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Contemplative Spaces in Modern Architecture

Susan B. Wertheim, Chief Architect (Retired), National Gallery of Art

Reception 1:00 - 1:30 pm 

Modern architects use essential elements to create space and to connect people with the natural world through our human sensibilities. This lecture focuses on a few programmatically simple but spatially rich contemplative places and how the elements and principles of modern architectural design intersect with elements of the natural world—earth, wind, light, water, and atmosphere. How do these spaces make us feel and why? Is what is considered “sacred” evident? Can a simple or abstract place be transcendent?

Buildings include Saarinen’s MIT Chapel, Nishizawa and Naito’s Teshima Art Museum, Pei’s Miho Chapel, and Le Corbusier’s Ronchamp Chapel. Experiencing architecture, rather than describing or reading about it, is a luxury. In the spirit of Le Corbusier’s treatise about ineffable space, these places are difficult to convey in words. Nevertheless, they have the power to communicate. These spaces don’t dictate: “Think this!” Rather they ask: “What do you think?”

$15 fee for guests and subscribers (no fee for members)