tony garnier in lyon

Tony Garnier is perhaps most known for his Une Cité industrielle drawn between 1899 and 1904 depicting a city of the future. His plans showed a city stripped to its essentials, functionalism in its purest form. He stripped the workers' residences of all ornamentation. He showed the drawings in an exhibit in 1904 but didn't publish them until 1918.

As a concept, his city was never built (but his plans influenced later city planning). Garnier later built three villas in Lyon in the same style of his worker's house between 1911 and 1924. By today's eyes, the buildings appear unremarkable, in large part because Modernism won and many buildings look like this today, unadorned.

 

a brutalist hike down the toblerone trail in switzerland

The Toblerlone Trail is a hiking trail that follows the Toblerone Line, a 10-kilometer stretch of dragon's teeth anti-tank concrete barriers. The Swiss installed 2,700 9-ton concrete barriers that look like Toblerone candy bars. Built between 1939 and 1945, most of the line still exists, and its quite a vigorous hike. It a took a bit for us to find the trail, but were rewarded with one giant hunka concrete after another. A Brutalist hike!

nouvelle église saint-laurent in riddes by xavier furrer and willy jeiziner

One kooky thing about all these Brutalist churches in Switzerland is that despite the common architectural language, they are designed by different architects. Walter Maria Förderer (1928-2006) came up with the language, but others, including Xavier Furrer and Willy Jeiziner with this church/fire station in Riddes, used the same design principles. Finished in 1971, the locals sadly painted the concrete in 2018. However, the interior still sings of its original glory.

 

couvent des capucins in sion, switzerland, by Mirco Ravanne

 

 

The Capuchins settled in Scion and, in 1631, set the cornerstone for their church. Some 330 years later, the Capuchins needed a substantial remodel and shoring up after an earthquake damaged their church. Given the opportunity, they also wanted to expand the facility. They initially invited Le Corbusier to work on the project, but The Corbu had too much to do, so he recommended Mirco Ravanne (1928-1991) for the project. 

 

Originally from Italy, Ravanne had made the rounds in Paris, working with Marcel Breuer, Pier Luigi Nervi, Bernard Zehrfuss, and Jean Prouvé. He received his masters degree in architecture from the Scion School of Architectural Arts and settled in the town.

 

Based on Corbu's recommendation (which might be apocryphal given that Ravanne was already in Sion, a town of a mere 15,000 at the time), Ravanne designed the church and grounds we see today, a fusion of the then-Modern with the stony past. Ravanne cleverly used concrete to shore up the remnants of the old while also fusing the Modern to the mature. The renovation and expansion occurred between 1962 and 1968. 

 

The result is a remarkable Brutalist intervention with a 17th-Century building that invoked horror in the traditionalists, including some members of the convent. It didn't help that costs came in three times the initial budget. However, this melding of old and new is symbolic of tradition with Modernity and the need to respect (and support) the past while plowing the field forward. Concrete arms embrace the original church and hold it up.

 

For the new buildings, Ravanne used Corbu's Modular to create human-dimensioned spaces. Ravanne's twist on Modernism and Brutalism was to non-cube the cube by slicing oblique corners to sculpt triangularity (a reference to the Holy Trinity?) in the design. He symbolically reserved this tool for the ecclesiastical spaces creating an unexpected, dynamic effect.   

Sadly, we did not have time to organize a tour and see the interior, but tours are available by appointment. The grounds are open to perusal. I include photos of the interior below with links to the sources.

 

 

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