Design That Shouldn’t Work — But Does

At Ronchamp, Le Corbusier defied convention and created a chapel that remains one of architecture’s boldest risks.

15 years ago today, I landed in France. I didn’t go to Paris, I went to Ronchamp.

Most people visit this hillside town for a quiet retreat. I went for concrete and curves.

Notre Dame du Haut — Le Corbusier’s chapel, perched above the countryside — doesn’t look like it should work. The roof is oversized and asymmetrical. The windows are scattered without rhythm. The walls aren’t plumb, and the lines defy alignment.

But that’s what makes it exceptional.

As someone drawn to balance and structure, this building challenged everything I typically appreciate about good design. And that’s exactly why I wanted to photograph it. Because great design doesn’t always follow logic. Sometimes, it breaks it with purpose.

The Setting: Ronchamp, France

Tucked into the green hills of eastern France, Ronchamp is modest and unassuming. The road winds up slowly, and then the chapel appears — like it was dropped there by another culture entirely. At a glance, it looks uneven, maybe even unfinished.

But the longer you look, the more everything makes sense.

The structure doesn’t dominate the landscape. It collaborates with it. It doesn’t ask to be explained. It invites you to experience it.

The Architect I Thought I Knew

Like a lot of design students, my first encounter with Le Corbusier wasn’t in the field. It was in a textbook.

There it was — Unité d’Habitation. Brutalist concrete and very rational form. Elevated supports, long horizontal windows, and a rooftop built for living — the very blueprint of modernist housing. I studied it like gospel. It was the kind of design that made sense to me: organized, modular, rigorously thought through.

That’s what I loved about Le Corbusier. That precision. That discipline — something I pursued in my own work, and probably in life too.

So when I finally stood in front of Notre Dame du Haut, I couldn’t believe it was by the same architect.

Gone were the straight lines. The grid. The rhythm.
Here was something emotional. Sculptural. Loose. Free.

At first, it didn’t compute. And then… it hit hard.

Le Corbusier at a Turning Point

Known for his radical ideas about urban planning and strict architectural logic, Le Corbusier was a champion of order. But in 1950, commissioned to design a chapel atop a ruined pilgrimage site, he pivoted — not because he abandoned modernism, but because he evolved it.

Here, structure yields to space. Concrete curves where it usually cuts. Light leads form. There’s no grid. No axis. Just intuition, scale, and a deep understanding of how architecture can move you — physically and emotionally.

It’s spiritual architecture without being soft. Brutalist in material. Sculptural in intent.

Photographing What Can’t Be Framed

Notre Dame du Haut is not easy to photograph. There is no perfect angle. Every façade reads differently — some compressed and heavy, others light and lifted. The structure resists balance. Which turns framing into a test of patience and precision.

• The roof: A massive concrete shell, suspended above the walls like a sail or wing, its underside textured like rough stone. From below, it floats. From the side, it cuts into the hillside like a force of nature — grounded, heavy, and absolutely deliberate.
• The walls: Thick, curving, and irregular. The whitewashed plaster softens light across its curves, drawing attention to shape rather than structure.
• The windows: Cut irregularly into the south wall, they seem haphazardly placed, but in light, they project color and rhythm like a scattered constellation.

There’s no “front” to this chapel. No center line. That’s what makes it so compelling — and so rewarding to shoot.

Why It Works

This design shouldn’t hold together. But it does — because everything is intentional.

Corbusier used asymmetry to shift your perspective. He used mass to control space. He used emptiness to frame experience. Nothing here is arbitrary, even when it appears loose.

And that’s the lesson: good design isn’t always rational — sometimes it just belongs.

It’s surprising to think the same architect who created rigid housing blocks also gave us this — a chapel shaped by light, curve, and feeling.
It gave me hope that there’s room in design for structure and instinct — even in the same mind.

Final Thought

Notre Dame du Haut is one of the most iconic structures in modern architecture because it rebels against conformity.

It’s emotional without being fragile. Bold without being loud.
It redefines what sacred space can look like — not through ornament, but through tension, contrast, and courage.

It’s a chapel that, by traditional standards, shouldn’t work.
And that’s exactly why it does.