"A MACHINE FOR LIVING IN"

• Le Corbusier
• Art Deco
• Streamline Moderne

LE CORBUSIER  (1887 - 1965)

      le Modulor

"He was a pioneer in theoretical studies of modern design ... also an urban planner, painter, sculptor, writer, and modern furniture designer."   ("Le Corbusier - Wikipedia" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Corbusier)

Early work

   Maison Blanche (La Chaux-de-Fonds, 1912)  The house "was supported by four 50 x 60-cm pillars, with lightweight internal partition walls that could be relocated at minimal expense if the occupants wanted a new layout."  ("Le Corbusier's 'La Maison Blanche' - Switzerland for Visitors" http://europeforvisitors.com/switzaustria/articles/la-maison-blanche.htm)

      Villa Schwob, aka Villa Turque (La Chaux-de-Fonds, 1916) designed after Jeanneret's 1911 antiquities tour of Italy, Greece, Turkey

    Concrete, including cornices

Frieze on Villa Turque's exterior.   Compare to Rubens' oil painting.

Two paintings by Le Corbusier, circa 1920

Maison Citrohan (drawing, 1922)

  "Le Corbusier chose the name Citrohan when he was searching for a sponsor to realize this project, and he tried with Citroen. At first it seemed like Citroen was pleased about it, but in the end nothing came out of it.  At the time cars was still considered quite [a] novelty, which is why Le Corbusier was searching for a car manufacturer since his houses were conceived to be 'smart' as cars, and because he had a general thought about cities that involved cars as some kind of 'saviours'."  ("Digital Arts | Le Corbusier & Citrohan; House" http://www.digitalarts.dk/2007/10/citrohan/)

Take a virtual tour of Maison Citrohan: http://www.digitalarts.dk/2007/10/citrohan/

Corbu's building in the Weissenhofsiedlung (1927)

Villa Savoye, 1931

The Villa Savoye (Poissy, France, 1931)

"Completed in 1931 near Paris, the Villa Savoye was restored in 1987 for the centenial celebration of his birth. 'The house is a box in the air, pierced all around, with a window extending lengthwise,' Le Corbusier wrote. 'Under the box runs a driveway. Cars can come and go by means of a hairpin turn.' According to the architect, the house was designed 'to do away with any notion of a front or back or side.” ("Le Corbusier: Architects & Designers: architecturaldigest.com"  http://www.architecturaldigest.com/architects/features/2007/1 2/lecorbusier_slideshow_122007?slide=8)

Le Corbusier's five points of architecture

"It was Le Corbusier's Villa Savoye (1929-1931) that most succinctly summed up his five points of architecture that he had elucidated in the journal L'Esprit Nouveau and his book Vers une architecture, which he had been developing throughout the 1920s. First, Le Corbusier lifted the bulk of the structure off the ground, supporting it by pilotis – reinforced concrete stilts. These pilotis, in providing the structural support for the house, allowed him to elucidate his next two points: a free façade, meaning non-supporting walls that could be designed as the architect wished, and an open floor plan, meaning that the floor space was free to be configured into rooms without concern for supporting walls. The second floor of the Villa Savoye includes long strips of ribbon windows that allow unencumbered views of the large surrounding yard, and which constitute the fourth point of his system. The fifth point was the roof garden to compensate the green area consumed by the building and replacing it on the roof. A ramp rising from the ground level to the third floor roof terrace, allows for an architectural promenade through the structure. The white tubular railing recalls the industrial 'ocean-liner' aesthetic that Le Corbusier much admired. As if to put an exclamation point on Le Corbusier's homage to modern industry, the driveway around the ground floor, with its semicircular path, measures the exact turning radius of a 1927 Citroën automobile."  ("Le Corbusier - Wikipedia" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Corbusier)

"In 1931, Le Corbusier designed an apartment building in Paris with a penthouse for himself and his wife Yvonne Gallis, a young fashion model from Monaco. Their restored residence is now open to the public.The Paris apartment entrance hall; beyond the pivoting door is the main living area."  ("Le Corbusier: Architects & Designers: architecturaldigest.com"  http://www.architecturaldigest.com/architects/features/2007/1 2/lecorbusier_slideshow_122007?slide=2)

Dom-ino House

"Corbusier shared [his teacher] Perret’s confidence and enthusiasm for the modern age. He envisaged a new and unique role for the artist/architect and the city planner that closely adhered to the capitalist spirit. Put simply, Corbusier’s initial encounter with the large complex city of Paris convinced him of the need for modern housing and a modern city. Partly, this was a response to what he called the chaos around him – the enormous amount of traffic and the squalor of the industrial workers’ housing. He compared this disorder to the discipline and authority of the factory and found the city lacking. Corbusier believed that the only way to impede a worker revolution was to formulate a machine for living, a dwelling that would bring the worker’s home life in line with the discipline of the factory. To this end, he created the Dom-ino housing concept, which was a rectangular structure with only four load bearing reinforced concrete members. The walls, then, could be opened up to sunlight via wrap around glass windows. The housing was purported, by Corbusier, to be a cheap, efficient way to house workers that would provide a modern ethos.

"It was not just that Corbusier believed in the uplift theory of architecture, i.e., the assumption that 'improved' housing would lift workers out of their culture of poverty. He also subscribed to the theory of architecture as control and discipline. Stuart Ewen, in his book All Consuming Images, notes that many modern thinkers presumed a correlation between the masses’ behavior and architectural structures. He quotes Charlotte Bronte, famous novelist, on the Crystal Palace, 'Yesterday I went for the second time to the Crystal Palace ... the multitude filling the great aisles seems ruled and subdued by some invisible influence ...'.

"Corbusier was very interested in exploiting the invisible influence of architecture in the modern age: 'The problem of the house is a problem of the epoch. The equilibrium of society to-day depends upon it. Architecture has for its first duty, in this period of renewal, that of bringing about a revision of values, a revision of the constituent elements of the house. We must create the mass production spirit.' 

"Later, he tersely states. 'Architecture or Revolution. Revolution can be avoided.'

"To this end, Corbusier rationalized the house."  ("LeCorbusier and the Radiant City Contra True Urbanity and the Earth"  http://www.uky.edu/Classes/PS/776/Projects/Lecorbusier/leco rbusier.html)

Radiant City, 1930

 "Le Corbusier's Cartesian skyscraper: 'subway; ground level and elevators; raised highways. Then, sixty floors of building. At the top, the armored platform against aerial bombardments.'"  ("Le Corbusier, images from The Radiant City"   http://www.nyu.edu/classes/reichert/sem/city/lecorbu_img.ht ml)

"In the Radiant City, the pre-fabricated apartment houses, les unités, were at the center of 'urban' life. Les unités were available to everyone (not just the elite) based upon the size and needs of each particular family. Sunlight and recirculating air were provided as part of the design. The scale of the apartment houses was fifty meters high, which would accommodate, according to Corbusier, 2,700 inhabitants with fourteen square meters of space per person. The building would be placed upon pilotis, five meters off the ground, so that more land could be given over to nature. Setback from other unites would be achieved by les redents, patterns that Corbusier created to lessen the effect of uniformity.

"Inside les unités were the vertical streets, i.e. the elevators, and the pedestrian interior streets that connected one building to another. As in the Contemporary City, corridor streets were destroyed. Automobile traffic was to circulate on pilotus supported roadways five meters above the earth. The entire ground was given as a 'gift' to pedestrians, with pathways running in orthogonal and diagonal projections. Other transportation modes, like subways and trucks, had their own roadways separate from automobiles. The business center, which had engendered much elaboration in the Contemporary City, was positioned to the north of les unités and consisted of Cartesian (glass & steel) skyscrapers every 400 meters. The skyscrapers were to provide office space for 3,200 workers per building.

"Corbusier spends a great deal of the Radiant City manifesto elaborating on services available to the residents. Each apartment block was equipped with a catering section in the basement, which would prepare daily meals (if wanted) for every family and would complete each families’ laundry chores. The time saved would enable the individual to think, write, or utilize the play and sports grounds which covered much of the city’s land. Directly on top of the apartment houses were the roof top gardens and beaches, where residents sun themselves in 'natural' surroundings – fifty meters in the air. Children were to be dropped off at les unités day care center and raised by scientifically trained professionals. The workday, so as to avoid the crisis of overproduction, was lowered to five hours a day. Women were enjoined to stay at home and perform household chores, if necessary, for five hours daily. Transportation systems were also formulated to save the individual time. Corbusier bitterly reproaches advocates of the horizontal garden city (suburbs) for the time wasted commuting to the city. Because of its compact and separated nature, transportation in the Radiant City was to move quickly and efficiently. Corbusier called it the vertical garden city."    ("LeCorbusier and the Radiant City Contra True Urbanity and the Earth"  http://www.uky.edu/Classes/PS/776/Projects/Lecorbusier/leco rbusier.html)

   Le Corbusier: "'1922: The two theses face to face: New York is not a city of the machine-age civilization. New York is countered by the Cartesian city, harmonious and lyrical.'" ("Le Corbusier, images from The Radiant City"   http://www.nyu.edu/classes/reichert/sem/city/lecorbu_img.html)

  Le Corbusier: "'Conflicting spiritual attitudes: the French tradition – Notre-Dame and the Plan Voisin (horizontal skyscrapers) versus the American line (tumult, bristling chaos, first explosive state of new medievalism.'" ("Le Corbusier, images from The Radiant City" http://www.nyu.edu/classes/reichert/sem/city/lecorbu_img.html)

  Le Corbusier: "'Everything here is paradox and disorder: individual liberty destroying collective liberty. Lack of discipline.'" ("Le Corbusier, images from The Radiant City"  http://www.nyu.edu/classes/reichert/sem/city/lecorbu_img.html)

  "The Radiant City from the pedestrian's perspective. 'A battle of giants? No! The miracle of trees and parks reaffirms the human scale.'" ("Le Corbusier, images from The Radiant City"  http://www.nyu.edu/classes/reichert/sem/city/lecorbu_img.html)

Unité d'habitation (Cité Radieuse)
(Marseille, France, 1947-1952)

"The Marseille unité d'habitation brings together Le Corbusier's vision for communal living with the needs and realities of post-war France. Up to 1600 people live in a single-slab 'vertical village,' complete with an internal shopping street halfway up, a recreation ground and children's' nursery on the roof, and a generous surrounding area of park land made possible by the density of the accommodation in the slab itself."   ("Unité d'habitation (Cité Radieuse) Marseille by Le Corbusier" http://www.galinsky.com/buildings/marseille/)

        "The Marseille building comprises 337 apartments arranged over twelve stories, all suspended on large piloti. The building also incorporates shops, sporting, medical and educational facilities, and a hotel. The flat roof is designed as a communal terrace with sculptural ventilation stacks and a swimming pool.  Inside, corridors run through the centre of the long axis of every third floor of the building, with each apartment lying on two levels, and stretching from one side of the building to the other, with a balcony."  ("Unité d'Habitation - Wikipedia" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit%C3%A9_d'Habitation)

The Unité introduced the world to raw concrete – béton brut – with its texture defined by the wooden planks shaping it when it was poured.    

Palace of Justice (Chandigarh, 1952)

Assembly Building (Chandigarh, 1955)

Ronchamp, 1955

ART DECO

"A popular international design movement from 1925 until 1939, affecting the decorative arts such as architecture, interior design, and industrial design, as well as the visual arts such as fashion, painting, the graphic arts, and film. This movement was, in a sense, an amalgam of many different styles and movements of the early 20th century, including Constructivism, Cubism, Modernism, Bauhaus, Art Nouveau, and Futurism. Its popularity peaked in Europe during the Roaring Twenties and continued strongly in the United States through the 1930s. Although many design movements have political or philosophical roots or intentions, Art Deco was purely decorative. At the time, this style was seen as elegant, functional, and ultra modern."  ("Art Deco - Wikipedia"  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_Deco)

"Art Deco was the first widely popular style in U.S. to break with revivalist tradition represented by Beaux-Arts and period houses. Art Deco uses a style of decoration applied to jewelry, clothing, furniture, handicrafts, buildings. Industrial designers used art deco designs to decorate streamlined cars, trains, kitchen appliances. Art Deco takes its name from the Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs and Industriels Modernes, held in Paris 1925, a showcase for works of "new inspiration and real originality." The style strove for a modern and artistic expression to complement the machine age. An emphasis on the future rather than the past was the style's principal characteristic. Both Art Deco and its cousin, Art Moderne, were rarely used for houses; they were more common for commercial buildings, skyscrapers, and occasional institutional buildings."  ("Art Deco and Art Moderne architecture" http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~twp/architecture/artdeco/)

Chrysler Building

  "Classic example of Art Deco architecture and considered by many, at least among contemporary architects, to be one of the finest buildings in New York City.

"Van Alen's original design for the skyscraper calls for a decorative jewel-like glass crown. His design also features the building's base in which showroom windows were tripled in height and topped by various number of stories with glass-wrapped corners, creating an impression that the tower appeared physically and visually light as if floating on mid air... However, the design was proved to be costly.

"The Chrysler Building is also well renowned and recognised for its terraced crown. Composed of seven radiating terraced arches, Van Alen's design of the crown is a cruciform groin vault constructed into seven concentric members with transitioning set-backs, mounted up one behind each other. The stainless steel cladding was ribbed and riveted in a radiating pattern and had many triangular vaulted windows, transitioning into smaller segments of the seven narrow set-backs of the facade of the terraced crown. The entire crown is clad with silvery "Enduro KA-2" metal, an austenitic stainless steel."  ("Chrysler Building - Wikipedia"  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysler_Building)    

Chrysler Building (New York, 1930)

Eastern Columbia Building (Los Angeles, 1930)

"The Eastern Columbia Building is thirteen stories high. It is built of steel reinforced concrete and clad in glossy turquoise terra cotta trimmed with deep blue and gold terra cotta.

"The building's vertical emphasis is accentuated by deeply recessed bands of paired windows and spandrels with copper panels separated by vertical columns. The façade is decorated with a wealth of motifs - sunburst patterns, geometric shapes, zigzags, chevrons, and stylized animal and plant forms. The building is capped with a four-sided clock tower emblazoned with the name Eastern in neon and crowned with a central smokestack surrounded by four stylized flying buttresses."  ("Los Angeles Conservancy | Tours" http://laconservancy.org/tours/downtown/eastern_columbia.p hp4)

Boulder Dam (1930s)

    "Hoover Dam, also known as Boulder Dam, is a concrete arch-gravity dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River, on the border between the U.S. states of Arizona and Nevada. When completed in 1935, it was both the world's largest electric power producing facility and the world's largest concrete structure."   ("Hoover Dam - Wikipedia" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoover_Dam)

Merchandise Mart: Graham, Anderson, Probst, & White (Chicago, 1931) .

Merchandise Mart was the largest building in the world in terms of floor area until the Pentagon was built.

   Detail (removed in 1961)

STREAMLINE MODERNE

See http://lifeloom.com/StreamlineModNationalCity.htm