EVEN LE CORBUSIER NODS.

When I was in Primary School, there was one year when, due to renovations, the school day finished early.     Because my mother was working and there would be nobody at home, I went to an aunt's house until she was home from work.  

My cousin Colm had just started studying Architecture and he took it upon himself to instruct me on the wonders of modern design.    He told me all about Bauhaus, Walter Gropius, Mies Van der Rohe, Frank Loyd Wright and Le Corbusier which made me feel terribly sophisticated.    I longed for an opportunity to show off my new-found knowledge but, ten-year old girls have little interest in whether function should dictate form or not.   It was many years before I had to chance to fling "Bauhaus" into a conversation in the hope of impressing people with my knowledge.

Colm showed me pictures in Architectural magazines of cutting-edge buildings including the Dominican Couvent de Saint Marie de la Tourette in Eveux in France, designed by Le Corbusier.   He'd said that Le Corbusier was one of the great geniuses of the twentieth century and I was more than happy to believe this.    So, recently, when we were in Lyon and La Tourette was nearby, I couldn't wait to visit it.

You take the train from Lyon to L'Arbresle and then walk up a hill and keep on walking.   The walk took  the best part of an hour but it was a lovely day, the views were delightful and we stopped frequently to admire the scenery... well that was my excuse.   Finally we got there and I couldn't believe my eyes.

It was hideous.   It is made entirely of concrete and concrete doesn't weather well.   The outside walls were badly stained and the bell tower looked as though a particularly clumsy child had stuck it on in the wrong place.   The entrance was puddled and muddy and they had put wooden boxes down to keep your feet dry but I still had high hopes for the interior.   I remembered photographs of light beaming down through coloured shafts.  

The interior is a huge, rectangular, concrete box with a high concrete ceiling.   The concrete is dirty and stained.  I kept thinking "gas chamber, gas chamber, gas chamber".   Yes, the light does come in through coloured shafts which are painted red and yellow and blue but the paint is cracked and bubbling, the windows are spiderwebbed and leaking and there is a terrible air of neglect.    Curiously though, some sections still photograph well.   The building induced a great sense of unease and agitation in me.   This is in contrast to the cathedral and basilica in Lyon, neither of which are particularly outstanding but both are peadceful, calm spaces.

The rest of the monastery buildings  have also worn badly and the entire complex had the air of a sink estate built in the sixties.    Having held the name of Le Corbusier in high esteem all my life I felt terribly let down and yet, and yet, I have to admit to a certain pleasurable schadenfreude.    Finally I had serious a word with myself and reminded myself that, geniuses too have their off days.  

Revolution isn't pretty close up.

Life, that old joker, took me and stopped me from doing several things that I wanted to do including blogging.  

We went to visit Girona recently and while there we visited several of the surrounding towns.   In one particular place we were in a shop selling local foods. 
Where are you from?"  the shop owner asked.
"Ireland."
He got very excited  and started to tell us of his great admiration for the I.R.A.  who had so recently liberated the Irish nation from the hands of the evil British.    While I was trying to formulate a reply he went on to say that he wished the I.R.A. would come to Catalunya and help the Catalans to liberate themselves from the clutches of the evil Spaniards.

I burst his bubble by telling him that the I.R.A. had not liberated anyone from anything but had started thirty years of bloodshed which had caused the deaths of thousands of innocent people and sown fear and distrust in the province of Ulster.   He didn't like what I was saying.   He wanted a free Catalunya.

He reminded me of the people you meet here in the Republic who support all that the I.R.A. do and have done.   But it's easy to talk that kind of dangerous nonsense when you are safe and snug in your home ,when you can sleep easy.   When you're not the one who is going to the morgue to pick up the body of your friend or your mother or brother who's been shot.   When you haven't been forced to drive a car that is carrying a bomb to the centre of town.  When your sister has not had her legs blown off and your brother has not disappeared without trace.   When your home has not been burnt to the ground and no one you know has been knee-capped.   

Not long after we got back from Spain we heard the tragic news of the car bomb that killed young Ronan Kerr.    Twenty-five years old and only three weeks out of police training.   It doesn't bear thinking about.   I can only hope that it doesn't herald a return to the terrible times.   And I hope that the people of Catalynya have more sense and humanity than to bring the curse of the bomb and the gun on themselves and on their compatriots.  

Revolutions are neither romantic nor idealistic .   It is only distance that lets them appear so.    Up close they are vicious and bloody and ugly and vile and should be avoided, except in extremis.   And even then, only if all else has failed.   They cause such high levels of fear and mistrust that it takes generations to heal the damage.   And, however lofty the ideals of some, you can bet your last farthing that the chance of wreaking havoc will attract every criminal and freak in the land and give them carte blanche .