A4353 Le Corbusier and the Evolution of Modern Architecture
History/Theory LectureKenneth Frampton
INTRODUCTION
Assessed in terms of influence alone Le Corbusier is more the architect of this century than any other figure and this factor bestows an exceptional importance on his output. Architect, urbanist, polemicist, writer, painter, sculptor, and socio-political ideologue, Le Corbusier's output in every area was so prolific as to make the total spectrum of his achievement all but infinite. The more one studies him the more he escapes us, so much so that one has the feeling that one could never assimilate the full range of his production. Le Corbusier not only invented an architecture degree-zero his famous Five Points of a New Architecture of 1926 but also a new way of beholding the entire epoch. What he had in mind was as much a new way of living, as it was a new way of seeing. This much is made eccentrically explicit in his 1923 Manual of the Dwelling, wherein we read:
Demand one really large living room instead of a number of small ones. Demand bare walls ... Built in fittings to take the place of much of the furniture, which is expensive to buy and takes up too much room. ...Demand concealed or diffused lighting. ...Buy only practical furniture and never buy decorative pieces. ... Put only a few pictures on your walls and none but good ones. ...Demand ventilating panes to the windows in every room. ...Demand that the maid s room should not be an attic. ...Take a flat which is one size smaller than your parents accustomed you to. Bear in mind economy in your actions, your household management and in your thoughts.
That this was an anti-bourgeois but nonetheless elite prescription for an entirely new way of life is evident from each exhortation . This Purist world view was matched by the equal fertile formulation of a new world that would come into being out of a subtle interplay between two dialectically opposite yet complimentary forces, on the one hand the Engineer's Aesthetic as derived from received technology, particularly where this, at the turn of the century, had been directly and elegantly applied in accordance with techno-scientific logic, on the other, the archaic tradition of Architecture as handed down across time. Thus, without denying the ideological import of both program and technique Le Corbusier nonetheless, stressed the decisive importance of profile and contour. As he put it, Profile and contour are a pure creation of the mind; they call for the plastic artist.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS
Students may fulfill the requirements of this course through three alternative options; (a) a 3500-5000 word essay on a topic to be agreed with the instructor, (b) a group study model of an unbuilt work to be agreed upon with the instructor and (c) a take-home examination to be issued on the occasion of the last lecture.
GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
- Arts Council of Great Britain, Le Corbusier, Architect of the century, London, 1987
- Centre Georges Pompidou, Le Corbusier: une encylopedie, Paris, 1987
- Russell Walden, ed., The Open Hand: Essays on Le Corbusier, MIT Press, 1977
- Le Corbusier, Oeuvre Complete, Girsberger Editions, 1935-1965
LECTURE TOPICS
1. La Chaux de Fonds 1905-1916
2. L' Esprit Nouveau 1915-1925
3. La Ville Radieuse 1910-35
4. L' Art Decoratif d Aujourd hui 1925-1937.
5. Une Maison - Un Palais 1923-1933.
6. La Crise du Monde: L' Afrique, L' Amerique, La Russie et la Tschecoslovaiquie 1928-36
7. Du Mouvement Syndicaliste à L' ASCORAL 1929-1947.
8. L' Art dit primitive et la Cité Lineale 1930-36.
9. Unité d habitation: Entre montée à sec et bêton brut. 1933-1965.
10. Quand les Cathedrals étaient blanches 1948-1965.
11. Le Passage à Inde 1950-1965.
12. La Poéme de l' Angle Droit 1945-1965