The Strategies of the Grands Travaux

Author(s): Alan Colquhoun

Source: Assemblage, No. 4 (Oct., 1987), pp. 66-81
Published by: The MIT Press
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 Alan Colquhoun
The Strategies of
the Grands Travaux

AlanColquhounis Professor of Architec-
tureat PrincetonUniversityanda princi-
pal in the firmof Colquhounand Miller,
London.
Among the illustrationsof the Centrosoyusand the Cite de
Refuge in Le Corbusier'sOeuvre completeare two showing
the projectsextended to adjacent sites to form complexes
that assume the scale and texture of urban fragments.The
Centrosoyusextension visualizes a new administrativedis-
trict with the Centrosoyusbuilding as an organic part.'
The extension of the Cite de Refuge proposesa Cite
d'Hospitalisationlinked to a new wing of the original
building.
At first sight there is nothing particularlysurprisingin
these extensions, given Le Corbusier'stendency to treat
each of his projects not only as the solution to a particular
set of problems, but also as a prototypicalelement in a
new urban totality. Yet the more we look at them, the
more problematicthey become. First, in being dissolved
into general urban texturesand in thus losing their
uniqueness, they seem to suffer a loss of representational
power. Second, though the urban continuum they imply
bears an obvious formal resemblance to such urban proj-
ects as the plan for the Pont de Saint-Cloud of 1938, it
would be difficult to categoricallyrelate them to the latter.

Whether we interpretthese two projectsas administrative

buildings or as "social condensers"on the model of the
Soviet avant-garde,it is difficult to imagine them constitut-
2. Le Corbusier,project for an
extension to the neighboring ing part of the linear continuum Le Corbusierreservedex-
blocks of the architectural clusively for housing in all his city plans. These extensions
principlesof the Centrosoyus, force a reinterpretationof the buildings in which they be-
Moscow, 1928 come hybrids, hovering uncertainly between the status of

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1 (frontispiece). Le Corbusier,
project for a Cite d'Hospitalisa-
tion extending to the rear of
the CitOde Refuge, Paris, 1932

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 assemblage 4

objets-typesor "organs"of the new city and that of urban

texture or ground againstwhich other objets-typesmight
stand out as figures.
The ambiguityof these extensions invites an examination
of the compositional principlesof Le Corbusier'sgrands
-7 travaux of the interwaryears. The purpose is to discover
how these principleswere used to reconcile the disparate
and often contradictoryneeds he had to satisfyin the
buildings. These can be summarizedas: (1) the need for
\\ / the building to adaptto a specific site within a given urban
.•p
context;(2) the need to create a building of symbolic pres-
ence; and (3) the need to establishthe building as the
representativeof a type.
The main compositional principle of the four public
buildings studied in this essay is elementarization.It distin-
C? - guishes them from traditionalschemes with closed court-
yards, where the programmaticvolumes are not distinct
,, •?,, D•.,.

from each other. In Le Corbusier'spartis for his grands

travaux, each programelement is given its own form and
is clearly articulatedfrom its neighbor. The principalele-
ments are linear bars (containing cellular accommodation)
and centroidalmasses (containing places of assembly).The
linear bars are coupled to each other at right angles, to
form open courts. The flexible jointing permitsa large
number of permutationsin the overall plan, and Le
3. Le Corbusier,Palaisdes
Corbusier'searly sketches show him tryingout various
Nations (League of Nations possibilities.
competition project), Geneva,
1927, sketches of permutations This arrangementof articulatedbars is firstfound in the
Dom-ino housing projectsof 1914, where they retain some
of the picturesquequalities derivedfrom the Garden City
movement and Camillo Sitte's Der Stddtbau nach seinen
kiinstlerischenGrundsdtzen. In one particularlystrikingex-
ample, U- and L-shapedblocks create rectangularspaces
through which a country road meandersin contrapuntal
movement. This counterpointbetween static buildingsand
free circulation was to achieve its ultimate form in the sep-
arationof levels allowed by piloti, as each level could be
developed without interferingwith the other.
The articulatedbars of Dom-ino were systematizedas con-
tinuous bars of housing acredentin the Ville Contempo-
raine and the Plan Voisin. When Le Corbusierdesigned

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4.LeCorbusier,
Palais
du
Centrosoyus,Moscow, 1928,
sketches of permutations
5. Le Corbusier, Lotissement
Dom-ino, 1914, sketch showing
aggregations of housing units
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Colquhoun
projectfor
6. LeCorbusier,
Villa Meyer, 1925, sketch of
interior and plan
his major public buildings in the late 1920s, he adapted
this compositional procedureto the needs of multipurpose
buildings with their linear stringsof offices or living cells.
There are stronganalogies between this system of composi-
tion and the revolutionarychanges in spatialorganization
Le Corbusierhad alreadyworkedout for houses and villas.
In the houses, the solid between the rooms of tradi-
tional houses is replacedpoche,
by a free-flowingspace inter-
ruptedonly by the convex, sculpturalforms of specialized
volumes - bathrooms, closets, and staircases.This com-
plex "hot"arrangementof spaces and volumes is set in dia-
lectical contrastto the "cool"Platonic geometrywithin
which it is contained. Le Corbusierdrew attention to the
dialectic between outside and inside, pure geometryand
free form, when, in describingthe villa at Garches, he
said, "On affirmea l'exterieurune volunte architecturale,
,ti.ement <<)omino on satisfait i l'interieurtous les besoins fonctionnels."2
69
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7. Centrosoyus,
plan
7. Centrosoyus,plan
A similar transformationoccurs in the public buildings.
But, whereas in the houses the ground for the play of vol-
umes is the enveloping cube, pierced and hollowed out
but never totally destroyed,in the public buildings the
ground is formed by the linear bars, and the play of vol-
umes now takes place externally.For Le Corbusier,the
public building is an open-workof slender prismsdefining
the spatial limits of the ensemble, while at the same time
implying its possible extension. All Le Corbusier'sgrands
travaux of the late 1920s share these general formal char-
acteristics.
Le Corbusier'scity plans assume ideal sites, and in defend-
ing them he was careful to point out their intentionally
schematic character.'The commissions for the public
buildings of the late 1920s, on the contrary,requiredac-
commodation to local conditions. This was not, for Le
Corbusier,a purely negative constraint.As the text of Vers
une architecturemakes clear, he had absorbedAuguste
Choisy's theory of the picturesque, accordingto which the
accidents of a given site play a constitutiverole in the artis-
tic organizationof architecturalensembles, resulting, as in
the Acropolis in Athens, in compositions of balanced
asymmetrythat present the viewer with a successiondes
tableaux.4Even among Le Corbusier'shouses, where the
picturesquepromenadearchitecturaleusually takesplace
within the constraintsof the ideal cube, there are several
whose externalform is determinedby the irregularitiesof
their sites or by building regulations.The most celebrated
of these is the Maison La Roche-Jeanneret,which Le
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assemblage 4
Ie 8. Plan of the Acropolis,
.
reproduced in Le Corbusier's
Versune architecturefrom
--
Auguste Choisy'sL'Histoirede
I'architecture
C:
Corbusierdescribedas "pyramidal"- the very word used
by Choisy to describethat other irregularbuilding, the
Erechthion. These houses remain, however, at least until
the 1930s, the exception ratherthan the rule, whereasin
the grands travaux picturesquegroupingand asymmetry
are normal.
For Le Corbusier,therefore, to be site specific required
more than simply making a building conform to boundary
lines and irregularlyshaped sites. It entailed bringinginto
play a system of forms and masses relatedto a viewer occu-
pying specific positions in space; in short, it was "composi-
tion," which means - in the sense given it by Choisy -
the artisticresolution of unforeseen exigencies, not the
applicationof a priori rules.
The Palais des Nations
The complex of the Palais des Nations consists of two
blocks - the Assemblywith its ancillaryaccommodation
and the Secretariat- linked by a long passerelle.The
blocks are organizedsymmetricallyabout the orthogonal
axes, and the principalaxis runs through the block con-
taining the Assembly, which presentsa long frontalsurface
to the visitor'sline of approach.This line is cut by imagi-
nary planes that are extensions of the wings of the adminis-
trativesection and that are reinforcedby a system of paths
running parallelto the secondaryaxis.
Individually,each block belongs to the species of frontal-
ized buildings reservedby Choisy for propylaea.5As a pair,
70
 Colquhoun

.K."-.,

N
":i

rr

Z
'.

9. Le Corbusier,Palaisdes
Nations, axonometric

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V..VA..
IM ? •h
.... .... _..,Nd •
10. Palaisdes Nations, plan
showing extension
however, they form a "balancedasymmetry"whose outline
follows the shore of the lake and whose masses offer them-
selves as picturesqueensembles partlyscreened by trees.
The north side of the imagined symmetricalparti is miss-
ing. In the third edition of Vers une architecture,Le Cor-
busier appended a plan of the Palais showing an assumed
extension to the north; its axis is rotatedby about ten de-
grees to conform to existing building and road alignments,
so that even in its final form the building was not envi-
sioned as perfectlysymmetrical.The parti resemblescer-
tain sixteenth- and seventeenth-centuryprojectsin which
long, narrowgalleries are extended from older nuclei, such
as the "Manica Lunga"of the Quirinale and the Grande
Galerie of the Louvre - especially the latter,with its
development on only one side of the central axis and its
subtle shift of angle.
If we compare the arrangementof barsa redentin this
plan with those in the Ville Contemporaineor the Plan
Voisin, we see that whereas the urban blocks acredentare
oriented in both directions, those at Geneva have two as-
pects, one facing the public realm of the entrance court,
the other the privaterealm of the garden. In Le Corbu-
sier's city plans the bars cut through a uniform and undif-
ferentiatedspatial continuum, while in the Geneva project
the bars act as walls dividing the site into two phenome-
nally differentkinds of space.
When talking of context, therefore, we refernot only to
the physical context (ruralor urban), but also to the tem-
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assemblage 4
11. Centrosoyus,site plan
- 'A----
--
------
•?;"...........
poral, historicalcontext. In the Palais des Nations Le Cor-
busier has both adjustedthe building to the exigencies of
the site and restatedthe perennial traditionof architecture
in terms of modern life and modern technology. He seems
to have wholeheartedlyembracedthe ceremonial, human-
istic implications of the programand to have attemptedto
t ......
give the building an appropriatecharacter.We shall see
that in another project the same desire to imbue a building
with an appropriatecharacterled to diametricallyopposite
results.
The Centrosoyus
Unlike the Palais des Nations, the Centrosoyuswas as-
signed to an urban site and presentedLe Corbusierwith
unprecedentedcontextual problems. The site was bounded
by roadson its three regularsides, whereasthe fourth side
was formed by an irregularboundarycutting acrossthe
block. In his earliestsolutions he rejectedthe articulated
system of bars he had used for the Palais de Nations and
based his design on a simple perimetercourtyardblock
divided into quadrants,with the auditoriumat the inter-
section of a cruciformsystem of circulation and with one
quadrantomitted to avoid extending beyond the site
boundary.6There are severalextant variantsof this early
scheme, but in all of them the hermetic and regularqual-
ity of the plan is compensatedfor by irregular(and appar-
ently somewhat arbitrary)elevational profilesand by wide
penetrationsat street level to gain access to the otherwise
landlockedauditorium.
In these early solutions for the Centrosoyusthe short
southwestside is the principalfacade, on axis with the au-
ditorium and facing the boulevardwith its central reserva-
tion of trees. During the evolution of the design, the main
fagade migratedto the long frontagefacing Miasnitskaya
Street. At the same time the courtyardarrangementwas
transformedand the scheme began to assume its final con-
figurationof articulatedbars forming an unequal H and
providingthe entrance faqadewith a shallow forecourt.
In all these transformationswe can see a persistentconcern
for maintaining the street alignments and for frontalized
blocks, which it is necessaryto penetratein orderto reach
the "private"interiorspace. At ground and first-floorlevels
72
 Colquhoun

~
!~ ~ ~ ~~\
./"
?"
IX: >• .....i ..

12. Centrosoyus, sketch for

f
'S 13. Centrosoyus, variation on
first project the first project

417
li

14. Centrosoyus, axonometric

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 assemblage 4

15. Centrosoyus,view of the

club from MiasnitskayaStreet

this interiorspace is always used for vast cloakroomsand

foyers, which define a patternof movement that is in
counterpointto the configurationof the blocks above. This
contrapuntalmovement becomes increasinglyevident once
the main bars are raisedup on piloti and their configura-
tion becomes more pliant.
A significant result of the H-shaped plan is that the tumul-
tuous convex form of the auditoriumand the horseshoe
etooUi$ 3( )lSP JL
rampsbecomes exposed to the northwestfrontage,strongly
sifilOv STATiOW
..,,1ufl$T'ruLar

man
Wt,: a,. Lj -W
12Y
~~us- (l-r S
implying public and privatesides analogousto those of the
Palais des Nations but seemingly inappropriatefor the ac-
tual context of regularstreetsand blocks. At first, even
afterthe courtyardscheme had been abandoned, the
northwestfrontagewas symmetricallyframedby two bars
.
- one facing the boulevard, the other holding the audito-
L
...., rium - and the edge of the street was defined by a low
colonnade. But when, in a final move, the auditoriumwas
16. Centrosoyus, plan of rotatedninety degrees so that its convex "apse"faced the
project as built, 1929 road, this contextual discipline was lost. The northwestfa-
?ade became a "back"relativeto the formal, frontalized
southwest and southeastfacadesand called for the kind of
rural open space with distant views that would enable the
building to be understoodas an object in space. Simulta-
neously, the overall plan became unambiguouslydiagonal
and lost much of its earlier multivalencyand complexity.7
In the Centrosoyusone sees the unresolvedtension, often
/------.
~~~~~P~~/ ' \ found in the work of Le Corbusier,between the need for
",, t•,?
i the building to form part of an existing urban framework,
i to form street edges, and to consist of frontalizedfacades
C-
and the need for it to exist as a freestandingobject.

The Cite de Refuge

The site of the Cite de Refuge cuts acrossthe center of a
triangularblock formed by rue Cantagreland rue de Che-
valeret. In the Oeuvrecomplite it is describedas follows:

Le terrain6taitextremement d6favorable: il ne fournissait

qu'une
fagadede 17 m au sudsurla rueCantagrelet une autrefagadeA
l'estde 9 m surla rueChevaleret: toutle reste6taiten mitoyen.
Si l'on avaitadmisde batirselonle coutumea plombsurla rue,
17. Le Corbusier,Cite de tousles locauxse seraienttrouv6ssurcourset tousorientesau
Refuge, Paris, 1929, site plan nord.8

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 Colquhoun

Jb

I ?
F
il ;-i-?.i
-l.:i1'<
Although this passagesounds like special pleading, it is
certainlytrue that the site did not lend itself to a perimeter
solution, even if one had been desired. What is open to
question, however, is whether Le Corbusier'ssuccessive
solutions did not, in fact, have recourseto a traditional
I
typologyother than that of the perimeterblock. Afterall,
this was a representationalbuilding and not a mere partof
the urban tissue. Certainly, for Le Corbusierit had, above
all, to representmodernity, but it was also called upon to
symbolize a social and moral idea. In these circumstances
one could reasonablyexpect the architectto turn to Pari-
sian precedent in giving the building a symbolic presence
and setting it off against its immediate surroundings.And,
in fact, the parti of both the firstand the final schemes
18. H6tel le Gendre, plan.
have much in common with that of the Parisianh6tel par-
FromEugene-Emmanuel ticuliere. The corpsde logis is set back some distance from
Viollet-le-Duc,Dictionnaire the street and consists of a block frontalizedto the axis of
raisonnd de I'architecture approachand extending across the full width of the site.
franqaise. There is a portico plomb sur la rue, which acts as a sign of
the building and also as a controlledpoint of entry to the
site and which forms a relativelysecluded privaterealm,
walled off from the street.

Initially only the westernhalf of the site seems to have

been available. What appearsto be one of the earliest
sketchesshows a crankedsingle-storypassageleading from
the entry on rue Cantagrelto a six- or seven-storydormi-
tory block crossingthe site from north to south. The east
half of the site was developed by adding a second block
parallel to the firstand connecting them with a longitudi-
/ / nal block running west-east, extending to the rue Cheva-
;;
leret boundary.At the change in direction of the entrance
passagethere was a rotundacontaining the reception hall,
which absorbedthe axial rotation- a somewhat Beaux-
Arts device. Over the rotundaa wedge-shapedlecture
theater was suspended. A passarelle,threadingthrough a
pavilion (the dispensary),connected the rotundato the
main building. In place of the cour d'honneurthere was a
sunken garden, which continued under the dormitory
blocks.

In the final scheme, in one of those violent changes of

mind that often characterizedLe Corbusier'sdesign pro-
19. Cite de Refuge, early
sketch cess, the building was turned ninety degrees, and the two

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 assemblage 4

~ ~ ~ ~:
?~
-;:.: ::•"
i:,i•:iii'!ii•: C••i•!."•::i:'•+.••i
...

• .:.j
"t:: :i:-:
i:i:::::-: !
, ....: '--
: -
" "~::;:: ....' "
proet axonometr~.WVic .::. :;
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"

21 .Cit de- Refueirs

-: - :

proec axonometric
,

(:I .I. If It?111

ItINlfH

; Z;

north-southbars were replacedby a single building run-

ning east-westalong the northernboundaryof the site.
This new arrangementhad a radicaleffect on the entry
20. Cite'de Refuge, first
project, plan sequence, which now had to penetrateto the middle of the
site before it could be connected to the main building at
the point where the main stair and the wall separatingmen
f1J j i: ?Mi ~ :o-:::;
__r~ _i.::,:` ?
~~-~~.............-
_ _ _ _
and women occurred. Le Corbusier,however, barelyal-
tered the elements of this sequence. He simply resited
them so that they formed a series of pavilions of various
(1;l shapes running in front of and parallelto the main build-
ing, to which they were now connected by a protruding
element containing the entrance foyer and lecture theater.
71.:./
From the start, therefore, Le Corbusierhad visualized an
~1J
elaboratepromenadearchitecturaleconnecting the point of
entry to the site with the main accommodation. Program-
matically, the promenadeconsists of a series of initiatory
acts, necessarybefore entering the inner sanctum of the
building, and these acts are symbolizedby a series of ar-
?
"' 10667 chitecturalelements: portico, rotunda, passarelle.Yet it is
importantto note that this solution owes as much to the
22. Cite de Refuge, final architecturaldemands of the site, and their formal implica-
project, 1931, plan tions, as it does to the practicaland symbolic peculiarities
of the program."Cet ensemble"wrote Le Corbusier,"con-
stitue une fagon de hors a'oeuvre, dispose au devant du
grandbatiment de l'h6tellerie;ce derniersert, en somme,
de fond au groupe tres accidente du portiqueet des service
sociaux."The reversalof poche space found in his houses
is repeatedhere; instead of a series of concave spaces
carvedout of the building, such as one might have found
in a traditionalscheme, we are presentedwith their nega-
tive - a small collection of architecturalvolumes. But
now, instead of being disposedwithin the cube of the
23. Cite de Refuge, final building, these objects are placed in front of it, and the
project, axonometric table on which they are displayedis tilted upwardand be-

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 Colquhoun

mii

:,•}?• i•Xi ?••. . ., _• ? . : i ? ,:::i:!i:••!•Ki!

? .i:k:i
:,i . . , •, : !
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Iti
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WO,.
1A1

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(..•

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 assemblage 4

comes a verticalplane of reference. It seems impossibleto

separatethe sensuous and intellectual pleasurederived
from this arrangmentof architecturalforms from the site to
which it owes its origin;as in the Palais de Nations and
the Centrosoyus, the building is a responseto accidental
circumstancesof the kind describedby Choisy in his anal-
b~; ysis of the Acropolis.

The Palais des Soviets

This projectdiffersin its programmaticelements from the
three we have discussed. The administrativecontent is very
small, and the project consists mainly of a series of audito-
ria of differentsizes. It also differsfrom them in its relation
to the site. In the other projectsthe buildings are thought
/
7, i of as creatingspatialboundaries. Long walls of offices or
living cells form frontalizedplanes, the approachto which
93- involves a more or less elaboratepreparation.In all these
projectsthere is at least the suggestionof a cour d'honneur
and a corpsde logis, and the centroidalmasses of assembly
a~ a spaces, and such, are presentedas figuresagainstthe sur-
face of "le prism pure."

Despite the absence of accommodationsuitable for such

frontalizedsurfaces, the earliestsolutions for the Palais de
Soviets did provide an urban space - a huge "forum"
overlookingthe Moscow river, againstwhich the various
auditoriaare lined up, ratherin the manner of the temples
in the forum at Pompeii, of which Le Corbusierhad pub-
lished a sketch in Vers une architecture.This solution
would presumablyhave requiredthe equivalent of a por-
tico to connect the irregulargroup of auditoriaand unify
24. Le Corbusier,Palais des them in a single grandgesture. In the second solution, Le
Soviets competition project,
Moscow, 1931, successive Corbusierstill providesan urban space facing the riverbut
variations of the design has moved the two main auditoriato the sides and defines
the back of the space by a low range of offices raisedon
columns.

In the final scheme all attemptsto create a specificallyur-

ban space are abandoned. The complex is now an object
arrangedalong a spine, like a biological organism. The
spaces it offersto the city are the pure epiphenomena of its
own internal structure.The complex is symmetricalalong
a single axis only; on the other axis it consists of objects

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 Colquhoun

25. Le Corbusier,sketch of the

r Forumat Pompeii
"•V..

~It

li..
..
.. •

'.• 141
i00

.. . .
!a

lo
reatoto- th ra otx

O, VFW"-
_",

2aSA
Ak
montgesowig builing in

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27. Palais des Soviets, pan-
oramic view showing relation
to Kremlinand St. Basil
whose configuration is explosively centrifugaland asym-
metrically balanced.8
The spine is purely metaphoricalbecause the range of of-
fices, which in the second solution had formed a physical
link between the two auditoria, is stopped halfwayacross
the gap. Its end supportsthe acoustic sounding board of
the open-air assembly. The two auditoriaonly appearto be
connected.
In thus interpretingthe complex as a series of objects in
space, Le Corbusierturned it into a constructivisticon
whose silhouette complements that of the domes of Saint
Basil and the Kremlin. The group of auditoria, tresacci-
dente, no longer need the backdroprequiredby the Cite
de Refuge; there is nothing largeron which they can be
grounded. The structural,acoustic, and circulatoryde-
mands of the complex were used to give expressiveform to
each element.
The desire to create an appropriatecharacterled Le Cor-
busier to interpretthe Palais des Nations in terms of what
we might call "an architectureof humanism";the same
desire led him to make the Palais des Soviets into a symbol
of mass culture and of the work of art in the age of the
machine.
The Building versus the City
Our analysis shows that the need to adapt to the idiosyn-
crasies of particularsites made a positive contributionto
the architecturalquality of the grands travauxand cannot
be considered as a mere obstacle to the achievement of a
"new architecture."The arbitraryurban conditions with
which Le Corbusierwas faced played a catalyticrole com-
parableto that of "function"in the internal arrangementof
his houses.
In having to build in existing urban or ruralcontexts, no
less than in having to give form and characterto programs
with stronglyidealist contents, Le Corbusierwas also con-
fronted with the architecturaltradition. But these buildings
are not a reflection of these factorsalone. They reflect as
well the tension between the traditionof architectureand
the types of a new and contentious architecture,and they
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assemblage 4
thus call into question the urban contexts on which they
depend.
When experiencedas part of the urbanfabric, these build-
ings do indeed stand out as the types of a new architectural
culture. That they can be read in this way is at least partly
due to the extent to which they accommodate themselves
to their context and in so doing expose both their similarity
to and differencefrom traditionalrepresentationalbuildings.
When, however, Le Corbusiershows these buildings as
extended, they immediately startto play a differentrole
in the urban continuum. The use of flexible joints allows
the bars to adaptto adjacentblocks;the use of piloti and
bridgesenables them to leap acrossexisting streets, or
acrossplots that are not yet available. The result is that the
existing street patternbecomes the equivalent of the pedes-
trian paths that meander under the blocks a redentof the
Ville Radieuse. A new urban patternstartsto emerge, ten-
taclelike, before the old one has ceased to exist. The origi-
nal Centrosoyusand Cite de Refuge buildings are each
absorbedinto this new context. What had by itself been
experiencedas a whole, with articulatedpartsthat opened
up the building to its surroundingsbut at the same time
differentiatedit from its neighbors, now becomes part of a
greaterentity. Before, these buildings acted as the synec-
dochic fragmentsof an absent city; now they become part
of the metonymic series of an actual city fragment.
However, this new urban fragmentalso merely "standsfor"
the new city and can never become a part of it. Both ex-
tensions take the form of a web or matrix, and yet their
representationalpurposeresistsabsorptioninto such a ma-
trix. Only by denying their representationalfunction could
they assume the role of backgroundbuildings demanded of
them. It is true that the articulationof their elements sug-
gests their possible extension and allows them to become
metamorphosedinto small cities. From a purely formal
point of view this seems to be an advantage;but from the
point of view of architecturalcontent or meaning, it is a
serious disadvantage.For, while it enables Le Corbusierto
make an apparentlyflawless demonstrationof architecture
in the process of becoming mergedwith the city, and of
the consistency of a design strategythat makes such a con-
version possible, it also denies those very qualities of dis-
 Colquhoun

creteness, difference, and lack of continuity that would Notes ences are that the southwest ramp is
rotatedthrough one hundred eighty
make it possible for these buildings to fulfill their larger 1. See Jean-LouisCohen, "Le Cor-
busier and the Mystique of the degrees and faces away from the
signifying ambitions. building and that the curved audi-
U.S.S.R.," Oppositions 23 (Winter
torium block is attached to a pro-
Perhapsthis is merely reiteratingwhat has been said many 1981): 85-121.
jecting rectangularslab containing
times, that the Corbusian city would be alienating and 2. LeCorbusierand Pierre Jeanneret,
foyer spaces and staircases.The ex-
would lack the multivalency that his buildings possess in Oeuvre complete 1910-1929 (Zurich: tant
drawingsof the scheme as built
the highest degree. Yet an examination of the composi- Editions Girsberger,1935), p. 189. are in a very fragmentarystate.
tional principles of his large public buildings enables us to 3. See Le Corbusier, Urbanisme
8. Le Corbusier, Oeuvre complate
see this problem from a new point of view. For the real (Paris:Editions Cres, 1925), p. 158. 1929-1934 (Zurich: Editions Girs-
4. Cf. Auguste Choisy, L'Histoire berger, 1964), p. 98.
difficulty with the transformationof the representational
de l'architecture(Paris, 1899), Ar-
building into a fragmentof urban tissue lies in Le Corbu- chitectureGrecque;chap. 11, "La
9. This uniaxiality is also a charac-
sier's application of the same principles of composition to teristic of the plan of the Ville
pittoresquedans l'art Grecque." In
Radieuse, which was initiated as a
both, despite the differencesin their scale and purpose. Vers une architectureLe Corbusier
result of Le Corbusier'scontacts
Because the city blocks consisted of a system of articula- not only printed several engravings
with Moscow; see Cohen, "Le
tions similar to that found in his largerpublic buildings, from the Histoire but also para-
Corbusier and the Mystique of
neither could act as a satisfactoryfoil to the other. phrasedmuch of its picturesque the U.S.S.R." The symbolism of
theory, particularlyin the chapters
"TroisrapellesAmessieurs les ar- biological structureand growth is
In the Corbusian city it is only housing that can legiti- similar in both cases.
chitectes / III Le plan," and "Archi-
mately act as the backgroundto representationalbuildings. tecture / II L'illusion des plans."
If an attempt is made to interpretin the same way the See also Reyner Banham, Theory Figure Credits
linear bars of cellular office space in his public buildings, and Design in the First Machine 1, 26. From Le Corbusier, Oeuvres
the buildings startto disintegrate.All that is left as a possi- Age (London:The Architectural complete 1929-1934, (Zurich: Edi-
Press, 1960), chap. 2. tions Girsberger, 1964).
ble representationof the public realm is that part of each
structurethat consists of places of public assembly, etc. 5. Choisy, "La pittoresquedans 2, 5, 6, 14. From Le Corbusier
I'artGrecque." and Pierre Jeanneret, Oeuvrescom-
Only these can project, in their specialized and concen-
tratedforms, the social meanings that the architectureof 6. Despite Le Corbusier'stendency plete 1910-29, (Zurich: Editions
towardelementarism, the courtyard Girsberger,1935).
the city ought to provide. Yet, in the Corbusianscheme, it
building is a recurrenttype in his 3, 4, 7, 9, 11-13, 16, 17, 19-
is only within the individual building that such a meaning work. It occurs for the first time in 23. Fondation Le Corbusier. Cour-
can develop - that building whose abstractand neutral the "ImmeublesVillas" of 1922 tesy of Garland Press.
rangesof accommodation provide the necessaryground (though these were droppedin his 8, 10, 25. From Le Corbusier,
later city plans), and it formed the
against which the dynamic figuresgeneratedby function Vers une architecture(Paris:Edi-
basis of two buildings in the Mun-
can be displayed. tions Cras, 1923).
daneum project:the large cloister
surroundingthe universityand the 15. PhotographbyJean-LouisCohen.
It is in this sense that the Corbusian city seems to lack any
exhibition buildings based on the 18. From Eugene-Emmanuel
strategyby which representationalbuildings could continue theme "continents, nations, cities."
to exist. The grands travaux of the late 1920s, with their Viollet-le-Duc, Dictionnaire raison-
In his later work the most outstand- n' de I'architecturefranCaisede XIe
original and seductive forms and their plenitude of mean- ing example of this type is the au XVI sidcle, 10 vols. (Paris:B.
ing, thus seem to exist in an ambiguous and metaphorical monasteryat Eveux, in which, as Bance, A. Morel, 1854-68), vol. 6.
world halfway between the existing city, of which they are in the early schemes for the Cen-
24. From L'ArchitectureVivante
a critique, and the city of the future, in which they would trosoyus, the interior of the court is
(Spring 1930; reprinted, New York:
opened to the outside at the lower
cease to exist. levels and divided into quadrants.
Da Capo Press, 1975).

7. The drawingsin the Oeuvre 27. From Le Corbusier, Creation is

a Patient Search (New York:Fred-
completedo not correspondto the
scheme as built. The chief differ- erick A. Praeger, 1960).

81

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