On Rowe on La Tourette

It is without doubt the sheer loquaciousness of Rowe's essay on La Tourette that is so off-putting. Despite the sophistications contained within, it is hard to get behind that yes it is/no it isn't parade of proposition and denial (denial of course if you are not sufficiently au fait ) that makes up what appears the equivalent of a fireside chat. We might wonder what kind of world Rowe inhabited and compare it with some of the other writers worlds we have encountered. Is Meades at his most insufferable just the same, is Hickey a low-brow Texan version, is Eagleton just the same kind of beast with a chip on his shoulder? I certainly imagine Rowe tucked up in a club chair with a large brandy, and I love the description of him turning up to an event looking not unlike an unmade bed!
However if there is a prize for interpreting this piece it would go to those who discern, with effort, it's primary satisfactions, for of course La Tourette is itself a stark, apparently plain beast, and it is pleasant, even necessary, for the architect to read it otherwise. Meanwhile in the session I pointed out some things I think Rowe passed over which he shouldn't have. Just to note them here:
1. Corbusier clearly provides a viewing balcony on the south side of the courtyard inviting us to insect and appreciate his array of forms in light.
2. Rowe, with his penchant for abstraction, does not concern himself with any literal visual puns that L-C employs; the kidneys, the light canons, the light machine guns, the ear to god, which he employs in the tradition of the very origins of architecture and that provide complex meaning beyond the visual.
3. Rowe avoids discussion of oddities that may relate directly to Greek mythology (the struts supporting Achilles ships replicated in the slanting pilotis for instance).
4. Experiential effect is very heavily codified, the building is not a 'fridge' (bloody cold) an echo chamber (bloody noisy) the roof of the church does not 'lift off' as the sun comes down, all aspects of our experience of this complex that are undeniable.
These four points, and I suspect there are more, are made not so much to undermine Rowe, but to make us aware of his proclivities, and hence put us in a better place to trace his influence in the abstract architecture the US enjoyed subsequently with 'the whites' (New York Five) who dried out the experiential factors even more!
There is a blog post on AAOH with my own essay on La Tourette for those who wish to venture further.