Ronchamp, 1958 — Le Corbusier, Chapelle Notre-Dame du Haut de Ronchamp [Design: Emil Ruder]

Ronchamp by Robert Thomas Stoll, 1st French ed., 1958. Editions Desclée De Brouwer, Paris. 10 x 10, pp. 106 with French text only. Printed in Basel, Switzerland. Preface by Hans Urs von Balthasar. Photos by Basel-based photographers Paul and Esther Merkle. Design by Emil Ruder (1914-1970).

Ronchamp is a landmark publication dedicated to Le Corbusier’s iconic Chapelle Notre-Dame du Haut de Ronchamp (Our Lady of the Heights; Roman Catholic Chapel) in France. “A Day with Ronchamp” is beautifully illustrated throughout with (48) high-contrast black and white photographs capturing Corbusier’s deceptively modern and sculptural architecture.

The book’s layout features Ruder’s modern Swiss typography and graphic design: “Free of the heaviness of the Bauhaus, it is in a new typography which was so fresh and new compared to the typography of the time. Vertical and horizontal arranged photos on the right page, with text in one or two columns on the left page and with pagination aligning with each column.” (Schmid, 2017, pp. 091-092)

Uncommon ephemera laid-in ... a 23-page pamphlet “Ein Tag mit Ronchamp”, (A Day with Ronchamp) from 1962 containing the original text of the German edition and a beautiful black and white Ronchamp postcard published by La Société Immobilière de Notre-Dame-du-Haut; Cliché: Silvester, Lörrach. 

A good glazed hardcover with linen cloth spine. Shelf wear and moderate toning and foxing to the spine and white of the front and back covers. With a light crease and a few small chips and bumps along the right, bottom edges and corners (see photo). Toning along the top edge and margins to most interior pages. A heavy foxed corner and small tear to pages 16/17. Despite any flaws, a superb example from one of the 20th centuries most influential designers and typographers. Uncommon in the United States.