La Tourette, France 10.30.07

2 nights in La Tourette's guest house, as Corbusier's monestary is under repairs. We met some nice folks during our stay: a couple and daughter (the father works at Nouvel's office), and our new friends from Lisbon (walking another grassy hill with us). Sorry Pedro and Rita, we couldn't manage a detour to Portugal in this travel, definitely on our top list for next time.

So many lessons to learn from this building, one of which is Le Corbusier's play of daylight. A french photographer, on exhibit in the Refectory, took shots throughout the building interior, during the different seasons.



Corbu wasn't afraid to use color: selective surfaces to highlight and contrast against broad planes of concrete. Imagining the surfaces without the bold primary tones one might argue the form itself would still be there and just as powerful, say compared to Meier's purely formalistic white spaces. I don't know. Being a little habitually colorphobic myself, I was quite impressed and this has hopefully loosen me up a bit.

One of the friars pops a mean tune on his violiny.