Colline Notre-Dame du Haut

Ronchamp

Long before Le Corbusier, the hill of Bourlémont was already holy. The first written mentions of a chapel go back to the 11th century, and a pilgrimage celebrates the Nativity of the Virgin there every 8 September — it still draws the crowds. The story of the summit is a succession of annihilations and rebirths: the chapel burned down in 1913 after a storm set the bell tower ablaze, was rebuilt, then ruined again in the middle of the 20th century. It was on these ruins that the archbishopric dared a wild gamble: entrusting the reconstruction to Le Corbusier, a notorious modernist and self-declared unbeliever, who at first refused to "work for a dead institution". Once up on the hill, seized by the horizon, the silence and the light, he accepted. From 1953 to 1955 he raised a total work of art: curving white walls, a concrete shell that seems to float, embrasures of coloured glass that rain light into the half-dark. The chapel was consecrated on 25 June 1955; the pyramid of Peace is built with the stones of the old chapel. Jean Prouvé added a discreet campanile in 1975, Renzo Piano a half-buried convent of Poor Clares in 2011 — the hill remains an inhabited place of prayer. Since 2016 it has been inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List: a thousand-year-old sanctuary become an icon of 20th-century architecture.

Getting there : Signposted climb from the town of Ronchamp; reception at the Porterie (ticket office, admission charge), site open all year round; annual pilgrimage on 8 September. Footpath or road up to the summit car park.

Opening times and access details are given as a guide only: check before you set out.

Ambient sound