This trip is a personal pilgrimage for me, maybe a little “Grand Tour”. But the apex of this trip is definitely the one that I will be making tomorrow to Firminy to see Corbusier-Oubrerie’s Firminy church, completed in 2006. It is also the last of modern architecture to be built. Will that christen me to be a modernist then? Or will that church represent my Jordan river? Time will tell.
When I started school, my first assignment was Jose Oubrerie’s Miller house. That was almost 9 years ago. I considered those era as my Romantic Agony age (still in my art history fever from the Louvre). So it would be good, I think, to end it also with another Oubrerie. So that church will be a closure for my education. It is also a climax for the plan that I have plotted for many years. The subplot then is to see the only and all three religious buildings by Corb: La Tourette, Firminy, and Ronchamp. Other than that, that grand agenda, hahaha, Lyon is, a surprise, pretty. Paris is like a sized down beaux-art NY and is braggy. Amsterdam is chic. Bonn is cute. Koln is delicious. La Tourette is really floaty. I took plenty of photos and started to feel overwhelmed now on what to do with them. I know I have to be diligent and post them ASAP otherwise it will never get out.