Hated him in architecture school. Was assigned the incomprehensible Towards a New Architecture as a first year. Had an argument w/ my professor over The Modular, his 'based on human' measuring system. It's a failure if you present a new system of measurement, but then concede that it doesn't work and you actually need two systems and it's all arbitrary anyway. It really turned me off architecture school.
But there was one project of his that I always return to. La Maison Jaoul. It's a beautiful work in brick, tile, wood and concrete. Lots of texture and color that is often missing in the rest of his work.
It has some big flaws. small spaces, not enough interest in it's environment, but if you think Corb is only white boxes, it's worth a look.
This video is pretty raw, but it gives the best views of the entire house.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJAQTFLdPN0
Also, La Tourette is a cow. complete with an udder. Got to give props for that one.
I also had an argument with my prof over The Modular. Luckily one of the TA's did his undergrad in math.*
The Crow was the Ted Talk of self-promoting architects and the largest failure of the original Modernists; IMO not much to consider in his body of work other than Villa Savoye and the diametrically opposite Ronchamp.
*Note, if you aren't familiar with his new replacement for math, "The modular" can not divide, it's only a half-baked anthropomorphic proportion system and results in a bazillion ugly literal edge cases when actually used.
Modern architecture and urban design are such a disaster. If any single person is responsible its probably him. Overly intellectual approaches that are striking on paper, sometimes also striking when realized, but not livable and don't age well.
The article question is even a little telling of the sentiment held by modern architects and architecture, "What do modern architects think of architecture", rather than "What do The People think of modern architecture?". They're a bunch of oversocialized, overacademized, overintellectual pseuds in this elite little club, all getting high on each other's supply. They and their enablers should be charged with crimes for their creative abominations and the insults they've flung against Beauty and Truth.
Modern architecture desperately wanted to become as respected and admired as the revolutuon in visual arts.
Which it achieved.
But its role in society is far more important than art. Its the permanent backdrop in which we experience life. Its the shape of the petri dish on which our colony grows.
Architects should be more psychologists, social scientists and economists than visual artists.
I had a negative opinion of Le Corbusier because he is associated with failed high-rise public housing projects and the kind of disasters that happen in a Ballard novel but when I saw things he designed I liked a lot of them.
He only really excelled at creating inhumane structures that only serve to impress the intelligentsia. It's not like you'd ever want to live in his austere glass boxes.
> It's not like you'd ever want to live in his austere glass boxes.
I have had the pleasure (or misfortune?) of working for a number of years in buildings designed by Le Corbusier, Frank Gehry, and Norman Foster.
Was the Le Corbusier building I worked in clearly of its time? Yes. But also strangely it was the least clinical of all three. It had a surprising amount of warmth. I can't speak to his residential work, but it was clear that great thought had been given into how people use the building. Unlike when I worked in the Gehry building, where no thought had been given at all.
And if anything, it was the opposite of what you say - Le Corbusier thinks a lot about glass, and is surprisingly restrained in its use (compared to, say, Foster). I remember the concrete stairwells with their frosted glass bricks well.
I'm not saying that we should aspire to build more Le Corbusier-like buildings, but my experience of his buildings was the total opposite of inhuman.
My take is that people are frequently sad to see brutalist buildings go (they are honest, show their bones, frequently use materials that somewhat match up with the environment) but many people hate those glass and steel modernist buildings, not least the people who live and work in them because of poor lighting and thermal properties. I’m left with the feeling that modernist buildings were meant to impress somebody else.
That is because Mies van der Rohe designed modern architecture in a more appealing way than Le Corbusier - Le Corbusier was a brutalist, while van der Rohe was not.
I had the chance to visit „La Cite Radieuse“ in Marseille. All these years later it is still more stylish and … dare I say it … comfortable than all the apartment high-rises surrounding it.
He designed it as a village inside a single building. And the apartments are still sought-after.
Unfortunately that's what modern architecture has largely devolved into: inhumane austere glass boxes devoid of any individuality or character. And robbing places of their local character and tradition: Copenhagen looks exactly like London exactly like Shanghai exactly like Rio exactly like Melbourne...
> He only really excelled at creating inhumane structures that only serve to impress the intelligentsia. It's not like you'd ever want to live in his austere glass boxes
I read your comment while perched on a stool next to my kitchen island. The city stares at me in the background while I glance back at the city from time to time.
The place most built in the spirit of Le Corbusier is Brasília, Brasil. Lived my latter teens there. It was ok, I prefer Rio de Janeiro and Montevideo.
It seems obvious now, but it was different. And not worse than most contemporary architecture either. But it would be nice to return to a more human, beautiful and sustainable style, true.
I appreciate its novelty at the time, and its nostalgia now. It was used in a lot of public buildings in the 1970's because it tended to be more economical than Ivy League looking brick buildings with white trim. I appreciate that its design had something to say, even if that thing wasn't clear or useful. Now public buildings look like boring brick boxes with maybe a curved wall or some other "accent".
With our resources of today, we could be building fantasy castles all over the place.
But in reality, an underwhelming remake of a 30 years old video game gets thousands of paid visual artists' hours, whereas most buildings get 0 by the look of them.
The lesson for me, as a software engineer / software architect, is that a dogmatic architecture can be inspiring, possibly showing possibilities beyond just simply grounded practical approaches can't easily, but also can be impractical and terrible. Believing that one has complete information and the complete control over everything is hubris. But big thinking can inspire also.
Corbs assistant in his later work, Iannis Xenakis, was a pretty interesting guy. He was responsible for a substantial portion of La Tourette for example.
He was an architect, engineer, musician and mathematician, but i think he is mostly remembered as a composer. His quasi philosophical treatise on mathematical composition of music actually has the full code of one of his music programs (in Fortran). It is a really interesting read.
The buildings are nice, but the urban design is absolutely awful. Saw an exhibit about him in NYC, I think at MOMA, a few years back, and it was all these monumental buildings separated by gigantic plots of land with multi-level highways between them, absolute madness, totally anti-human. The exhibit I saw included models related related to Plan Voisin [1].
> If you take his idea of raising buildings on pilotis to allow the garden to extend beneath the residence, this is obvious nonsense because you can’t have a garden without rainfall and sunlight.
I feel like this is textbook Corbusier. He designed for buildings and cities that looked beautiful from the scale of the architect, standing miles above them looking down. Actual humans on a human scale do not want cities like this.
To be fair to him, I believe he was reacting to the dense cities of the time which were centers of disease and destitution, filled with pollution and sewage. Cities now are much cleaner and more livable, especially those that DON'T follow his model of an ideal city.
Readit News
The Crow was the Ted Talk of self-promoting architects and the largest failure of the original Modernists; IMO not much to consider in his body of work other than Villa Savoye and the diametrically opposite Ronchamp.
*Note, if you aren't familiar with his new replacement for math, "The modular" can not divide, it's only a half-baked anthropomorphic proportion system and results in a bazillion ugly literal edge cases when actually used.
Once they have lived inside each others creations for a decade they would vote on them.
Only then would the archetypes be communicated to the rest of unsuspecting world.
If you think there's any single person to blame, it's whoever blindly applied his ideas where it didn't belong.
I believe we're better off with a variety of ideas, it's then up to each city to make the best of it.
Which it achieved.
But its role in society is far more important than art. Its the permanent backdrop in which we experience life. Its the shape of the petri dish on which our colony grows.
Architects should be more psychologists, social scientists and economists than visual artists.
Roger Scruton - Why Beauty Matters (2009)
https://vimeo.com/549715999
I'm not a fan of Le Corbusier or van der Rohe—too cold and sterile—but I am fond of Frank Lloyd Wright, R.M. Schindler, John Lautner, and Ray Kappe.
Where modern arcitecture fails for me is in creating a comfortable, pleasant and practical environment for people to live in.
Le Corbusier famously thought of houses as machines to live in. Maybe that metaphor is wrong to start with.
I have had the pleasure (or misfortune?) of working for a number of years in buildings designed by Le Corbusier, Frank Gehry, and Norman Foster.
Was the Le Corbusier building I worked in clearly of its time? Yes. But also strangely it was the least clinical of all three. It had a surprising amount of warmth. I can't speak to his residential work, but it was clear that great thought had been given into how people use the building. Unlike when I worked in the Gehry building, where no thought had been given at all.
And if anything, it was the opposite of what you say - Le Corbusier thinks a lot about glass, and is surprisingly restrained in its use (compared to, say, Foster). I remember the concrete stairwells with their frosted glass bricks well.
I'm not saying that we should aspire to build more Le Corbusier-like buildings, but my experience of his buildings was the total opposite of inhuman.
Maybe you’re thinking of Mies van der Rohe? His rectangular glass façades feel a lot more omnipresent in today’s architecture than Le Corbusier.
He designed it as a village inside a single building. And the apartments are still sought-after.
I read your comment while perched on a stool next to my kitchen island. The city stares at me in the background while I glance back at the city from time to time.
I used to live in one of the "austere glass boxes" you speak of that is pictured on the cover of Douglas Coupland's City of Glass. I live a couple blocks down the street now. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_Glass_(Coupland_book)
The metaphorical stones of others can not shatter this beauty.
Edit: spell
But in reality, an underwhelming remake of a 30 years old video game gets thousands of paid visual artists' hours, whereas most buildings get 0 by the look of them.
I like the layout type “mas” in Provence.
Something like this horror?
https://www.insider.com/turkey-abandoned-disney-castles-vill...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaise_Longue_(Le_Corbusier)
There are many replicas and also "continuation" ones (IIUC modern ones but sold by those having the rights to the model). It's really comfy.
The "LC3" is seen in many films and places really (but to me not very practical):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Confort#/media/File:Loun...
So Le Corbusier for furnitures: sure... For buildings: I don't dig the style, way too brutalist too my taste.
He was an architect, engineer, musician and mathematician, but i think he is mostly remembered as a composer. His quasi philosophical treatise on mathematical composition of music actually has the full code of one of his music programs (in Fortran). It is a really interesting read.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iannis_Xenakis
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formalized_Music
> If you take his idea of raising buildings on pilotis to allow the garden to extend beneath the residence, this is obvious nonsense because you can’t have a garden without rainfall and sunlight.
I feel like this is textbook Corbusier. He designed for buildings and cities that looked beautiful from the scale of the architect, standing miles above them looking down. Actual humans on a human scale do not want cities like this.
To be fair to him, I believe he was reacting to the dense cities of the time which were centers of disease and destitution, filled with pollution and sewage. Cities now are much cleaner and more livable, especially those that DON'T follow his model of an ideal city.
1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_Voisin