Church of St. Pierre

MORE than 40 years after he drowned off a remote beach in the south of France, Le Corbusier remains a transcendent force. Even if some blame him for the modern city’s greatest sins, from the steamrolling of historical neighborhoods to a stultifying emphasis on function, he is indisputably the most influential architect of the past century.

Now workers in this rural mining town are putting the finishing touches on a small church he designed with a former student in the early 1960’s. A soaring asymmetrical cone that rises out of an imposing concrete base like some strange pagan temple, it is a reminder of why Le Corbusier’s work inspires such passionate devotion.

Completed by that protégé, José Oubrerie, who has tinkered with many elements of the original sketches, the Church of St. Pierre has stirred debate among Parisian academics about the ethics of finishing a work left behind by a legendary architect.

But the core of Le Corbusier’s concept remains intact: a sanctuary that distills the history of architecture from the primitive cave through Modernism. At the same time its warped planes anticipate the fluid architectural forms of today, though with a restraint that shows how so much recent work has been diluted by cheap effects.

That it exists at all is a miracle. From its inception the project seemed doomed to join the long list of architectural masterpieces that exist only on paper.

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Camel - excerpts from the Snow Goose

The Snow Goose
Friendship
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on the Old Grey Whistle Test