Plastic happenings: the visual-spatial characteristics of the church of the monastery of La Tourette

摘要

The purpose of this essay is to examine the intrinsic visual-spatial characteristics of the church of the Monastery of La Tourette, and to understand their mechanism, gestation and meaning. In Texts and Sketches for Ronchamp, Le Corbusier defines poetic architecture as 'a matter of plastic happenings'1 and, although the images are in monochrome, demonstrates the definition in The Chapel at Ronchamp, accompanied by the apposite test of inverting the image in order to exclude extrinsic content and verify spatial coherence.2 (This is the test for spatial coherence/plastic integrity/chromatic harmony, by means of viewing a painting in a mirror, known at least since the time of Alberti). Le Corbusier's definition of plastic integrity is the yardstick used in this essay.