Leçons du Thoronet
John Pawson
05 May 2006
All
architects have touchstones – places they repeatedly come back to, if
only in their heads. This may have little or nothing to do with literal
parallels with the work. It is more about the discovery a building
which speaks of the essence of architecture. For me, that touchstone is
Le Thoronet.
I came here for the first time some 20 years ago, on the recommendation of the writer Bruce Chatwin and I have returned regularly ever since. These visits took on a particular significance when I started designing a new Cistercian monastery for a site in rural Bohemia. This wasn’t about treating the abbey as some sort of pattern-book. You don’t come to Le Thoronet to shop for details, you come to immerse yourself in the bigger truths of architecture.
When I was asked to design an exhibition for the site, I knew right from the beginning that I did not want to make something which would distract from the architecture. The idea was always about focusing attention back on the building, about allowing the building to reveal itself.
Le Corbusier referred to the abbey as a place where every detail ‘represents a principle of creative architecture’. I have used this thought as the basis of Leçons du Thoronet, selecting 14 views to highlight 14 principles of creative architecture. A bench marks each viewing point and these benches, together with the catalogue, are the only physical manifestation of the exhibition. I have limited the views to 14, but there could have been 100. This is architecture you never stop learning from.
I should stress that these are lessons from Le Thoronet, not lessons from John Pawson. In a sense my role here has been like that of an editor – of a piece of work completed more than eight hundred years ago.
Working at Le Thoronet has been a privilege and a pleasure and I am profoundly grateful to all who have made the project possible. I should like to thank La Maison de l’Architecture et de la Ville for the initial commission and Monique Reyre at Direction Régionale des Affaires Culturelles Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur and Joelle Barthez at the Centre des Monuments Nationaux for making it all happen.
I should also like to thank the people here at the abbey, especially Eloise Belliard, whose tours are such an inspiration; Hisao Suzuki for his extraordinary photographs; Beatrice Delafontaine and her collaborators for making and installing the benches, particularly bench 14, which had to be carried halfway up a hill; Andre Frere at Images En Manoeuvres who published the book; the translator Jacques Bosser; and, from my own office, Nicholas Barba, Mark Treharne, Valerie Chomarat and Alison Morris.
I came here for the first time some 20 years ago, on the recommendation of the writer Bruce Chatwin and I have returned regularly ever since. These visits took on a particular significance when I started designing a new Cistercian monastery for a site in rural Bohemia. This wasn’t about treating the abbey as some sort of pattern-book. You don’t come to Le Thoronet to shop for details, you come to immerse yourself in the bigger truths of architecture.
When I was asked to design an exhibition for the site, I knew right from the beginning that I did not want to make something which would distract from the architecture. The idea was always about focusing attention back on the building, about allowing the building to reveal itself.
Le Corbusier referred to the abbey as a place where every detail ‘represents a principle of creative architecture’. I have used this thought as the basis of Leçons du Thoronet, selecting 14 views to highlight 14 principles of creative architecture. A bench marks each viewing point and these benches, together with the catalogue, are the only physical manifestation of the exhibition. I have limited the views to 14, but there could have been 100. This is architecture you never stop learning from.
I should stress that these are lessons from Le Thoronet, not lessons from John Pawson. In a sense my role here has been like that of an editor – of a piece of work completed more than eight hundred years ago.
Working at Le Thoronet has been a privilege and a pleasure and I am profoundly grateful to all who have made the project possible. I should like to thank La Maison de l’Architecture et de la Ville for the initial commission and Monique Reyre at Direction Régionale des Affaires Culturelles Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur and Joelle Barthez at the Centre des Monuments Nationaux for making it all happen.
I should also like to thank the people here at the abbey, especially Eloise Belliard, whose tours are such an inspiration; Hisao Suzuki for his extraordinary photographs; Beatrice Delafontaine and her collaborators for making and installing the benches, particularly bench 14, which had to be carried halfway up a hill; Andre Frere at Images En Manoeuvres who published the book; the translator Jacques Bosser; and, from my own office, Nicholas Barba, Mark Treharne, Valerie Chomarat and Alison Morris.