About inspiration
Let us return to the question raised by Lech himself: Where did he come up with all this? This question is also one of the questions we are extremely concerned about. one. Did it fall from the sky? Was it something I saw in a dream, something that appeared out of thin air due to a sudden inspiration? In the history of world architecture, there are tens of thousands of Christian churches and many famous masterpieces. Why is this small church in the mountains so eye-catching? It has attracted admiration from many people, even those who have nothing to do with Christianity. , What is the reason for this? Besides, Le Corbusier is well-known as the standard bearer of modernist architecture. At that time, he loudly called on architects to learn from engineers and get inspiration from the design and manufacturing of cars, ships, and airplanes. His famous saying: "A house is a machine for living" is still in my ears, and people remember that he advocated rationality. So, how could such an architect create such a weird building as Ronchamp?
Can we say that the Ronchamp church is still a product of rationality? If not, then what is it? What kind of background and thoughts contributed to the Ronchamp church? Everyone says that architectural creation must be inspired. Where did Le Corbusier get the inspiration when he created Ronchamp? D. After many years of research, Mr. Pauli believes that Les is an inspired architect, but inspirations do not come out of thin air. They also have sources. The source of the image of Langchamp Church is the huge collection of works that Les has collected extensively and stored in his mind throughout his life. Quantity data information.
But after all, 37 years have passed since the birth of Langxiang Church. 37 years is not a long time in the history of architecture, and it is not too short in the history of contemporary architecture. Many buildings, like many things in the world, are too close to see clearly and to comment appropriately. It would be better to take some time apart. It was 37 years since Langxiang was completed and 27 years after Leshi passed away. Now more information, documents, handwriting, and archives have been collected, sorted, and studied; researchers have published many research reports, helping us understand more and allowing us to think again. The view is naturally still a glimpse of the here and now.
About the image and perception
Whether you like it or not, whether you believe in religion or not, and whether you see the real thing or only see photos or videos, Langxiang Church The image will make you have a strong, profound and unforgettable impression. The size of the church, its technical and economic issues, its suitability as a religious facility, etc. are not important here and are not relevant to us. What matters here is the visual effect and aesthetic value of the architectural shape.
Everyone has this experience. We see many buildings on weekdays. Some eyes glance over them without leaving any impression, while other eyes stay for a while longer and leave more impressions. The difference is that some buildings can "catch" people, while others cannot "catch" people. Langxiang Church is a building that can catch people, and it can catch people very well. Why?
This is first of all because it makes people feel strange, strange or strange. We all have a certain idea of ??what a house looks like from our daily lives. If you have met some people in a Christian church directly or indirectly, you will have a rough idea of ??what a Christian church is like. When we look at a building, we unconsciously compare what we see with what we already know. If they are consistent, just pass them by and no longer pay attention. If there are differences, you need to examine and identify them, and your attention is mobilized. Differences from similar things that we have seen in the past will cause a sense of strangeness.
Does Langchamp Church look like a house that people are used to seeing? It doesn’t. Is it like those Christian churches that people have seen? Not like that either. It's so "outrageous" that it attracts attention.
At the beginning of this century, the "Formalist School" in Russian literary studies conducted specialized research on "defamiliarization" in literary works. They say that compared with ordinary language, the language of literature and poetry not only creates a sense of strangeness, but is also strange in itself. The purpose of poetry is to reverse the process of habituation, to "defamiliarize" what we have become accustomed to, and to "creatively damage" the accustomed and standard things in order to "make a new, childish, and vibrant Outlook is instilled in us”. He also said that defamiliarized literary language "frees us from the effect of language on our feelings" and that poetry is the destruction of ordinary language and "the 'organized' infringement of ordinary language."
(See "Structuralism and Semiotics" by Te Hawkes, p61, 70)
I think these principles observed in literature are also generally applicable in architecture and other plastic arts categories. Defamiliarization is a breakthrough or transcendence of convention. Of course, defamiliarization is relative. 100% defamiliarization, completely getting rid of the familiar image, will make the work completely different, and will not achieve the expected effect. There is a problem of appropriateness in defamiliarization.
Legends made maximum use of the "defamiliarization" effect in the image treatment of Ronchamp Church. It is different from the famous religious buildings in the history of architecture, and people cannot be indifferent to it. At the same time, there is something familiar about Langxiang's image. The roof was still in its usual place; the doors and windows, although unusual, were still vaguely identifiable as doors and windows. They are defamiliarized roofs and doors and windows. Between the so-called similarity and dissimilarity. Maximizing yet appropriate de-familiarization is the first key to Langxiang Church’s attraction to people.
The attraction of Langchamp Church lies in its very complex image structure. At the beginning of this century, Le Corbusier and his modernist colleagues advocated the simplification and purification of architectural images. Lech himself echoed the Cubism school in the art world in the architectural circle, loudly praising the aesthetic value of simple geometric shapes such as squares, circles, rectangles, cones, spheres, etc. In the 1920s and later, the houses he designed were always smooth and simple in appearance, even if their interiors were quite complex. The Villa Savoye is an example. It would be difficult to find a more simple and bare architectural masterpiece. However, in Langxiang, Leshi gave up his past pursuits and moved towards the opposite of simplicity - complexity. Let’s take a look at the facade treatment of Langxiang Church. For such a small church, the four facades are so different. If you look at one side for the first time, you will never be able to imagine what the other three sides look like. After looking at two sides, you can still imagine. There is no difference between the appearance of the third and fourth facades. Each of the four facades has its own merits. It is really extremely versatile and can hardly be compared with the Villa Savoye. Looking at the forms of the window openings, we are not afraid of change, but afraid of being single. Looking at the plan of the church, the twists and turns of the wall lines and the interior space composed of them are also extremely complex and changeable. At that time, Leshi attached great importance to the magical functions of control lines and normal lines in design, but now they have abandoned them. There is no pattern in the plane composition, and no order in the elevation. If there are rules, they are too complicated. The Villa Savoye reminds people of classical mechanics and Euclidean geometry, while the Ronchamp Church reminds people of modern mechanics and non-Euclidean geometry. All in all, things are not what they used to be in terms of complexity.
One thing to point out, however, is Ronchamp’s benefit: its complexity is different from that of medieval Gothic cathedrals. The complexity of Gothic lies in the details, and the detail processing has reached the level of tediousness, but the overall layout and structure is simple, similar, and easy to find out. On the contrary, the complexity of Ronchamp is structural complexity, and its details, whether it is walls or eaves, exterior or interior, are actually still quite simple.
Social Aesthetic Psychology
Langxiang Church has a complex structure, and the complex structure is more in line with people's aesthetic psychology today than the simple structure. If the Villa Savoye was novel and applauded by some at the time, and the United Nations Headquarters in New York was also novel and applauded by some at the time, then if something similar is presented today, it will definitely not be widely welcomed. Simple and neat things can be used to draw inferences from one example, and things that are easy for people to understand are now regarded as a glass of boiled water and have lost their appeal. Simplicity and less are closely related, and Mies persisted to the end, and this is where she fell. Isn't it? Venturi rejected the girl by saying "less is not more" and "less is boring". As the saying goes, "This moment is the same as that moment." Contemporary people like complicated things, which can be proved by looking at the current clothing trends. This is in terms of changes in social aesthetic mentality. Gestalt psychologists also have theoretical explanations. Their research proved that Gestalt, that is, graphics, can be divided into simple and complex ones. It is easier for people to perceive and organize simple Gestalts, so they can easily feel relaxed and comfortable, but this feeling is also relatively shallow. Visual perception is more difficult to perceive and organize complex Gestalts, which evoke a sense of tension and require active perceptual activity. But once it is completed, the tension disappears and people will get more aesthetic satisfaction. So the simple Gestalt is as bland as water, while the complex Gestalt is as rich as tea or wine. The more you pay, the more you gain.
The complex image of the Ronchamp church has this effect.
People have different opinions on the image of Langchamp Church. To sum up, there are very few people who think it is beautiful, elegant, noble, elegant and sublime, and the most people say it is weird. Recent aestheticians believe that grotesque is also one of the categories of aesthetics. The Church of Ronchamp can be included in the category of the grotesque. The strangeness and complexity mentioned above seem to include the grotesque, and there is no need to mention them in isolation. However, the three are both related and different from each other. For example, when looking at people, strangers and people with complex personalities and experiences are not necessarily weird. Weirdness has another function.
Weirdness is abnormal, transcends convention, transcends common sense, and even transcends reason. Regarding the Langxiang Church, it is impossible to explain it clearly using the common sense and conventions of architecture, whether it is structure, tectonics, functional needs, economic principles, general laws of architectural art, etc. When we face that shape and appearance, an inexplicable and incredible feeling immediately arises spontaneously. Why? The architectural image in front of me is too weird.
The weirdness of Langchamp Church is related to its primitive style. It was built between 1950 and 1955, in the middle of the 20th century, but apart from the metal door leaf, there are almost no traces of modern civilization. The rough and solid body and chaotic image stand as steadily as a rock on a small hill among the mountains. "Water makes people distant, and stones make people ancient." It not only transcends the history of modern architecture and modern architecture, but also transcends the history of Renaissance and medieval architecture. It seems to be earlier than the architecture of ancient Rome and ancient Greece... It is very similar to primitive society. A kind of megalithic building, "white clouds are empty for thousands of years". The Langchamp Church is not only "frozen music", but also an eternal symbol of "frozen time". Time was disrupted by it, this weird building!
Mystery arose from this. The complex combination of the heavy volumes of the Ronchamp Church seems to contain some strange power. They pull each other, push each other, and scream at each other. The strength wants to advance, but it has not burst out. It is struggling, twisting, and spasming. It's heart-wrenching to be drawn but not released.
These are not easy to understand, or even incomprehensible. Who built such a building? It was obviously Le Corbusier, but it didn't look like it was man-made, and it didn't look like it was man-made in the prosperous and civilized countries of the 20th century. Is he Superman? Or was he created based on the revelation of Superman? Who is Superman? Of course it is God. How wonderful it is to pray to God in such a church! This is all guesswork, conjecture, and meditation, and cannot be determined. For many buildings, perhaps most buildings, even just by looking at their appearance, one can roughly tell their nature and general purpose. The Chairman Mao Memorial Hall in Beijing, the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, restaurants everywhere, Shopping malls, stations, residences... are all relatively clear. Other buildings are not so clear, such as the Pompidou Center in Paris, the Sydney Opera House, etc. It requires speculation and there are many associations. Because the images they evoke in our minds are unclear and have multiple meanings, different viewers can have different associations. The same viewer will also have multiple associations, feeling that it is like this and that. It has multiple meanings, and polysemy brings uncertainty.
The image of Langchamp Church is like this. A gentleman once used a simple diagram to show the five associations that Langchamp Church may cause, or five metaphors. They are folded hands and floating ducks. , an aircraft carrier, a nun's hat, and finally two monks standing side by side. (See Jencks, The Language of Post-Modern Architecture, 1977, Rizzoli, p49). Professor V. Scarry also said that Ronchamp Church can remind people of a big bell, a taking-off airplane, a sanctuary on the Italian island of Siding, and a cave covered by the wings of an airplane, which is inserted into the ground. Inside, pointing to the sky, the entity is cracking and rising... (Le Corbusier, 1987, Princeton, NJ, p. 53). It's wonderful that the image of a small church can evoke so many (or more) associations. None of these associations, images, and metaphors are clear and definite. They are vague, flickering, and merging, superimposing, and transforming in people's minds. Therefore, when we look at the Ronchamp Church, we will find it difficult to analyze, unable to investigate, and unable to express the complex experiences in our hearts in clear language. "It keeps cutting and sorting out, but it's still messy", really "don't feel so ordinary in my heart".
And this is not a shortcoming, not a flaw.
The difference between the Church of Ronchamp and other buildings that are obvious at a glance is the same as the difference between poetry and narrative. Use the language of logical reasoning when writing statements. Each word has a precise meaning and the grammatical structure is strict and standardized. The grammatical structure of poetry is not rigorous and standardized, and its semantics is vague. "I feel the flowers splashing with tears when I feel the time, and I hate the other birds.", "The autumn water is clear and weak, and the cold mountains are full of thoughts." Can you use logical reasoning to analyze, and can you fix a certain image in your mind? Compared with daily rationality Vagueness and ambiguity are more in line with the complex psychological experiences of people in certain situations at certain times, and can touch the inner world of many people. Poetry has no clear meaning, but it has greater appeal precisely because of this.
There is this saying in the ancient Chinese book "Laozi" (Chapter 21) handed down more than 2,000 years ago:
Tao is a thing, but it is in a trance. Trance-like, there is an image in it.
In a trance, there is something in it. It is graceful and dark, but there is essence in it.
The essence is so true, and there is faith in it.
These words are not specifically aimed at aesthetic issues, but are in contact with the art world and the special experiences in people’s aesthetic experience. In art and aesthetic activities, people can get a "trance" that transcends daily perceptual activities in images that range between reality and unreality, concreteness and non-concreteness, certainty and non-determination, and feel that "there is essence in it" and "there is essence in it". Have faith”. It can be said that Langxiang Church, as an artistic image, is an image of trance, which embodies the beauty of trance. An architectural work from the mid-20th century transcended the orbit of European classical aesthetics and became in tune with the ancient Chinese aesthetic spirit. This is really an interesting phenomenon worth exploring. In short, artistic images that are strange, surprising, unexpected, confusing, complex, grotesque, bizarre, mysterious, hazy, trance-like, uncut, chaotic, changeable, and have a wide range of ups and downs, including architectural images, Today, it is even more eye-catching, thought-provoking, thought-provoking, stimulating and triggers complex psychological experiences. Because there are more and more people in the contemporary era who have such aesthetic mood and aesthetic requirements. Langxiang Church meets such aesthetic expectations, so it is regarded by this group of people as having depth, strength, breadth, and intensity, and is thus regarded as one of the few architectural art works with the most profound meaning and charm.
Langxiang Church is a poem in architecture and belongs to the Misty Poetry School.