Le Corbusier

The Antisocial Urbanism of Le Corbusier

Antisocialism in Social Cities

Outline

Social versus Antisocial Cities

1. Introduction

1. What is Socializing?

1. Assorted types of Socializing
2. Phases of Socializing by Richard Moreland and John Levine

2. Le Corbusier vision toward metropoliss and unfavorable judgment

2. Body

1. Charles Fourier and Le Corbusier vision by Peter Serenyi

1. Argument of Charles Fourier
2. Fourier program in “The Social Destiny of Man”

2. Worlds as Social Beings

1. Cartesian method Vs. John Locke
2. Georg Simmel: Individuality and Social signifiers
3. Blaise Pascal and Le Corbusier: pointless human relation ships

3. Antisocial aspiration and criminalism

1. Albert Camus: Public and private force

3. Decision

1. Antisocial City consequence on people life

1. Lewis Mumford: political and cultural association as chief subjects in the metropolis
2. Jane Jacobs: “people need other people”

2. Sociable metropolis and its citizens: How could a metropolis survive with antisocial symptoms?

Social versus Antisocial Cities

Socialization is the process through which a individual acquires to bond to an assembly or civilization and act in a manner accepted and recognized by this group or society. Mentioning to most societal experts, socialisation fundamentally expresses the full method of civilization during the life sequence and is a chief inspiration on the public presentation, positions, civilization and activities of all ages. ( Encyclopedia Britannica, 2014 ) Richard Moreland and John Levine ( 1982 ) , proposed a typical method of an assembly socialisation which rely on the statement that people every bit good as groups modify their positions, appraisals and behaviour when interacting through clip. Moreland and Levine propose that an expected classification of stages which arises to let for an single to alter when being portion of a group. They differentiated five stairss of socialisation which indicate this alteration which are: enquiry, socialisation, preservation, resocialization, and memory. Passing by each degree, people assess each other through which an development or decrease in confidence to socialisation can be reached.

Why metropoliss need socialisation while being a positive thing? Why do we follow it as a good construct through which people are involved in urban diverseness and chances? Is it indispensable for citizens to mix in their metropolis? These questions normally examined explicate the fact that people are non certain about the presence of socialisation in their metropolis. Additionally, people can non deny the negative impact on metropoliss that have an unorganised societal life that should be escaped. By analyzing the chief visual image of Le Corbusier toward the metropolis, these inquiries will be more elucidated. In his Plan Voisin from 1925, his vision involved the proposition of pulverizing the centre of Paris and replace it by towers following a certain grid without taking into consideration the bing surrounding and its historical importance in that country of the metropolis. This image is considered a utopic vision shaped to unite adult male with a well-organized environment following certain regulations and guidelines. However, by making so, he isolated prosaic flow and paths from the roads and streets by overestimating the car as chief tool of motion in the metropolis. This vision is no more prefering the societal contact between the metropolis users who are losing the construct of socialisation by concentrating more on the uniformities of the modern metropolis more than the common bonds and their bounds.

Seventy old ages of restated unfavorable judgment of Le Corbusier has been revealed refering socialising since he forgot that metropoliss occur to heighten this procedure. Le Corbusier was considered as a negligent and huffy individual as described by some newsmans. Charles Fourier, the nineteenth-century ideal philosopher was considered besides as an highly hopeless, individual, vagabond individual while being compared to Le Corbusier by Peter Serenyi. As a effect, they both detested human society. Actually, the chief statement presented by Charles Fourier is that societal interaction favor the aggressive behaviour among people since they are motivated by their antisocial passions so if they are obliged to populate together they tend to float apart ( Serenyi, 1967 ) . Fourier suggested in his book“The Social Destiny of Man”( 1808 ) , to divide the society into parts that encompass 16 hundred occupants per piece where each one live in studios, while populating a big house that he named a “phalanstery.” The result of each piece is monitored by a specialised director that he named the “areopagus, ” who is besides responsible for the societal dealingss among the inmates. Subsequently, people will get down to kill each other after the inmates be isolated to new phalansteries. Serenyi claims that this manner of be aftering a society as the program of Fourier’s and the urban designs of Le Corbusier is decidedly a huffy manner of believing about society ( Serenyi, 1967 )

Zooming in into the architectural graduated table, what qualities shall an single possess in order to be a existent homo being? The dominant answer to this enquiry is that worlds are ab initio societal existences that behave consequently in a societal life in order to carry through their demands. Bing portion of this position, the personality is unsolidified and alterations when combined with human senses and common mechanisms as societal, cultural, and lingual where everyone articulation ( Richard, 2007 ) this manner of believing contradicts that of Descartes if we are to detect theDiscourse on Method( 1637 ) andMeditations on First Philosophy( 1641 ) , since societal engagement is removed from the procedure of happening truth. For Descartes, our motive to achieve opposite positions is the consequence of undependability that we found in when trusting on our senses. The chief intent of this manner of thought is to take people from what they acquired and experienced as old information in order to be able to specify precisely the truth that is behind each one of us. This purpose is sort of impossible since a individual can non deny the old history and behaviour scene that he used to and that are barricading his ability to acknowledge the kingdom. The most trustingly truth is found within each one of us and non following certain regulations and ordinances to make it. ( Richard, 2007 )

In contrast to Maslow pyramid where an indispensable degree in human being life is the belonging demand because people has a fright of purdah, they need to hold this sense that makes them more safe and secured. A human being ever brush alterations and procedure throughout his life that is interchangeable harmonizing to the society and clip factor and non a fixed entity. If a individual does non take part within his society, he or she won’t be able to be a to the full single. For Locke, socialisation is an indispensable procedure to go through through in each phase or one’s life. ( Locke, 1988 )

The German sociologist Georg Simmel, argues that sociableness is independent from a individual development. For him, an person is unable to make a cultural background unless he is involved in his society. ( Simmel, 1968 ) he stated that through being portion of a big group in the society helps developing the individualism of each individual since people within these groups hunt for common evidences between each other in order to collaborate and incorporate more by making meshing relationships. The chief purpose is clear: every bit long as a individual involves and interacts socially with his milieus and society, he or she discovers more about himself and develop more his individualism which would be besides reflected in the scenes of the metropolis. For Simmel, the border nowadays between individualism and collectivity is non a stable: a individual is neither an single animal nor a corporate 1. ( Simmel, 1968 ) hence, a impression has been ever used which is more complex, disordered, rich a society is the more it is able to supply its single with rich experience that is indispensable for the edifice of their ain development and strength. This methodological analysis indicates the importance of the procedure of socialisation in the advancement of a society. However this construct was non applied by everyone and some others found the demand to travel into and antisocial society. ( Richard, 2007 )

A metropolis theoretician would back up the thought of socialisation in the metropolis every bit long as he or she regards it as a positive mean for the metropolis. In contrast to Le Corbusier, who didn’t take into consideration this method. A protagonist of Le Corbusier manner of thought is Pascal’sPenseesin 1670. For Pascal, populating within a group and being attached to the society, people will be making tonss of activities that will deviate them from looking their ain truth and individualism. The lone account of one’s interaction with others is for this individual ain satisfaction and demands. Pascal provinces that relationships between persons are useless and meaningless. Since human qualities and behaviours change through clip therefore, single shall non blow their clip in understanding and cognizing more about others qualities and common evidences. Through purdah, a individual is able to analyse his or her ain ego without pass oning with others that would be obstructions for our true ego. Therefore, Pascal tries to convert to non trust on other people and go devoted to them. Le Corbusier denoted the manner of thought of Pascal when he was inspired about the societal life that he predicted in his programs for the metropolis of Paris. For him, remainder is when a individual spends more clip in his room in his purdah analysing his ain ego. He intended to coerce people to pass more clip in their room more than disbursement it with other people in other topographic points ( Richard, 2007 ) . The manner of thought of Le Corbusier indicates his vision of segregating people each one on his ain by prefering the clip they spend with their purdah. He had multilevel where the autos transit meets the prosaic to cut down common interaction between people. Other inside informations were thought of in order to perfectualize his vision such as making one floor that hosts a large kitchen that has the map of functioning all the suites, no public eating houses are available. Sound proofing walls are adding to cut down any noise coming from neighbouring cells. The proposed towers have a cross form to cut down ocular interaction between people. The lone positions to the exterior is nature as sky and verdure. As a drumhead, Le Corbusier insists on the fact that a individual should his ain infinite bubble where he is free to make whatever he desire without being disturbed from other interfering in his ain ego and purdah. However, this sort of individualism is insulating the metropolis from its users where the group construct is removed hence a metropolis would ne’er germinate and come on since each one is populating on its ain with no demand of others. However a group is able to act upon the metropolis and authorities determinations toward the metropolis users. As illustration the purposes to do a main road base on balls through users edifices in Mar Michael el nahr, Beirut, people started attesting against it and making runs to act upon the authorities determinations, individualism can ne’er work out such issues. However, Le Corbusier was non cognizant of these antisocial aspirations, neither their chief menace which is criminalism. Similarly an observation was done by Albert Camus to research the rate the grade of association of the antisocial manner of thought and public presentation of people while linking it with criminalism. “Every ethic conceived in purdah, implies the exercising of power” Camus provinces inTheJohnny reb( 1951 ) . There are different types of offenses as offense of passion, offense of logic that an antisocial individual detect. The chief thought of Camus was believing that rebellion is an indispensable component of life even if this rebellion might be reflected into force whether in ideas, in society or in individualism, this can non deny its importance. For him, revolution is sincere, every bit long as it does non transform the idea into act, nevertheless by making so, it is considered as a fixed action. Therefore, the rebellion must hold a manner that coexist along the boundary line half off from isolation and society. This shows how Le Corbusier was unable to hold on the menaces that a constructed antisocial metropolis would host. He is considered as more than an first-class designer at the architectural graduated table but when he started to believe on the urban graduated table, this is where the calamities started with him.

Presents, metropoliss are valued and measured, without inquiry, depending on the grade of societal activity that they host par excellence. Therefore, holding an thought of making an antisocial metropolis, as a proposal by an urban contriver, is considered an foreign thought to the current ways of thought and behaving. That’s why the thoughts of modern theoretician and utopic manner of thought should be dismissed and replaced by the demands of the metropolis and its users ( Richard, 2007 ) .

During the first half of the 20th century, Le Corbusier stressed on believing about metropoliss, nevertheless, in her bookThe Death and Life of Great American Cities( 1961 ) , Jane Jacobs, an urban economic expert who opposes wholly the antisocial vision of Le Corbusier, discussed that “real people are alone, they invest old ages of their lives in important relationships with other alone people, and are non interchangeable in the least. Severed from their relationships, they are destroyed as effectual societal existences — sometimes for a small piece, sometimes forever.” In other footings, being engaged in a condensed cyberspace of accountable societal interaction, people will be able to get characters and individualities. While observing an assembly of rambunctious kids in a communal undertaking, Jacobs stated that “these were anon. kids, and the individualities behind them were an unknown. . . . Impersonal metropolis streets make anon. people… I think that people need other people.” One might see that merely in small towns, people demand other people and need to populate closely. However, the chief statement of Jacobs is that populating in metropoliss deliver a diverseness in relationships and interaction among people, this could go on merely if antisocial urban contrivers are out to picture the metropolis streets as “detached” and their users as “unidentified.” ( Richard, 2007 )

A relevant illustration could be mentioned is the local Lebanese purposes of devaluating the usage of autos in topographic points in the metropolis, such as the “Beirut By Bike” activity launched to prefer a more eco-friendly and human motions in the metropolis, a merriment chilling bike drive around Beirut.These activities serve as urban tools to promote societal inclusions, interaction and usage of the metropolis streets by the metropolis users. These activities are besides manifested in Tripoli where a biking event was initiated with a defined motorcycle flight from Maarad Rashid Karami as get downing point traveling to the waterfront and valance. A metropolis without its streets and a street without the metropolis users can non work. Similarly to the instance of Gemayzeh, Beirut, chief additive narrow street, it is a heavy strip in the metropolis and really active during the twenty-four hours and dark. What a metropolis needs is ever a human graduated table bed meshing with its map, grid, substructure and other beds. The metropolis needs its users and frailty versa and the streets are the chief topographic points lying between the two where the extreme human societal activities should happen to do the metropolis map. Even though societal metropoliss has negative impacts on the users as prefering jobs, confronting more troubles and increasing complications, but its negative impact is able to be grasped more than that of the antisocial metropolis. That’s why making an antisocial metropolis is non a solution for the jobs encountered in a societal metropolis but a manner to increase its complications more.

Mentions

• Chief article:

  Richard, S. ( 2007 ) . The Antisocial Urbanism of Le Corbusier,The

Urban Reinventors, volume 13, issue ( 1 ) , pp. 50-56

• Jacobs, J. I2007 ) . What Makes A City? Planing for Quality of Space,

IOS Press: Dutch capital

• Beecher, J. & A ; Bienvenu, R. ( 1971 ) . The Utopian Vision of Charles Fourier, Beacon

Imperativeness: Boston

• Camus, A. ( 1978 ) . The Rebel An Essay on Man Revolt, Alfred A. Knopf: New York

• Richards, S. ( 2003 ) . Le Corbusier and The Concept of Self, Yale University Press: New

Haven and London

• Simmel, G. ( 1968 ) . Conflict and the Web of Group Affiliations, THE FREE PRESS:

New York

• Serenyi, P. ( 1967 ) . Le Corbusier, Fourier, and the Monastery of Ema,Art Bulletin49.4,

pp. 277 – 92.

• Locke, J. ( 1988 ) .Two Treatises of Government, erectile dysfunction. Peter Laslett ( 1690 ; Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, pp. 269 – 78, 283 – 302, 318 – 53.

• Pascal, B. ( 1670 )Pensees, trans. A. J. Krailsheimer, London: Penguin, 40,

42, 43, 59, 275.

“The key is light and light illuminates forms and forms have emotional power. By the drama of proportions by the drama of relationships unexpected, amazing…”

Le Corbusier

Le Corbusier, besides named as Charles-Edouard Jeanneret-Gris, was one of the great European designers in the 20^Thursdaycentury and designed legion sums of edifices across the universe although of all Le Corbusier’s spiritual work, those built, or those which remains as thoughts, the Notre-Dame-du-Haut chapel at Ronchamp is both the most well-known and the most cryptic. Its organic signifier, usage of abstract forms, and combination of coloring material, texture, visible radiation, and sound are the major factors towards the modern art of the period. The chapel manner of architecture is known as the International Style, Sculptural Style, Brutalism, and every bit good as Expressionist Modern.

The site is located on the upland at the top of the hill and there is an attack path which ascends from the south E, with trees giving some enclosures to the West and restricting the upland on its western side. The original site had been a popular finish for pilgrims since the thirteenth century. Ronchamp community was little, population of 200, but on the holy yearss of the pilgrim’s journey it can acquire up to the 10 1000s of pilgrims and would deluge the chapel and the surrounding hill. The original chapel of Ronchamp was destroyed in a lightning fire during the 1910s and so was re-built. Then World War Two broke out, the chapel of Ronchamp was destroyed due to the German heavy weapon fires.

Father Pierre Marie Alain Couturier was sent to offer Le Corbusier for the undertaking on reconstructing the chapel. Surprisingly, Le Corbusier ab initio refused the committee for this undertaking stating that he did non desire to work for a ‘dead institution’ , perchance because of the resentment that he felt about the Church’s rejection of the Basilica at La Sainte Baume. His helper Andre Wogenscky, a Gallic designer in coaction with Le Corbusier, recorded a conversation in which the Le Corbusier told Father Couturier, the Dominican priest who had such a clear influence on his ritual apprehension, that he had no right to work on the strategy and that they should happen a Catholic designer alternatively. Harmonizing to Wogenscky ;

“Father Couturier explained to him that the determination to inquire Le Corbusier had been taken in full consciousness of the state of affairs, in the cognition that he was non spiritual. Finally, he said: ‘But Le Corbusier, I don’t give a darn about your non being a Catholic. What I need is a great artist… you will accomplish our end far better than if we asked a Catholic designer: he would experience bound to do transcripts of ancient churches’ . Le Corbusier was brooding for a few seconds, and so he said: ‘All right, I accept.’”

Andre Wogenscky

The first deduction of “rough” studies that Le Corbusier did, for the chapel, was to look into the skylines puting about in Ronchamp so the chapel can be fitted in the landscape. And so there are merely four skylines ; to the E, the Ballons d’Alsace ; to the South, a little vale ; to the West, the field of the Saone ; to the North, another little vale and a small town. This gives each facade of the edifice a ground to react to different attitudes: welcoming, observing, service and symbolism. However, the first study of the site was merely a few lines that summarised all of the cardinal elements of the edifice as it was so constructed such as the infinites defined by the curving walls and the form of the roof.“These characteristics, imbued as they are with a sense of malleability, are declarative of a reclamation of church architecture using architectonic agencies ( in other words, non trusting merely on the inclusion of plants of modern art ) .”

The roof was inspired by the crab-shell – which Le Corbusier had picked up the crab shell on the beach of Long Island in 1946 – though critics have interpreted the inclining curve as forms diverse as a nun ‘s wont or a boat. Its roof sculptural character dramatizes the power and flexibleness of the concrete to unify the organic volumes. A infinite of several centimeters between the shell of the roof and the walls provides a important entry for daytime. This type of planing the roof reflects earlier plants of Le Corbusier’s: frequently, thin piles supported a big lodging block, go forthing the land floor hollow and unfastened.

“ Le Corbusier raises the roof for symbolic grounds associating to the Assumption. Levitation is amazing because it denies the Torahs of gravitation. Therefore, by denying our expectations—that roofs remain affiliated to buildings—Le Corbusier signals Ronchamp’s visitants that they are present at a marvelous supernatural event. ”
Robert Coombs

The edifice has three towers and three doors, the one to the E for the pilgrims to entree the exterior chapel for mass folds on yearss of pilgrim’s journey. The towers are made of rock masonry and are topped with cement domes. There’s another light gaps in the chapel, which are the signifier of the chapel towers. The thought of the chapel towers is influenced by the studies of the Serapeum of Hadrian’s Villa in 1911, in which the chuckhole at its terminal is dramatically illuminated with visible radiation. The towers appear in the inside as apsiss, settled the enlargements of the room. These white painted apsiss are lighted with indirect visible radiation from above shed thaumaturgy visible radiation over the curving walls.

The light creates the consequence of enclosed infinite. Although the inside is non to the full illuminated, as it is, for illustration, the Jubilee Church by Richard Meier. The difference between the comparing of Notre-Dame-du-Haut and the Jubilee Church is the sum of visible radiation that pollutes the country. The Jubilee Church has both facade of north and south covered with glass panels leting the full strength of the natural visible radiation in the church whereas the Notre-Dame-du-Haut merely allows the light seaming from the spreads between the ceiling and the walls, and the familial visible radiation from the chapel towers. In footings of contrast, the Notre-Dame-du-Haut is dark, as some Gothic churches, foregrounding the drama of visible radiation and underscoring the sanctity of the infinite.

Light is a symbol of faith so in the past architectural designs of the Gothic churches took this construct to the extreme as visible radiation is one of the most of import component of any spiritual construction and besides it gives the infinite an aeriform quality. The type of visible radiation joined with verticalness of the infinite produce an ambiance of Highness, lift and magnificence, and this method of utilizing visible radiation has influenced the other designers such as Kenzo Tange in his Tokyo Cathedral and Tadao Ando in his Church of Light, for illustration. The similarity between the Notre-Dame-du-Haut, Tokyo Cathedral and Church of Light is that they all relied on deriving the natural visible radiation, whereas the visible radiation is its supporter.

Another beginning of visible radiation is from the South wall, where the visible radiation penetrates through the little ports covered with stained colored glass that cast a great trade of reflected visible radiation into the dim room and from the outside these ports seemed to be merely bantam Windowss, but inside they open up into big white ports. The form of the ports in the midst wall is cut implicitly and widen, leting the visible radiation to gently melt indoors. Thus this shows that the visible radiation is in the laterality of the inside in the chapel and the visible radiation is its faith.

The walls around the interior act as acoustic amplifiers, particularly in the instance of the eastern outside wall that echoes the sound out over the field from the out-of-door communion table moving as the speaker unit for the standing pilgrims. Le Corbusier wrote that the signifier of the chapel was designed in order to make the ‘psycho-physiology of the feelings’ , but non to carry through the demands of faith.“As in the Basilica at La Sainte Baume, it was Le Corbusier’s purpose to make full each visitant to Ronchamp with a sense of the transforming and renewing power of harmoniousness, as manifested through coloring material, sound and signifier in the belief that it was possible to alter behavior through impacting the feelings.” Sound would play a critical function in transporting a sense of harmoniousness. The Chapel’s beginning is its laterality, the music – ‘music and architecture’ in Le Corbusier’s position ‘being two humanistic disciplines really near in their highest manifestations’ . It was Le Corbusier’s purpose that here ;

“They will be able to do unbelievable music, an incredible sound when they have twelve thousand sand people outside with amplifiers. I said to the priest, ‘you should acquire rid of the sort of music played by an old amah on an old organ – that’s out of melody – and alternatively hold music composed for the church, something new, non sad music, a loud noise, an unhallowed din’ .

Le Corbusier

The outside of the chapel and the milieus are both united in such a manner that the landscape is called in to lend in the religious work of architecture. From a distance, the pilgrims can see the white tower lodging out of the forests and the more the pilgrims climb up the hill the more of the white walls of the chapel will be revealed and this type of path is influenced by the path to the Parthenon, a temple in Athens. Knowing the fact that Le Corbusier was brought up as a Protestant and in ulterior life adhered to no peculiar religion but Le Corbusier stated:“I have non experienced the miracle of religion but I have frequently known the miracle of unexpressible infinite, the ideal of plastic emotion”, transforming spiritual architecture into the material of his modern architectural vision.

Shortly before the dedication in the summer of 1955, Alfred Canet, who was the secretary for the local edifice commission, wrote to Le Corbusier, stating that a little brochure was to be prepared for the gap, explicating the narrative of the edifice. He asked the designer for a statement, but the answer was indirect, inquiring Canet alternatively to make the account of the 5th volume ofOeuvre complete;

“I have no more complete account to give, since the chapel will be before the really eyes of those who buy the brochure. That is better than most facile speech” .

Le Corbusier

Ronchamp has ever troubled international architectural critics particularly Modernists and Rationalists. Its popularity and profusion of degrees of communicating merely swamp expostulations about its aberrance from Modern Movement beliefs about truth to stuffs. In his ain testimonies, Le Corbusier recognised that it was an exceeding brief:‘1950-55. Autonomy: Ronchamp. A wholly free architecture. No programme other than the jubilation of the Mass – one of the oldest of human establishments. One respectable personality was ever present – the landscape, the four skylines. They were the 1s in command…a pilgrim’s journey topographic point on specific yearss, but besides a topographic point of pilgrim’s journey for persons, coming from the four skylines, coming by auto, train and airplane.Everyone’s traveling to Ronchamp.’( L.C. , Textes et Dessins pour Ronchamp ) . Charles Jencks ( an American architecture theoretician and critic ) considers that the Notre-Dame-du-Haut was the first edifice with the Post-Modernism manner and has caused jobs for Modernists and Positivists such as Nikolaus Pevsner ( a British historiographer of architecture ) , quoted ;

“The edifice that blew apart the Modernist colony was Le Corbusier’s bantam church at Ronchamp, designed in 1950 and opened in 1955. This really first Post-Modern iconic edifice drew an iconoclastic tantrum of gunshot from every side, particularly fastidious Modernists and Positivists such as Nikolaus Pevsner. They looked on every aberrance from the right-angle as a sin.”

Charles Jencks

The citation described the Notre-Dame-du-Haut as the edifice with no right-angles in every “corner” . Modernism architecture follows a “form follows function” and “truth to materials” impression, intending that the consequence of the design should come from its intent and that none of the stuffs should seek and be concealed as something else. Although Post-Modernism follows same doctrine but uses more cylindrical and unprompted forms opposed to purely rectangles, and horizontal/vertical lines. Within the twelvemonth of the dedication, James Stirling wrote the evasive remark sing the Modernism and Post-Modernism of the Notre-Dame-du-Haut chapel ;

“It may be considered that the Ronchamp Chapel being a ‘pure look of poetry’ and the symbol of an ancient rite, should non hence be criticised by the principle of the modern motion. Remember nevertheless that it is a merchandise of Europe’s greatest designer. It is of import to see whether the edifice should act upon the class of modern architecture… , and surely the signifiers which have developed from the principle of the limited political orientation of the modern motion are being mannerised and changed in a witting imperfectionism”

James Stirling

Two months after the completion of Ronchamp in June 1955, Le Corbusier wrote letters to Alfred Canet, the cure , and Marcellin Carraud, a attorney from Vesoul and a outstanding member of the local edifice commission and the words scribed are more than the common courtesy of an designer composing to his client ;

“After being off for two months I greet you and inquire if you are pleased. It seems that after all this great attempt by a batch of people things have succeeded. You are doing a base, defying a great many assaults and answering to a great many inquiries. You must hold been worried at times. However you have been one of the brave people in the escapade. I wanted to state thank you to you, for Notre-Dame-du-Haut is understanding and that of the Committee this roseola endeavor could hold come up against the obstacle”

Letter from Le Corbusier to his client

Giving some grounds why Le Corbusier was chosen as the designer, a member of community, Father Belaud, has explained ;“Why? For the beauty of the monastery to be born of class. But above all for the significance of this beauty. It was necessary to demo that supplication and spiritual life are non bound to conventional signifiers, and that harmoniousness can be struck between them and the most modern architecture, supplying that the latter should be capable of exceeding itself.”

[ 1 ] – Geoffrey H. Baker ( 1984 ) . Le Corbusier An Analysis of Form. Hong Kong: Van Nostrand Reinhold. Page 211.

[ 2 ] – Bonbon. ( 2003 ) . Notre Dame Du Haut. Available: hypertext transfer protocol: //everything2.com/user/Bonbon/writeups/Notre+Dame+Du+Haut. Last accessed 10th February 2014.

[ 3 ] – Flora Samuel ( 2004 ) . Le Corbusier Architect and Feminist. Great Britain: John Wiley & A ; Sons Ltd. Page 119.

[ 4 ] – Arthur Ruegg ( 1999 ) . Le Corbusier. Switzerland: Birkhauser. Page 103.

[ 5 ] – Bonbon. ( 2003 ) . Notre Dame Du Haut. Available: hypertext transfer protocol: //everything2.com/user/Bonbon/writeups/Notre+Dame+Du+Haut. Last accessed 10th February 2014.

[ 6 ] – Flora Samuel ( 2004 ) . Le Corbusier Architect and Feminist. Great Britain: John Wiley & A ; Sons Ltd. Page 119.

[ 7 ] – Flora Samuel ( 2004 ) . Le Corbusier Architect and Feminist. Great Britain: John Wiley & A ; Sons Ltd. Page 120.

[ 8 ] – Le Corbusier ( 2000 ) . The Modulor. Germany: Birkhauser. Page 32.

[ 9 ] – Russell Walden ( 1977 ) . The Open Hand Essays. USA: MIT. Page 300.

[ 10 ] – Michael Raeburn and Victoria Wilson ( 1987 ) . Le Corbusier Architect of the Century. Great Britain: Susan Ferleger Brades with Muriel Walker. Page 249.

[ 11 ] – Charles Jencks ( 2012 ) . The Story of Post-Modernism: Five Decade of the Ironic, Iconic and Critical in Architecture. Great Britain: John Wiley & A ; Sons Ltd. Page 187.

[ 12 ] – James Stirling ( 1956 ) . Le Corbusier in Perspective. Available: hypertext transfer protocol: //www.arranz.net/web.arch-mag.com/5/recy/recy1t.html. Last accessed 10th February 2014.

[ 13 ] – Russell Walden ( 1977 ) . The Open Hand Essays. USA: MIT. Page 301.

[ 14 ] – Geoffrey H. Baker ( 1984 ) . Le Corbusier An Analysis of Form. Hong Kong: Van Nostrand Reinhold. Page 212.

[ Figure 1 ] – Notre Dame Du Haut Front Facade ( hypertext transfer protocol: //ad009cdnb.archdaily.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/1288287321-ronchamp-528×352.jpg )

[ Figure 2 ] – Notre Dame Du Haut Interior confronting East Wall ( hypertext transfer protocol: //www.greatbuildings.com/gbc/images/cid_1213222047_Ronchamp23.jpg )

[ Figure 3 ] – Notre Dame Du Haut Aspe ( hypertext transfer protocol: //ad009cdnb.archdaily.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/1288307698-ronchamp-elyullo.jpg )

[ Figure 4 ] – Notre Dame Du Haut Interior confronting South Wall ( hypertext transfer protocol: //ad009cdnb.archdaily.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/1288287366-ronchamp-pieter-morlion-528×352.jpg )

Constructed by Le Corbusier in 1929-31, the Villa Savoye, one of the greatest masterpieces of modern architecture, has been widely contested on the part of its originality and its accordance to the practical significance requirements every building should meet.

Following the tradition of International style (a major architectural style in the 1920s and 1930s, also known as a Modern movement, the modernistic style of maximum minimalism), the Swiss architect Le Corbusier dreamed of breaking all architectural rules and principles (such as scope, tectonics, prossemic etc) and building simple, geometrically designed, unornamented, spacious houses: as he called them, “machines to be lived in” (`machines à habiter’).

Of course, this outburst of the twentieth century architecture towards the total mechanization and simplicity was numerously criticized for the lack of humanism (box-shaped building dehumanize and deprive people of their individuality, they say), yet Le Corbusier’s (and other modern architects’, such as Mies van der Rohe, Walter Gropius, Mart Stam, Hans Scharoun, as well) intention was absolutely humanistic – to provide every man with a place to live in this constantly growing world.

Le Corbusier sought efficient ways to house large numbers of people in response to the urban housing crisis. He was a leader of the modernist movemnet to create better living condition and better society through housing concepts.

But apart from the problem of efficency, many art historians prefer to look on his works, and particularly on the Villa Savoye, as on the works of art which provide many artistic effects and influence human perception with unexpected geometry. As a matter of fact, Le Corbusier disproves Umberto Eko’s functionalistic theory of architecture by costructing buildings to exceed all levels of expectation (as it is required from works of art). Many critics refer to his buildings as to the true masterpieces.

William J. R. Curtis, for example, analyzing the elaborate shape of the Le Corbusier’s building, compares the Villa with a Cubistic painting. While Mark Wigley pays much attention to the colour of the Villa Savoye – his admiration of its glairing whiteness is unconcealed. So, let’s take these two critics’ analyses into pieces in order to find out who sounds more convincing and whose point of view looks more original and advanced.

William J. R. Curtis takes the most evident uniqueness of the Villa Savoye for analysis – the shape. What he actually notes is Le Corbusier’s excellent ability to combine severe and inanimate square horizontal forms with intricate curvatures and asymmetrical forms. This is the top formalistic skill, he claims.

It is a well-known fact that Villa Savoye in Poissy is Le Corbusier’s major work, associated to his cousin Pierre Jeanneret. In this construction he pioneered to concretize the revolutionary “five points for a new architecture”:

1.      constructing buildings that stand on pilotis: thus they should elevate the mass from the ground. The loads are carried punctually and release the peripheral walls, allowing points 2), 3) and 4). Pilotti was one of the most favorite Le Corbusier’s devices to free the lower levels for pedestrians.

2.      a free plan

3.      a free façade

4.      long horizontal windows running from one wall to another and outcropping the frontage. They allow generous opening on light and sun.

5.      a roof garden : the terrace, build on the roof, totally resembles the garden.

   Curtis is free to operate almost all the principles, although he pays more attention to deconstructing the overall shape of the Villa Savoye. That’s why any principle he includes into the analysis serves to show this unordinary combination of forms and lines, which make the whole building opened toward the “conversation” with the outdoor atmosphere and the horizon behind it.

“It is sculpted and hollowed to allow the surroundings to enter it, and its formal energies radiate to the borders of the site and to the distant horizon”, – keenly observes William J.R. Curtis in his essay about the Villa. In fact, he uses many arguments to sound more convincing. For example, he speaks of the façade to be somewhat blank and forbidding in the whole picture of the first-level box that at first sight makes an impression of only horizontal lines predominance. While the façade is a simple key to open an elaborate asymmetry of the Villa, hidden in the other three sides one can “rediscover” the building from.

The façade with its long horizontally placed ribbon of windows  seems to be a difficult riddle that at first glance requires a simple answer (“the Villa is incorrigibly symmetrical”) but can be solved only after taking a glance from the rear (“its symmetry is upset by the curved volumes behind”).

Another argument the author refers to is the use of pilotis, which Le Corbusier favored so much. The cylindrical pilotis are actually the only vertical lines of the building helpfully holding the massive first-level box so that create an impression of hovering.

Thus, Le Corbusier not only frees the low-level space for pedestrians but also breaks the architectural archetype of tectonics (in a common view such a thin pilotti cannot hold such a massive ‘box’). But it is the architect’s great achievement to be able to supply this huge “machine to be lived in” with an airy sense of lightness.

Mark Wigley chooses another path to the Villa Savoye. Unlike William J.R. Curtis, who takes a drive to the Villa and a walk around it so that grasp the overall expression, Wigley assesses the close picture of it, i.e. analyzing the colour of the building Le Corbusier preferred, having been influenced by the vernacular whitewash technique.

For the design of the buildings themselves, Le Corbusier said that all buildings should be white by law and criticized any effort at ornamentation. What Wigley states in his essay is that the nature of white colour in LeCorbusier’s houses is not as simple as only an echo of Mediterranean vernacular whitewash the Swiss archtect admired so much during his travel to the East at the end of 1910. His new found love of white is of a complex origin, Wigley claims. For example, he cites Le Corbusier’s letter to his friend William Ritter, in which the architect share his newly made discovery of  white, as a proof for his guess.

This subtle critic cannot accept the view that the reason for such a faithful love to the white colour is only a result of submission to “the irresistable attraction of the Mediterranean”. In fact, “the architect’s appeal to the universal status of white seems to be founded on a highly specific and idiosyncratic set of personal experiences and fantasies”. Le Corbusier’s choice of the white wall is motivated by synthesis rather than by a simple influence.

That’s why the phenomenon of white in modern architecture surely exceeds all the discourses (a collective idea of the white colour) and rests on the intimate emotional experiences of every architect that rediscovers the colour for him/herself.

To some extent I really feel this personal modernistic view on white. I can feel the author’s attitude towards the colour that obviously contradicts the common idea of white as a symbol of purity (yes, Le Corbusier was a purist architect, but only in terms of the usage of simple geometrical forms) and sanctity. His white is deprived of the collectivistic views and is rather a symbol of vanguard blank page. Le Corbusier rubbed off the messages scripted by the previous cultures.