In the spring semester 2026, in the master studio led by Felix Wettstein, students worked in La Sainte-Baume and in the landscape of the Plan d’Aups in Provence, taking as their point of departure the legend of Mary Magdalene and an unrealized project by Le Corbusier. The task was to write a third act to this open narrative. The proposal by Erin Bousquet is an astronomical observatory at the ridge of the massif, directly above the cave traditionally associated with Mary Magdalene.

The massif of Sainte-Baume has drawn people for centuries. According to legend, Mary Magdalene spent the last thirty years of her life here, carried each day to the summit by angels to pray. The project takes that gesture as its starting point: the idea that looking at the sky is, in its own way, a sacred act.

Stacked from 3 images. Method=A (R=8,S=4)

Stacked from 3 images. Method=A (R=8,S=4)

A tunnel bored into the rock at 45 degrees, calculated with the latitude of the site, frames Polaris at its center. From this north-south axis, the programme unfolds: two domed telescopes, accommodation for visiting researchers, and permanent quarters for resident scientists. The northern part of the ridge is carved into the Urgonian limestone, while the southern part is built from the stone that comes out of it, extracted and laid without transformation.

Situation

North-South section 1:100

Geological map

North-South section

Polaris aligned with Earth’s rotation axis

45° tunnel

Section of Le Corbusier's project, 1948

Dimensions of the extracted stone

Moucharabieh