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Dissertation: Influence of Le Corbusier in Modern Architecture
Dissertation: Influence of Le Corbusier in Modern Architecture
NUMBER OF COPIES: 2
NUMBER OF PAGES: 60
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Le Corbusier
PREFACE
You could say that not only built work which affects and influences us, but one that
was incomplete, a tender for a project, or a simple idea.
About Le Corbusier, there are few works that have been built. For these reason, not
only those projects we will count on to be built, but with those that were developed
without limitations or obstacles.
For these ideas, it was given a utopia, that would be necessary for later.
To take this big step in architectural and urbanism terms, or simply, evolve.
A newly repertoire of ideas. Painting even.
He was so prolific man like him, who investigated, and was criticized by some
architects of the world. Interest on the no limits.
Probably I missed on the curiosity of details, masters, people who listened, learned
and criticized, but it has been an endless source of knowledge.
My greetings, my thanks to Erik Toft by teach me the way to find a point of view to
watch all the works of this extraordinary man.
Best Regards
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Le Corbusier
ABSTRACT
The thesis is structured around five questions on -and 'from'- how Le Corbusier
developed, set and influenced with his knowledge and ideas in a modern society
(1887-1965).
Among the possible subjects to discuss, the thesis develops those influences
and knowledge that he acquired, from a historical and learning context, features of Le
Corbusier's work, emphasizing the influence of his masters, his travels to India and
South Europe, his artistical side, his gather with ancient Greece and Rome or organical
influence even.
Architecture focus on the human being, his needs and laying the architecture at
the service of him. Using these new materials and tools but without renounce to
shapes, funcionalism or colours and mainly, the light.
As well as, the Five Architect group, James Stirling, Louis Isadore Kahn or Philip
Johnson among others.
“Modern life demands, and is waiting for, a new kind of plan, both for the house and
the city”
Vers une architecture (1923)
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Le Corbusier
INTRODUCTION _____________________________________ 5
PROBLEM STATEMENT ________________________________ 6
What was the main ideas in the architectural society when Le
Corbusier start his education? ________________________________ 6
Chronology ______________________________________________________ 6
What was the main ideas he was influenced on? ______________ 16
How did he use these ideas and developed? __________________ 23
Citroan Evolution _______________________________________________ 23
“Vers une architecture”__________________________________________ 24
Four houses form _______________________________________________ 24
Ville Contemporaine ____________________________________________ 29
CONGRES AND EXPOSITIONS _____________________________________ 30
Unité d’Habitation in Marseilles ___________________________________ 32
NOTRE DAME DU RONCHAMP ____________________________________ 32
Chandigarh, the city planned _____________________________________ 35
What were the main ideas from Le Corbusier? ________________ 38
DOM-INO SYSTEM ______________________________________________ 38
Curutchet House _______________________________________________ 40
MODULOR ____________________________________________________ 41
Where can we find these ideas and developments nowadays? ___ 44
Oscar Niemeyer ________________________________________________ 44
FIVE ARCHITECTS _______________________________________________ 45
Louis Isadore Kahn ______________________________________________ 47
Walden 7 / Ricardo Bofill_________________________________________ 50
CONCLUSION______________________________________ 51
REFERENCES ______________________________________ 53
Text References _________________________________________ 53
Image References ________________________________________ 54
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Le Corbusier
INTRODUCTION
Le Corbusier became, in the 1920s, one of the prophets of the new architecture.
In the Villa Savoye, 1929, sums up his 5 points for a new architecture: supports
on piles at a regular distance, flat roofs that can be used as a garden, continuous
windows along the facade that provide lighting inside, free structure of the facade,
open floor eliminating support walls.
The pure, elegant geometry of Le Corbusier's International Style would give way
in the years after World War II to a new, more organic vocabulary, which did not
prevent, continuing the brilliant career of Le Corbusier.
In the housing unit in 1945, achieved his dream was materialized. Build a
collective housing as a compact building.
It is a large rectangular prism, which separates from the ground thanks to huge
pillars of reinforced concrete, the architect favorite material from these moments,
leaving the exposed concrete and timber formwork showing.
Thanks to the concrete could let your fertile imagination and work as a
sculpture, as seen in the chapel of Notre-Dame-du-Haut at Ronchamp, built between
1950 and 1955.
It is an irregular floor building, which stands on a hill. Presents three
protrusions at the corners, as if it were towers. The roof resembles the keel of a boat,
including a canvas lifted.
The color white dominates the set, illuminating the interior through attractive
colored glass windows.
The synthesis of his career has been in the city of Chandigarh, the capital of the
Indian state of Punjab. This is a new town, which highlights the parliament, a
spectacular building which is preceded by a concrete porch that is finished with a
structure in the form of a truncated cone, thus replacing the traditional dome of
classical architecture .
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Le Corbusier
PROBLEM STATEMENT
What was the main ideas in the architectural society when Le Corbusier
start his education?
Chronology
1840s
Karl Marx publishes the Communist Manifest 1848
John Ruskin publishes The Seven
Lamps of Architecture 1849
1850s
Joseph Paxton builds the Crystal Palace 1851
Charles Darwin publishes Origin of Species 1859
Beginning of the Arts and Crafts Movement 1859
1860s
First architectural school in the U.S. established at M.I.T 1861
Eugene-Emanuel Viollet –le-Duc publishes
Entretiens sur l’architecture 1863 – 72
1870s
Great Fire of Chicago 1871
The light bulb is invented 1875
Alexander Graham Bell invents the telephone. 1876
Louis Sullivan joins Dankmar Adler's firm in Chicago. 1879
St. Petersburg has its first significant strike
by industrial workers 1879
1880s
Beginning of Art Noveau ca.1880
Invention of the fireproof metal frame for tall buildings 1880s
John D. Rockefeller’s empire controls 95 percent
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Le Corbusier
of U.S. oil refining. 1880
Tsar Alexander II is assassinated 1881
First electrical power plant and
grid in Godalming, Britain 1881
In Appleton, Wisconsin, a hydroelectric power
plant begins operation. 1882
Mark Twain publishes The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. 1882
Gaudí is given the commission for the Sagrada Família 1884
The Berlin Conference. European nations agree
to ban trade in slaves. 1884 – 85
Le Baron Jenney builds the first metal-frame skyscraper,
the Home Insurance Building 1885
Gustav Eiffel builds the Eiffel Tower 1889
Aspirin patented 1889
1890s
Frank Lloyd Wright develops the Prairie House 1890s
Vincent Van Gogh commits suicide 1890
Death of Queen Victoria 1891
Sigmund Freud formulates his theory
and method of psychoanalysis 1892 – 95
World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago 1893
Louis Sullivan publishes The Tall
Building Artistically Considererd 1896
Olympic Games revived in Athens. 1896
Henri Becquerel discovers radioactivity 1896
J. J. Thomson identifies the electron 1896
Formation of the Viennese Secession 1898
H. G. Wells publishes The War of the Worlds 1898
1900s
Death of Queen Victoria 1901
In Russia the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks0
form from the breakup of the Russian Social
Democratic Labor Party 1903
Ford Motor Company 1903
Entente cordiale signed between Britain and France 1904
Albert Einstein publishes Gerenal and
Special Theories of Relativity 1905
Earthquakes in San Francisco, California 1906
First commercial radio transmissions. 1908
AEG Turbine Factory of Peter Behrens 1908–09
The Ford Motor Company invents the assembly line 1908
Pablo Picasso and George Braque create
Cubismo 1908 – 12
Filippo Marinetti publishes the Futurist Manifiesto 1909
Louis Bleriot becomes the first person to cross
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Le Corbusier
the English Channel by airplane. 1909
Frank Lloyd Wright completes the Robie House 1909
1910 - 1914
George V becomes King of the United Kingdom 1910
Roald Amundsen first reaches the South Pole. 1911
Ernest Rutherford identifies the atomic nucleus 1911
Niels Bohr formulates the first cohesive model
of the atomic nucleus, and way to quantum mechanics 1913
Ford Motor Company develops the Ford Model T 1913
Beginning of federal income tax in the United States 1913 – 16
The Archduke Franz Ferdinand is assassined in Sarajevo
triggering World War I 1914
Panama Canal opens 1914
Henry Ford fully mechanizes mass production of automobile 1914
1915 - 1919
Dada art movement ca. 1915
Rolshevik Revolution ends the Russian Empire 1917
Beginning of Russian Civil War 1917
Theo van Doesburg begins the journal De Stijl 1917
End of World War I; German Revolution begins 1918
Murder of Tsar Nicholas II and his family 1918
Treaty of Versailles redraws European borders 1919
Mussolini founds the Fascist Party in Italy 1919
Walter Gropius founds the Bauhaus in Weimar 1919
1920s
Women granted the right to vote in the United States 1920
Le Corbusier publishes Vers une architecture
(Toward an Architecture), a summary of his ideas 1923
Bauhaus at Dessau designed by Walter Gropius 1925
Le Corbuiser articulates his “Five points of architecture” 1926
Joseph Stalin assumes power in the Soviet Union 1926
New York Stock Market crashes,
Beginning the Great Depression 1929
Barcelona Pavilion designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe 1929
1930s
Adolf Loos develop the Raumplan 1930
The Empire State Building, designed
by Shreve, Lamb and Harmon 1931
Invention of air conditioning 1932
The Intenation Style: Architecture Since 1922 exhibition
opens at New York City’s Museum of Modern Art 1932
Second World War 1939 – 45
1940s
Le Corbusier offers his services to the Vichy regime 1941
Vichy rejects Le Corbusier's Obus E plan for Algiers. 1942
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Le Corbusier
Frank Lloyd Wright designs Johnson Wax Headquarters 1944
Le Corbusier draws up plans for La Rochelle-La Pallice 1946
Alvar Aalto builds the Baker House at the Massachusett 1947
1950s
Mies van der Rohe's Lake Shore Drive
Apartments completed in Chicago 1951
Le Corbusier completes Unité d'Habitation in Marseilles 1952
Completion of Le Corbusier's Notre Dame du Haut 1955
The Interbau 57 exposition in Berlin features structures
by Alvar Aalto, Walter Gropius and his The
Architects' Collaborative (TAC), and an unité by Le Corbusier. 1957
The Seagram Building in New York designed
by Mies van der Rohe and Philip Johnson is completed. 1958
Frank Lloyd Wright's Guggenheim Museum in New York
is finished after 16 years of work on the project. 1959
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Le Corbusier
Moreover, in Italy, his unification, "Il Risorgimento" in Italian, also along throughout
the nineteenth century led to the union of the various states in which the Italian
peninsula was divided, largely linked to dynasties considered "non-Italian "as the
Habsburgs or Bourbons.
Supporting for the nationalism and reunification of the main nations of Europe,
Germany, England, France or Italy; flourished a Neoclassicism.
One way to consolidate power through serious architecture and recovering the old
classical forms. Architects as a Karl Friedrich Schinckel in germany
Neo – Classicism
England: VICTORIAN SYTLE: Victorian styles include Gothic Revival, Italianate, Stick,
Eastlake, Queen Anne, Romanesque and Second Empire. 1840 to 1900
It is known as one of building styles that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century,
during part of the reign of Victoria I of England and gained momentum and spread
mainly in the United Kingdom, its colonies and the United States .
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Le Corbusier
This style is characterized by designs take English Gothic architecture and other
architectures used in his time.
Lack of renovation
Viollet-Le-Duc
From French rationalist school, which rejected the teaching of the School of Fine Arts,
replacing it with practice and travel through France and Italy.
More important is its theoretical contribution, in which he defended the use of a
rational methodology in the study of the styles of the past, as opposed to romantic
historicism.
In this way, in Europe, especially in the second half of, it is established and developed
Arts and Crafts Movement, an international movement of that flourished in the period
between 1860 and 1910, and its influence continuing until the 1930s. The artist and
writer William Morris led during the 1860s, and was inspired by the writings of John
Ruskin and Augustus Pugin.
At first, It developed and with more intesity in the British Isles, but then, extend to
Europe and North America.
It was mainly a reaction against the denigrated state of the decorative arts at the time
in the manner as they were produced and created.
It was a delayed reaction against the forces of industrialization, the demand for
traditional craftsmanship with simple shapes and styles often applied to medieval,
romantic or folk of decoration. It argued for economic and social reform and, as has
been said, essentially anti-industrial.
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Le Corbusier
Red House, surrounding of London, designed by Philip Webb in 1859, as a home for William Morris
( founder of the movement) Red-tiled roof, based on medieval models, and its emphasis on natural
materials, the house became a major influence in Britain and abroad.
Derivated of Arts and Crafts Movement, the Vienna Secession (also known as the
Union of Austrian Artists)
The architects of this era were in charge of both the minimum housing and the big city
or metropolis, from the shape of the architecture to its commitment to the art and is
more, there are architects who also devoted to the production of other arts as painting,
sculpture or even, lithography, all inherited the spirit of Art Nouveau proclaiming the
birth of a complete artist.
Known as the New Style, Art Nouveau was first expressed in fabrics and graphic design.
The style spread to architecture and furniture in the 1890s. Art Nouveau buildings
often have asymmetrical shapes, arches and decorative surfaces with curved, plant-like
designs.
its main feature is the sinuous line characteristic plant type any object: ornaments,
glasses and even the outer profiles of the houses. Another feature is the use of cast
iron and ceramic. Also the structure of the building was identified with the decor.
As an artist total
This enlarged from The Industrial Revolution initiated in the eighteenth century in
England is spreading to Europe and the United States of America. Industrialization
created the need to build a new type buildings (factories, railway stations, housing,
etc..)
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Le Corbusier
Demand that they should be cheap and fast to build, at the same time provides
technical solutions to new needs. For this reason, since the nineteenth century,
architecture and urbanism are inextricably linked to industrialization
However, we can not speak of uniform styles and architectural and urban solutions,
just like some constants or similar relationships.
Industrial Revolution, iniciated in Great Britain, final of XIX century, and arrived still Assembly Line,
developed by Henry Ford in 1913 in assamble of automobiles
Modernization of solutions, use of new materials such as cast iron, glass, cement-it-
century later and funcionalism trend.
Beside these data that reflect the push of "modernity", we must remember that the
new reality is not accept for everyone and, compared to the triumph of mechanization
and technology, rise the voices calling for a return to order above. In architecture
these claims will be specified in the style revival
Chicago School.
The style is also known as Commercial style.In the history of architecture, the Chicago
School was a school of architects active in Chicago at the turn of the 20th century.
They were among the first to promote the new technologies of steel-frame
construction in commercial buildings, and developed a spatial aesthetic which co-
evolved with, and then came to influence, parallel developments in European
Modernism.
William Le Baron Jenney (1832 - 1907), The father of the Chicago School Home
Insurance Company Building designed in 1884 is considered the first building
constructed with steel skeleton
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Le Corbusier
The idea that a steel structure fire protection allowed speculators to build solar
optimal height, "the elevator doubled the height of the buildings and steel structure
doubled again"
Avant – Gardes
The architects, and authors and artists in general, this period took several ways, and
many of them participated in several architectural trends in short space of time, they
would come to criticize the authors, works, and trends that they had participated , that
of known and we quickly reflects that these movements appeared and expired. In this
part so extremely varied artists noteworthy that these authors because they were very
wealthy influences of each of the movements, adapting to their work they considered
the different features of interest and applying them in the way they thought best for
their goals.
The Deutscher Werkbund (DWB) was a mixed association of architects, artists and
industrialists, founded in 1907 in Munich, by Hermann Muthesius. It was an important
organization in the history of modern architecture, modern design and a precursor to
the Bauhaus.
The Werkbund more than an art movement was an action funded by the state to
integrate traditional crafts with the techniques of mass production industry to put
Germany in a competitive position with other powers such as Britain or the United
States.
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Le Corbusier
was looking for a new artistic expression in the age of the machine, with a major
component of theory, like all movements of the early twentieth century.
Funcionalism
Modernist movement was lead in architecture which was an attempt to create a
nonhistorical architecture of Functionalism in which a new sense of space would be
created with the help of modern materials.It is an adoption of the machine aesthetic
whereas a rejection of ornament which means a simplification of form and elimination
of "unnecessary detail". Thus,about 1920, some architects developed in simple cubical
forms.
(Before Frist World War) Peter Behrens en Alemania, Adolf Loos y Josef Hoffmann en
Austria o Auguste Perret en Francia
The search for large areas of geometric design, the use of reinforced concrete, the
flight of the decorative elements or the tendency to simplification of the forms are
characteristic of this group of architects who never worked as such.
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Le Corbusier
His artistc talent was recognized early by his teachers, who encouraged him to take
advantage of it and consider more ambotious goals than a employment in the industry
of watches.
His architectural education came from experience created in the office of Auguste
Perret during two years and Peter Behrens one year more, sandwiched between them,
several trips troughtout the Mediterranean, where we should include the Greek
islands.
In 1918,Le Corbusier met the painter Amédée Ozenfant, and within a year they
formulated and published a book— Après le Cubisme (1918; “After Cubism”).
Developing a variant of Cubism, which they considered a decorative trend with a
creation of arbitrary and fantastic forms. In this essay, they returned to get clear,
ordered, precise forms, expressive of the modern machine civilization.
It was a aesthetic approach they called Purism. Emphasizing the principles of order,
rationality, and funcionalism.
During the second decade of the twentieth century, Le Corbusier was forging his idea
housing in series, idea that begins to mold in 1914 when developed with the assistance
of Max Dubois, the standardized structural system dom-ino, states in his subsequent
trip to Germany, where it contacts the activity of large industries, and is promoted
when in 1919, already installed in Paris, André Citroën rides his factory to produce cars
in series. Since then, imagine a home produced as a car, which alludes in the name of
the house in a clever play on words
The Organic and animal side will come, but after two War Mundial.
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Le Corbusier
Revived an interest in handicrafts and A search with a spiritual connection with the
SURROUNDING environment, natural and artificial
Nature, the natural shapes of animals, plants or mushrooms (remain art noveau),
derived in his latest buinding and designs.
Organic shapes. that develop another way to observe, opposite to basic forms: right angle, circle, square
and rectangle. Using aleatory forms of nature to play with the plain and grey concrete pilars.
School of Chicago
Produce structures and radical simplifications, animated by a love of detail, Sullivan
reached the goal of inherent architectural beauty.
William Le Baron Jenney. Home Insurance Building, Chicago, 1885. The reconstruction
of the city after the fire of 1871 design freely allowed buildings like this: a 42 meter
high structure through the use of steel, is the precedent of skyscrapers, although he
was only ten floors. The increase in the size of office buildings or homes have been
completely useless without simultaneous innovations of the age of electricity that
enabled rapid mass movements that characterize contemporary urban life: vertical (lift)
and horizontal (metro, tram and other public transport).
Beginnings of functionalism
Loos said the art architecture differs because it has practical purposes. Perret is the
aim of quality construction. Granier about bringing the urban architecture. Behrens is
implementing industrial building.
Both of these below architects were teachers of Le Corbusier in his youth, for a short
period of time, which was enough to buy the new values in Europe.
In 1913, Auguste Perret designed Théâtre des Champs-Elysées that scandalized the
Parisian society - this beautifully proportioned building was a clear manifest against
ornamentation and other attributes of Art Nouveau.
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Le Corbusier
The production did not see and the beauty of isolated examples, but is presented as an
act that takes into account other things. By matching with the spread of reinforced
concrete, uses the possibilities of the materials for its simplification program and
maximum economy.
Peter Behrens, 1910 german architect, twenty years older than Le Corbusier, was also
a designer. He was a important part for the modernist movement, influencing to the
movement's leading names, between them, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier
and Walter Gropius in earlier period of their careers.
Only in the corners of the building the architect turned to the use of reinforced
concrete, with no decoration but the lines that mark the courses of the formwork,
material also used in the upper gables to compose a kind of singular pediment which
contains the logo company. On one side is the office space. And there is nothing more,
and nothing less: the warehouse model in its perfect state.
For the same German company also built the homes of factory workers. And not
content with this, he designed several pieces of furniture, from watches to coffee
machines, lamps or ashtrays. Quite a comprehensive conception of the corporate
image.
Only in the corners of the building the architect turned to the use of reinforced
concrete, with no decoration but the lines that mark the courses of the formwork,
material also used in the upper gables to compose a kind of singular pediment which
contains the logo company. On one side is the office space. And there is nothing more,
and nothing less: the warehouse model in its perfect state.
For the same German company also built the homes of factory workers. And not
content with this, he designed several pieces of furniture, from watches to coffee
machines, lamps or ashtrays. Quite a comprehensive conception of the corporate
image.
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Le Corbusier
Tony Garnier forerunner of 20th century French architecture. was, together with
Auguste Perret, the architect most representative and innovative new French
classicism which appeared in Paris in the early twentieth century.
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Le Corbusier
The structure (greenhouse design builder Joseph Paxton) 92,000 square meters, 33
meters in height and 564 meters in length, built by five thousand skilled workers to
house the Great Exhibition in London in 1851. It is the first building of such dimensions
that uses new materials that the Industrial Revolution provides an effective way: steel
(previously used in bridges and other engineering works) and glass (covering an area of
84,000 m² openings).
voyage d´Orient
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Le Corbusier
Russian Construcctivism
Great unknown for a long time, today , there are some buildings of this type even in
the United States. It was the desire to do something useful, all the Russian avant-garde
had to do with architecture, there is an identification between art and politics,
planning and housing.
Vladimir Tatlin.1885-1953.
Besides constructivist, was a
painter
and sculptor, doomed in many
facets of the branches of art, was
the founder movement being the
main bastion, put new materials
and new symbology., He made a
model of the monument of the
third international force project
conducted in early 1920. The
monument of 400 feet-high in iron
and steel spiral inclined from the
axis, contain glass structure inside.
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Le Corbusier
He figured out his ideas by painting and sculpture. Jean-Louis Cohen, one of the best
knowers of him, said: "Le Corbusier, educated as a plastic artist, visited his studio every
morning to work on his canvases, before before heading to his studio every afternoon
to study how to apply them in the architectural compositions, on architectural
manner”, manner that I will show and compare after of this
Citroan Evolution
After this travels to Italy and India, and the knowledge that he learned in Germany by
Perret and
His compendium of influences is implemented from the first prototype of the house
Citrohan developed in 1920, where first applies a resource design that will become a
constant in virtually all housing projects
Intended to be built in any country, the prototype Citrohan is a review of the concepts
of the Dom-Ino homes subsequent to the experiences in his pictorial activity with
Ozenfant and the engineer assistance of Max Dubois. In this project germinal, Le
Corbusier puts into effect a catalog of ideas based on the influences collected during
his formative years:
- The adoption of simple shapes that do survive aesthetic values over time.
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Le Corbusier
- The concepts expressed in the manifesto of purism in favor of precision and
mathematical order.
- The adoption of unadorned forms promulgated years earlier by Adolf Loos.
- The housing cubic forms of the Mediterranean coast.
- The flat roofs of the “Cite Industrielle” of Tony Garnier.
- The large glass buildings of the early century Parisians.
- The idea of the model cell in the Ema Monastery visited in 1907, carrying Le Corbusier
to say, “I apply admirably to the workers houses”
In it, he praised the beauty of the ocean liner, the trubine engine, the airplane, the
automobile and even the bridge construction - all design of the engineer, whose
products had to reflect function and could not be adorned with unessential decoration.
Ideas directly gather with Futurism as an Avant-garde.
In this essay, they were explained the Five point of the architecture that Le Corbusier
will develop along of his first part of career.
These Five points of the architecture was joined with this essay of 1923, which the next
villas will follow.The villas were set in isolated space and surrounded by gardens.
These villas are characterized by open spaces formed through the various levels and
terraces. Among them, corridors, not as simple aisles, but simbological paths.
The walk through these villages, plays an important role in linking these two programs
into one, and their hierarchy is a theme inspired by Le Corbusier's visit to the Acropolis.
The Villa was imagined as a "spatial experience" and consists of a specifically
deliberate path which guides the inhabitant and reveals the artwork as an itinerary
through history, as well as the area delimited live amoning inhabitants or hosts and
servants.
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Le Corbusier
Cubical shapes against oval ones, inspired by the chimneys of the big transatlantic
ships (futurism and modernity).
Patterns of the facade were directly relationed with proportions of Palladio.
(Renaissance, classic ancient ideas)
Villa Roche
1923
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Le Corbusier
Villa Foscari is a patrician villa in Mira, near Venice, northern Italy, designed Andrea Palladio (1558-60)
The majestic twin ramps imposed a kind of ceremonial route to arriving guests visiting.
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Le Corbusier
Villa Savoye
1929
One more time, the idea was developed by a painting. Artistically before than
architecturally.
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Le Corbusier
Le Corbusier, like other arquitects from his moment, had few major commissions
during the 1920s, due the First World War but he continually advanced his ideas and
his reputation through his writings and through his visionary urban-planning projects.
These large-scale housing projects, a response to the growing urban populations and
housing shortages of postwar France, were never actually built.
Ville Contemporaine
In 1922 he drew up a plan for a contemporary city of three million inhabitants ( “Ville
Contemporaine”) Contemporary City.
It was an unrealised project, designed with ordered rows of gleaming glass skyscrapers
placed on stilts to allow for pedestrian passage.
They were connected by vast highways and set in the midst of parks.
Ville Radieuse (Radiant City) was an unrealised project designed by the French-Swiss
architect Le Corbusier in 1924. It tried to explain and developed a basic points
- Provide effective means for communications.
- Provide a lot of green.
- Provide better access to the sun.
- Reduce traffic.
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Le Corbusier
Plan Voison.
Plan Voisin, Paris, France, 1925. Replacing the edification of the right bank of the Seine.
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Le Corbusier
In the twentieth century manifestos abound in which the term "architecture as a social
art" is repeated. Among the many issues to our attention are the concepts and
buildings associated with CIAM architects, founded in June 1928.
ATHENS CHARTER
1933, a document whose great rhetoric and idealism praised the virtues of cities and
residential areas with giant towers, given a long shadow on urban planning in the years
after World War II.
The principles of the Ville Radieuse were also incorporated into his later publication
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Le Corbusier
His utopian ideal formed the basis of a number of urban plans during the 1930s and
1940s culminating in the design and construction of the first Unité d’Habitation in
Marseilles in 1952.
The "housing unit" is a good example of this, with architectural details such as
handrails and balustrades ergonomic , benches strategically placed to rest, or
integrated furniture in the apartments with planned functions such as supporting a
glass while watching the view of the valley.
On the top floor, Le Corbusier placed a school to facilitate the lives of the inhabitants,
while in the roof sits a theater under the stars and a pool suitable for children.
Food shop, bakehouse, post office.
These elements, all of them designed to place man at the center of the architecture, a
progressive vision that permeated the career of Le Corbuiser
The pure, elegant geometry of Le Corbusier's International Style would give way in the
years after World War II to a new, more organic vocabulary.
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Le Corbusier
provided the loci required for the response, the horizon visible on all four sides of the
hill and its historical legacy as a place of worship. Le Corbusier also sensed a sacred
relationship of the hill with its surroundings, the Jura mountains in the distance and
the hill itself, dominating the landscape.
But incluse overhere, the nature of the site resulted in an ensemble that has many
similarities with the Acropolis, from the ascent at the bottom of the hill to the
architectural and landscape events along the way, you can see the building until it is
reaches almost entirely the hilltop.
The high walls, act as acoustic amplifiers, they project the sound to the whole place.
One of the most striking aspects of the Church, is the cover. The roof appears to float
above the building, supported by columns embedded in the walls, creating a gap of 10
cm between the ceiling and walls.
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Le Corbusier
The roof is perhaps the only sign of any influence of mechanical progress, curves
simulating an aircraft wing. Aerodynamics in the design, all huge and heavy qualities
appear weightless.
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Le Corbusier
The activity of Le Corbusier in the field of urbanism has been one of the greatest
contributions that he has made within the architecture. He proposed and carried out
further urban construction plans in cities such as Moscow, Paris, Algiers, Kabul (in
Pakistan), Brasilia, among others.
The city has projects designed by Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret, Jane Drew and
Maxwell Fry.
It was the Indian landscape That inspired the construction of the final built utopian city
Chandigarh, the capital of Punjab.
The design was based on the conceptualization of La Ville Radieuse (The Radiant City),
which in turn was an update of the ideas for the Ville Contemporaine.
The central idea of Le Corbusier was to establish in the heart of the city a number of
skyscrapers, not next to each other, but all of them separated by spacious gardens and
numerous spaces, roads and parking spaces for motorists.
35
Le Corbusier
The shape of the city plan was modified from one with a curving road network to
rectangular shape with a grid iron pattern for the fast traffic roads, reducing besides its
area for reason of economy.
The city plan was conceived as post war 'Garden City', where in upright and high rise
buildings were ruled out, keeping in view the socio-economic conditions and living
habits of the people.
The skyscrapers of the same size and the same height, would be bathed in the sun and
the air everywhere. The green areas at the foot of the same would be gardens and
playgrounds. In the distance we extend the garden cities, on the outskirts of the
business district, in which reside the inhabitants of the city. Distribution of the city by
bounded areas (residential and industrial area, leisure area, work area, etc. ..) And
organize pedestrian circulation and vehicles in seven different types of roads for
circulation speeds.
Not only Art Noveau or Arts and Crafts movement, analysis and observation on his
own, because, It would seem that, also his personal collection of marine crustaceans,
whose mysterious cavities and their shapes inspired the design of his ideas. Developed
in its latest buildings, as a paraleloide hyperbolic roof of the House of Assembly in
Chandigarh or the roof of the Chapel of Notre Dame du Haut, Ronchamp.
36
Le Corbusier
Shell of a Horseshoe Crab, Limulus Polyphemus, one animal whose fossils have been found in 450
million years old., could be comprared with the roof of the Chapel in Rochamp or roof of the House
of Assembly in Chandigarh.
Shapes of curves and loops are opposite to basic forms, which do not keep any relation with circles, but
with elipse, hyperbole or parabole. Set of curves.
37
Le Corbusier
Trends as functionalism of Adolf Loos, futurism, german and french masters and new
materials gave to Le Corbusier an industrial conception. As well as an adoption of
simple shapes that do survive aesthetic values over time or unadorned forms, concepts
expressed in the manifesto of purism in favor of precision and mathematical order
DOM-INO SYSTEM
Esctructural System created by Le Corbusier in 1914, with the help of engineer Max Du
Bois. Structure made of standard elements that could be combined freely, allowing
diversity in housing design.
System would be perfected as housing could be built in series like machinery. It,
dervivaria Citrohan House and its many improved versions
Dom-ino system and evolution of it. House Citröhan. Drawing. 1914 and 3D model
With this system, Le Corbusier separated structure form enclosure. The results were the free plan, with
its flexible disrtibution of walls, and the free facade, which could take on any desired configuration.
The 5 points of architecture were the main theoretical foundation to develop his own
architectural language. This theory did not come out of nowhere, but ed through an
evolution of ideas using new materials and technology, and by 1926, the Swiss
architect had articulated his "Five Points Toward a New Architecture":
38
Le Corbusier
1. The supports (pilotis) are precisely calculated, spaced regularly, and used to elevate
the first floor off the damp ground.
2. The flat roof or roof garden is used for demsetic purposes such as gardening, play
and relaxtion-thereby recovering all the build-upon ground for outdoor activities.
3. The interior walls, independent of the support system, can be arranged in a free
plan.
4.The horizontal windows made possible by the support system, assure even
illumination from wall to wall and admit eight times as much light as vertically placed
window of equal area.
5.The facade, also independent of the structural supports, can be freely designed.
Five Points Toward a New Architecture explained from the four villas.
39
Le Corbusier
The attitude towards the front of the Swiss architect changed when he realized the
overheating of homes in summer and the excessive thermal loss in winter.
The solution came after a series of investigations conducted between thirtieth and
sixtieth years that led to the development of permanent a sun-shading structures,
made of patterned concrete walls, Brise Soleil, which functions as a filter, which
surrounds the building, allowing spatial penetration and softens the formal impact
pilotis.
Curutchet House,
Le Corbusier still maintains an character of timelessness. Despite fulfilling all its
concepts and principles of his five points for a new architecture, two volumes are
organized around the central courtyard and the access ramp that act as a single virtual
volume.
Play with ramps and processional path again, but the project is based on a constant
contradiction between the rationality of regular structural weft orthogonal, and
organic shapes and free use adopting the walls by not having to carry loads.
These thoughts show us the organic influences.
40
Le Corbusier
MODULOR
The design philosophy of Le Corbusier draws heavily upon mathematical concepts used
by Leonard da Vinci, as the golden ratio and the Fibonacci series, which used as a basis
for architectural proportions.
It was this vision focused on the man, the human being, placing the man in the center
of the needs, which led him to create a canon of measurements, such as pattern
dimensioning measures and needs for such people.
As we have said, Le Corbusier was a Renaissance man, a return to those times and
those ideals. Build by and for the people.
41
Le Corbusier
Human constanted measures, as The Golden Ratio that fascinated Western intellectuals of diverse
interests for at least 2,400 years. Squares, rectangles, molluscs spirals.
Human measures derive of the human being and his needs. Modulor measures
MONASTERIO DE LA TOURETTE
(1957-1960) Le Corbusier created a building of austere beauty. The hardness and the
'brutality' of the design reveal an empathy with the life of the monks.
The building does not have the lightness and ethereal quality of the early work of Le
Corbusier, unlike how grid is a regular repetition with a strong horizontal emphasis
exposed concrete, deliberately making it strong and severe form.
42
Le Corbusier
The program needs to combine private rooms for monks with their needs spaces
between Quele Corbusier proposes a rooftop garden. These different applications
were stacked one above the other, private rooms in the two upper floors, under
common spaces.
From the time the author leaves the purist rhetoric and ascetic white planes that had
characterized his earlier work to adopt a mode characterized by the introduction of
strong rough textures and give it a strong materiality to their volumes. The concrete
"laissez brut" henceforth becomes the main character of the architecture, and also
gives its name to the trend ("brut", of "béton brut")
43
Le Corbusier
Later, his works have been the basis, not only for architects, but architectural trends.
Taking as a master in terms of thesis, ideas and designs, as then they would develop
freely, similar or not to the ideas of Le Corbusier
As movements,
the second half of the century was pleanty of derivations and shunts, with changes and
astonishing diversity.
Twentieth century trends include Art Moderne and the Bauhaus school coined by
Walter Gropius among others, from International Style and Funcionalism which the
Swiss architect supported; Deconstructivism, Brutalism, Rationalism, Structuralism,
and Postmodernism movements, and most of them were influenced by the ideas of Le
Corbusier, mainly Brutalism and Rationalism, developed on its own along the half-
century.
As well as Mies van der Rohe and Frank Lloyd Wright complet the circle of the three
master of the XX century. Among they, set the bases of these next trends and trends of
nowadays.
I will focus the influences that were absorbed by architects or groups of them, not this
movements or trends, due it will be too much long..
Oscar Niemeyer
(1907 -2012) Follower and great promoter of the ideas of Le Corbusier, is considered
one of the most influential international modern architecture. He was a pioneer in the
exploration of the constructive possibilities of reinforced concrete and plastic.
Among its main architectural projects include the construction of Brasília as the new
capital of his country during the 1960s. Niemeyer was the main responsible for some
iconic public buildings in the city, including the National Congress of Brazil, the
Cathedral of Brasilia, Planalto Palace and the Palácio da Alvorada.
44
Le Corbusier
The urbanistic side of Le Corbusier was one of the principal basis principles that he
absorbed, and developed on his own, adding the curve line, the Organic Functionalism
in his projects
Oscar Niemeyer with Le Corbusier also participated in the drafting of the main building
of the United Nations in New York in 1952.
FIVE ARCHITECTS
(also called New York Five) was an American architectural group formed in New York
and composed by Peter Eisenman, Michael Graves, Charles Gwathmey, John Hejduk
and Richard Meier. His work was first exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, New
York, 1967, and related to the neo-rationalist movement.
These five had a common support to the pure forms of modern architecture ,
remaining the work of Le Corbusier in the 1920s and 1930s, although members were
always faithfull on his ideas and on closer examination their work was far more
individual. Their last designs show more refinement respect to the initial ones.
Philip Johnson was mentor of them, (1906 -2005)
Their earliest ideas followed a granting equal importance to the clarity of the lines,
harmony on them. Opening spaces and searching the light.
45
Le Corbusier
The organization of the buildings were based on geometric models that obey
conditions of their surrounding, and helping in the treatment of indoor and outdoor
spaces.
The vast majority of the early Five Architects group's buildings are white, the color that
considered the purest because it brings together all the others and changes its tonality
during the day.
PETER EISENMAN
Limited his models of architectonic design just through computing devices. Models
had no manner possible to make them real with another tool. Printing the templates of
the pieces by laser printing.
Deriving in Deconstruction movement.
RICHARD MEIER
(1934) American architect, worked with Marcel Breuer.
His architecture owes an directly debt to Le Corbuiser’s houses of the 1920’s, as in this
use of cubical rended relieved thought gentle curves. He was, and is, more faithful
than the other members
Savoye and the Swiss Pavilion were the Le Corbusier's works that he explored and
influenced him.
46
Le Corbusier
Smith House, Meier, 1965-67, left side, and Douglas House right side.
Clarity of line, harmony, open spaces and light. Chimneys, glazing, semicircles staircase, using white as
main color. Directly gathering as the Swiss architect.
MICHAEL GRAVES
At start, his particularly house additions in Princeton, New Joersey, were Neo-
Corbusian, but he soon began to explore new ground.
Deriving in Postmodern movement
CASA HANSELMANN
CHARLES GWATHMEY
The purity of his designs has been attenuated by the reality of large corporate and
public commissions.
JOHN HEJDUK
(1901 – 1974) After working in several studies in that city, he founded his own in 1935.
While running his study was also dedicated to criticism and teaching design at the
School of Architecture at Yale University from 1947-1957.
Kahn's style, influenced by ancient ruins, tends to the monumental and monolithic, the
timelessness. His buildings do not hide their weight, their materials, or the way they
built.
47
Le Corbusier
Salk Institute for Biological Studies, San Diego, La Jolla, California (1962)
Kahn’s monumental gateway to the Pacific perhaps recalls the Propylaea on the
Acropolis in Athens, but in an abstract form, and it captures the energies of the
surroundings in its frame; as Le Corbusier did with his processional paths of Greeke
temples and Acropolis.
Straight lines, mainly horizontal. Landscape and ground line. Even the use of the Brise-
Soleil, controlling the exposing to the sunlights.
48
Le Corbusier
James Stirling and his partners, James Gowan and later Michael Wilford.
Influenced by the later works of Le Corbusier, Stirling and his partner designed several
buildings that marked a new style, combining in the brick facades with rended
concrete.
View and plan of History Faculty Building, Cambridge University, James Stirling
Architect Completed 1968
For Stirling, a building should reflect the use to which it is dedicated, it is people that
will use of it.
The building must display a richness and variety of elements in its facade and should
not be in any way simple. Thus, for example, a building dedicated to investigate or
show history, must have forms and elements that evoke historical events during
different periods. The way in which these elements and shapes are combined, for
Stirling, is one of the main issues.
49
Le Corbusier
It was inspired by the work of utopian science fiction author B.F. Skinner, Walden Two.
It consisted of the construction of a self-managed housing wealth to simulate a small
vertical city with homes, streets and shops. Half of the floor area would be used for
community uses, circulations and gardens. Thus even with a relatively high density,
could counteract
the vertical
space
The most
interesting
aspect of the
project is
atypical in that it
addresses the
housing block.
Eighteen towers,
7 courdyards, a
modular grid but
not systematic,
and extensive
public space
creates a vertical
maze without
recurrence or uniformity.
50
Le Corbusier
CONCLUSION
Renaissance, classic ancient ideas, modernity and iron-concrete advances, even Indian
and organic influences, in his lastest designs. Not only from a position of architect, Le
Corbusier development projects, but also from the point of view artistical, urbanistic,
technical and historical.
It derives this a prolific number of buildings, designs, models and treaties that were
developed even after his death.
Due both of wars and lack of appreciation of their work, Le Corbusier designed and
keep developed cities as Chandigarh, one-unit building as Unité d'Habitation, one-unit
to collective neighborhood building as Citröhan house, set measures from and to the
human being as Modulor, new tools to confort of inhabitants of his buildings as Brise-
Soleil and Aerateur.
Le Corbusier's writings have been truly influential, also, in modern world architecture.
His incisive book "Vers une architecture" (1923) and his "Five points of architecture"
were translated into English and other languages inmediately and has since become a
treaty nowadays.
These ideas were based on the Utopian idea common among the modern pioneers
that, armed with the right city planning and the faith in technology, architecture could
revolutionize models of living and improve the lives of modern citizens on a physical,
economic, and even spiritual level.
Therefore, the post-industrialized and modern society was marked by his new
conception, gave guidelines to follow, of design, of urbanism, about light, about art,
about shapes, about citizens and his needs and how get them, and in the face of
today's massive urban crises, his desire to create cities where "the air is clean and
pure" and "there is hardly any noise" seems naively idealistic, but his urban schemes
were prophetic in the way they anticipated elements of today's cityscapes.
51
Le Corbusier
The adoption of simple shapes that do survive aesthetic values over time or unadorned
forms, concepts expressed in favor of precision and mathematical order, was used as
one of the principle to set new trends as Brutalist architecture, 1950s to the mid-1970s,
International Style, Deconstruction or Postmodern movement even.
For these above reasons, years afterwards, his influence remained on way of thinking,
to construct and complete a project. Such knowledge formed the basis of the thought
of great part of architects who would come later. They used their knowledge to begin
to be architects, leading gradually on their own ideas or maintaining acquired
As well as, the Five Architect group, James Stirling, Louis Isadore Kahn or Philip
Johnson among others.
52
Le Corbusier
REFERENCES
Text References
Foundation Le Corbusier
http://www.fondationlecorbusier.fr/corbuweb/morpheus.aspx?sysId=11&sysLanguage=en-
en&sysParentId=11&sysParentName=home&clearQuery=1
Palladio’s patterns
http://cargocollective.com/alifarzaneh/biologyandform
http://www.dieselpunks.org/
53
Le Corbusier
Image References
Development of Modulor Villa Foscari, Andrea Palladio (1558-60)
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__keXbYJJjRU/S9Y7h http://www.boglewood.com/palladio/malcont
E7K-TI/AAAAAAAAACo/0d- 2.jpg
Gqj1qZbA/s1600/1945+modulor2.jpg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commo
ns/6/66/Villa_Foscari_20070710-2.jpg
Le Corbusier’s sign
http://planificablog.files.wordpress.com/2011/ Palladio’s proportions
02/345px-le_corbusier_signature-svg.png http://payload88.cargocollective.com/1/6/206
486/4076499/lynn_villas_800.jpg
Le Corbusier Torso
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/- Perforation detail, building in Chandigarh
PHg1K6WwOZM/TVgrfY712aI/AAAAAAAAABA/ http://wikiarquitectura.com/es/images/e/e5/C
R8OjWIpwvSo/s1600/le-corbusier.jpg handigarh_detalle_perforaciones_zona_rampas
.JPG
Unification of the small states that then will
form Germany Collection of Stones
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/higher/history/i http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-
mages/german_confed.gif TuXngncoP2c/T5FnWoWhuxI/AAAAAAAAAtI/u_
2uO-sF8LA/s1600/new_stones.jpg
Unification of Italy between 1860 and 1870.
http://www.mrburnett.net/apworldhistory/ma Le cheminée, Le Corbusier 1918
ps/mediterranea4nunificationitaly1870.bmp http://tallerdeencuentros.blogspot.dk/2011/05
/la-otra-cara-artistica-de-le-corbusier.html
Assembly Line
http://labspace.open.ac.uk/file.php/4778/!via/ Villa Savoye, Le Corbusier, 1929
oucontent/course/132/assembly_line.jpg http://noticias.arq.com.mx/eyecatcher/590x59
0/12137.jpg
Red House of Philip Webb in 1859
http://unamaquinalectoradecontexto.files.wor Temple of Hera (also called
dpress.com/2011/09/webb-the-red-house- of Neptune), Paestum
1.jpg http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commo PKSMxxGJa9M/UKq3gbyyywI/AAAAAAAAAM0/
ns/a/ae/Red_House_home_of_William_Morris 4UHoeKuaBPM/s1600/2.+450+AC.+TEMPLO+D
_(4).jpg E+POSEID%C3%93N.PAESTUM..jpg
54
Le Corbusier
http://classconnection.s3.amazonaws.com/340 Curutchet House, La Plata, Buenos Aires,
/flashcards/2193340/jpg/fagus_show- Argentina (1949-55)
lace_factory1355080885518.jpg http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-
mXGO8PuHIC8/T84XaKhPVlI/AAAAAAAALQs/kl
Plan Voison, 1922 PePfN1BzU/s1600/casa-curutchet.jpg
http://aftercorbu.com/wordpress/wp- http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-
content/uploads/2007/08/plan_voison_paris.jp 0MlNb_UYtFk/TpvzccVRGoI/AAAAAAAAASA/zIT
g J4rAcNoI/s400/14.bmp