Le Corbusier

The Modular
•
Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, who chose to be known as Le Corbusier
•
He was born in Switzerland.
•
October 6, 1887 – August 27, 1965), was a Swiss-French architect
•
Architect, designer, painter, urban planner, writer
•
One of the pioneers of what is now called modern architecture.
• Hello everyone. I’m going to talk about Le Corbusier’s life and The Modular
system.

• Le Corbusier was one of the most creative, bold, and controversial architects
of the twentieth century. He also wrote passionately and powerfully about
the nature and configuration of the modern city, thereby making him a
pioneer in the field of urban planning.

• One of his teachers was Charles L’Éplattenier, who encouraged him in the
direction of architecture and advised him to travel extensively.

• During these travels, especially along the Mediterranean, that he learned

much about light, nature, and form.

• By the end of World War I, Le Corbusier was once again in Paris, eventually
becoming a French citizen in 1930.

• Le Corbusier  was a founding member of the Congrès international

d'architecture moderne (CIAM).
Le Corbusier described the Modular as a “range of harmonious measurements
to suit the human scale, universally applicable to architecture and to
mechanical things.”
•
After French Revolution foot-and-inch system did away and then a
new system was invented: the meter, forty-millionth part of the
meridian of the earth.

•
Society accepted to the meter system.

•
A half centuries later, there were two groups people around the
world: meter users, foot-and-inch users.

•
The meter system divisible into half meters and quarter meters,
decimeter, etc. but the foot-and-inch system comes from human
body. So, it can not divisible.
•
Le Corbusier explains the organisation of structures with regulating lines and
it can be provided just geometrical shapes. It can show the beauty of
buildings with regulating lines and geometry.

•
“.. In architecture, regulating lines; painting as well. You can acquire such
mastery in this plastic mathematics that you are freed from having to make
calculations and diagrams; your hand automatically performs them. ..' Le
Corbusier
•
Regulating lines help to analytical visualization of facades and visual
harmony.

•
Thanks to regulating lines, analyzing facades of the buildings
possible in a geometrical sense.

•
Le Corbusier foresaw that the proportional grid would become a
universal norm within the construction praxis. The proportional grid
is based on a hypothetical male body framed with measures by the
aid of successive squares and the golden section.
•
Le Corbusier explicitly used the
golden ratio in his modular system for
the scale of architectural proportion.

•
He saw this system as a continuation
of the long tradition of Vitruvius,
Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvius man,
the work of Leon Battista Alberti.
 The system based on these aspects:  
• Proportions of the human body
• The Fibonacci numbers
(1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13)
• The golden ratio 
•  
•
Le Corbusier based the system on human measurements, Fibonacci
numbers, and the double unit.

A fibocacci spiral created by drawing

circular arcs connecting the opposite
corners of squares in the Fibonacci
tiling; this uses squares of sizes 1, 1, 2,
3, 5, 8, 13, 21, and 34.
The basic grid consists of three measures; 113, 70 and 43 centimeters,
propostioned according to the Golden Section.

43+70=113

113+70=183

113+70+43=226(2x113)

113, 183 and 226 define the space occupied by the human figure.

From 113 and 226, Le corbusier developed the Red and Blue series, diminished
scles of dimensions that were related to te sature of the human figure.
 Blue series are the height of
the man in the position of
raising one arm. (2.16 m in
the original version, 2.26 m
in the revised)

Red series figure's navel

height (1.08 m in the original
version, 1.13 m in the
revised)

Le Corbusier developed two vertical measurements, the red

series and the blue series, which are descending scales related to
the height of the human figure.
 Le Corbusier developed this
grid using a proportional
measurement system based on
his Modulor Man

A concept that combined the

proportions of a six foot tall
human figure with the
mathematics of the golden
section.

UNITE D' HABITATION,

MARSEILLE, FRANCE, 1952
 The uneven spacing of the vertical concrete mullions, or
ondulatoires, and the similar divisions and uneven spacing of the horizontal
components between them were fashioned according to the Modular
system of proportions of Le Corbusier.

Couvent Sainte-Marie de la Tourette, Eveux-sur-l'Arbresle, France, 1953

Couvent Sainte-Marie de la Tourette, Eveux-sur-l'Arbresle, France, 1953