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Visiting Le Corbusier's Pièce de Résistance in Firminy, France
Le Corbusier's urban-planning dreams of building a completely new Ville Contemporaine (Contemporary City) that could house millions never came to fruition in his adopted country. His bulldozer-friendly plans for historic French cities and towns generated a great deal of controversy (as did his politics). An unlikely place of architectural pilgrimage, the small industrial town of Firminy is one of the few places in France where you can see just a bit of what he had in mind. Here, on a green hillside at the edge of town, Le Corbusier managed to get started on Firminy Vert, which consists of an apartment building (Unité d'Habitation), cultural center, a stadium, and, since 2006, the Église de Saint-Pierre (Church of Saint Peter). The architect died in 1965, with the plans nearly finalized. A foundation for the church was laid in 1970, but the funding fell through and work halted. 40 years later, the little city decided to rescue the eyesore from the ashbin of history (and attract tourists to its out-of-the-way Massif Central location). The end result is a hilltop concrete structure with smooth, rounded edges, resembling a beautiful conical smokestack. On the inside, light streams in through a constellation of small holes, inundating the sanctuary.
Architect: Le Corbusier; Completed: 2006
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