Addition
In 2006, the convent for the Clarisses, or Poor Clares, decided to construct a building next to the chapel. Corbusier himself had consulted with the Association de l’Oeuvre Notre Dame du Haut about adding a monastery, but concrete plans were never developed. Following the initiativ of the abess, Sister Brigitte de Singly, the Poor Clares commissioned Renzo Piano; the association had considered several architects besides Piano, including Tadao Ando, Glenn Murcutt, and Jean Nouvel. The project met great opposition when plans were unveiled in 2008. Architects like Richard Meier, Rafael Moneo, and Cesar Pelli signed an online petition denouncing the project. The French Ministry of Culture, which is required to approve plans for changing cultural landmarks, approved Piano's design.
In October 2011, Archbishop Luigi Ventura, the papal envoy to France, came to bless the convent. Immersed in the vegetation of the Bourlemont hill, the monastery is composed of twelve 120 square-feet domestic units for the sisters with spaces for common living (a refectory and workshops), an oratory for religious pilgrims, and a lodge to host visitors. The new visitors' centre, also dug into the hill, forms the base of the convent, thus replacing a 1960s gatehouse that had obscured sight of the chapel from the town below and was removed in the process of construction. The all-in budget of $13 million was realised through local government funding, charitable and religious donations, and the sale of the nuns' former convent in Besançon.
Read more about this topic: Notre Dame Du Haut
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