Ronchamp Chapel

Ronchamp Chapel

Notre Dame du Haut(Ronchamp)

Reason to visit: A renowned pilgrimage site in France

The Ronchamp Chapel is situated atop a small hill in the town of Ronchamp, in the Haute-Saône department of the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region in eastern France. It is a small Roman Catholic Marian pilgrimage chapel, completed in 1954 by the Franco-Swiss architect Le Corbusier. It is considered one of his most outstanding and landmark works, as well as an important example of 20th-century church architecture.

The Ronchamp Chapel was completed in 1955 and has since become a pilgrimage destination for architects, students, and tourists. The chapel broke away from all traditional forms of Catholic churches over thousands of years, featuring extraordinary deformations, a bizarre and mysterious appearance, and standing solidly like a rock on a hill surrounded by mountains, regarded as a sacred site. The Ronchamp Chapel is famous for its prow-like exterior walls and an upside-down crab shell-shaped roof. The chapel is not large, accommodating only about 200 people, but there is a spacious area in front that can hold up to ten thousand people, used during religious festivals when worshippers gather here.

The chapel has an unusual shape with an irregular floor plan; almost all the walls are curved, some even tilted; the tower-like prayer room resembles a grain silo in appearance; the heavy roof curves upward and leaves a 40-centimeter-high strip of open space between it and the walls; the rough white walls feature various square and rectangular window openings inlaid with stained glass; the entrance is situated at the seam where the curved wall meets the tower; the main interior space is also irregular, with curved walls. Light streams in through the gaps between the roof and walls and the variously sized windows with stained glass, creating a unique atmosphere inside the chapel.