregation in a reduced floor area, thus making safety barriers, and hard seating essential.

36 Several significantly conflicting dates are recorded for the site visit, but I believe we can rely on the date Le Corbusier indicated on his sketches.37“Notesurl’implantation,”op.cit.,p.3.

38 “Le Corbusier and the Theological Program,” op. cit., p. 309.39 Le Corbusier, “The Mosques” in Le Voyage d’Orient (Paris:

Forces Vives, 1966). 40LeCorbusier,“Quandlescathédralesétaient blanches,” Plan (Paris, 1937), pp. 33–35.

Levitt, and George Baird. My version of this passage differs slightly from theirs.

31 Stanislaus von Moos, Le Corbusier; Elements of a Synthesis (Cambridge, Massachusetts: M.I.T. Press, 1979), p. 258.32 “Le Corbusier et son atelier rue de Sèvres 35,” Oeuvre complète 1952–1957, p. 94.

33 NormaEvenson,Chandigarh(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966), p. 82. 34 Le Corbusier, introduction to The development by Le Corbusier of the Designfor L’Eglise de Firminy, a church in France, Keller Smith Jr. and Reyhan Tansal, editors(University of North Carolina at Raleigh: Student Publications, vol.14, 1964), p. 5.

35

30 Some indications as the reasons for his refusal are contained in his response to Karel Teige’s criticism of the Mundaneum project of that period when he replied, “You say ‘needs pose programs: factories, railway stations, and not churches or palaces; at the present time, nothing can become architecture which is not dictated by social and economic needs.’ I have never believed, nor written anything else; and to show you the subtlety which can animate this belief, let me tell you that last year I refused, very politely, to build a very big church, even though I was authorized to apply the most mod-ern methods to the project. I felt that reinforced concrete simply couldn’t become a true expression of a Catho-lic cult, which is formed by the dense stratification of secular usages which derive their vitality as much from the form that has been conferredupon them as from the prin-

ciple, and which our memory has retained.” See Kerel Tiege, “Mun-daneum,” originally published in Stavba no.7 (Prague, 1928–1929), pp. 145–155. Translated in full by Ladislav and Elizabeth Holovsky and Lubamir Dolezel in Opposi-tions 4 (New York: October 1974), pp. 83–91. See also Le Corbusier, “In Defense of Architecture.” This article was written in 1929 in response to the Teige attack cited above, and was intended for publication in Stavba. It first appeared in French in L’Architecture d’aujourd’hui (Paris, 1933), and is published in full in Oppositions 4, pp. 92–108, trans-lated by Nancy Bray, André Les-sard, Alan Levitt, and George Baird. My version of this passage differs slightly from theirs.

31 Stanislaus von Moos, Le Corbusier; Elements of a Synthesis (Cambridge, Massachusetts: M.I.T. Press, 1979), p. 258.32 “Le Corbusier et son atelier rue de Sèvres 35,” Oeuvre complète 1952–1957, p. 94.

33 NormaEvenson,Chandigarh(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966), p. 82. 34 Le Corbusier, intro-duction to The development by Le Corbusier of the Designfor L’Eglise de Firminy, a church in France, Keller Smith Jr. and Reyhan Tansal, editors(University of North Carolina at Ra-leigh: Student Publications, vol.14, 1964), p. 5.

histor ica l drawings

inter ior,detail of pulpit stairs in sanctuary

inter ior,detail of pulpit

stairs in sanctuary

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Wexner Center for the ArtsThe Ohio State University