Phenomenology and building Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Phenomenology and building - Essay Example Thesis Statement: The purpose of this paper is to write a phenomenological account of Le Corbusier’s Chapelle Notre-Dame du-Haut at Ronchamp. This account emphasizing the qualities of one’s personal experience of the feelings, images and emotions evoked by the building will be related to its material, form and spaces. Le Corbusier states that â€Å"the purpose of architecture is to move us. Architectural emotion exists when the work rings within us in tune with a universe whose laws we obey, recognize and respect† (Fortkamp 39). Similarly, according to Heidegger’s (1962) theory underscoring the phenomenology of built spaces, â€Å"there is no being apart from a world, rather there is first and only a Being in the world† (Seamon 248). Norberg-Schulz (1971), Relph (1976) and other theorists have identified modes of spatial experience as evident in a loose, continuous occurrence ranging from the abstract, measured geometric space to the concretely experienced space of daily living referred to as lived space. Unlike Plato and Euclid’s conceptualization of geometry as the science of space, the phenomenological perspective considers geometric space as having â€Å"a powerful predictive capacity rather than any superior claims to truth† (Seamon 248), while perspectives and impressions of the lived space of the life world form the actual reality. The history of the site as well as that of the earlier predecessor buildings catalysed the creative imagination of Le Corbusier into developing the building as it now exists (Figure 1). The Chapelle Notre-Dame du-Haut at Ronchamp is a chapel of pilgrimmage located at an ancient pilgimmage site, standing on a hill above the village of Ronchamp on the southern edge of the Vosges mountains in France. The present building is used for religious purposes by the clergy. Le Corbusier’s mind took inspiration from an ancient era of human antiquity to create the