Sainte Marie de La Tourette, Le Corbusier

Le Corbusier often referenced walking through a building (promenade) by making films to communicate those experiences…but never with La Tourette. We asked ourselves, “how would Le Corbusier film this if he were alive today?” Fascinated by the collaboration between Le Corbusier and Iannis Xenakis (a Greek-French composer, music theorist, and architect), we followed the light to visually reveal this collaboration between musical score and architectural poem. The brilliance of it was almost audible. Our response began from a disseminating walk, where we often found ourselves immersed in the moment. The lingering scenes, non-sequential editing, and soundtrack all exhibit our artistic experience.

Sainte Marie de La Tourette is built on a steeply sloping site near Lyon in France and was one of Le Corbusier's last completed buildings in Europe. Design work began in 1953, and was constructed between 1956 and 1960. The monastery, in reflecting a monk’s contemplative life, is made of one hundred individual cells, a communal library, a refectory, a rooftop cloister, a church, and classrooms. As of 2016 it is part of UNESCO's World Heritage List.