history of contemporary architecture - 16. Le Corbusier.ppt

Le Corbusier – early works
A machine for living in ….
Arch. Dania Abdel-Aziz 1

Le Corbusier:
– Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris, better known to
the world as Le Corbusier.
– He met with:
• Tony Garnier (The creator of the Industrial
City) and was influenced by his Utopian
Socialist Ideas.
• Auguste Pierre (who he worked with).
• Deutcher Werkbund.
2
Arch. Dania Abdel-Aziz
Modernism and the Heroic Period of Architecture – Heroic Period Breaking Away
Le Corbusier

Le Corbusier:
– He used to travel and study ancient history.
– His architecture represented aesthetics of the
machine.
– He published a periodical: “The New Spirit”.
– One of his designs was a prototype.
– He was a painter.
3
Le Corbusier

Basic beliefs:
• Reflected commitment to pure geometry (simple cubes and pyramids) with
no ornamentation.
• Pure geometry is a symbolic medium for expressing “higher truths”.
4

Examples of his work: Villa Schwob, Switzerland, 1916:
– One of his earliest examples that was influenced by Auguste Pierre:
 Cantilevered lintels above windows.
 Ornaments reduced.
 Concept of roof garden introduced.
 Void ratio introduced.
5

Took lessons from the past.
1. Classical architecture
• Le Corbusier had the sketching habit for buildings from all periods in order
to understand their organization and underlying principles.
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Took lessons from the past.
1. Classical architecture
Influenced mostly by the Acropolis at Athens
and sketched the Parthenon from many
angles.
• Pure geometry.
• Strength of underlying ideas.
• Sculptural energy.
• Relationship of the site and far distant
views of mountains and seas.
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Acropolis at Athens

“The first case in architectural history of a house designed as an open
system”.
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2. Rationalists approach to history and construction (Perret)
Perret: At the age of 20- Le Corbusier Learned the reinforced concrete
construction and was convinced that this material will be his own. In 1914-
Le Corbusier was just 27, He invented the Dom-ino' skeleton.
9
Perspective view of the Dom-ino system,
1914. Image from Le Corbusier & Pierre
Jeanneret, OEuvre Complète Volume 1,
1910–1929, Les Editions d’Architecture
Artemis, Zürich, 1964

10
Simple model of Le Corbusier's Dom-ino concept design.mp4

Dom-Ino House is an open floor plan
structure.
• It was a prototype as the physical
platform for the mass production of
housing.
• This design became the foundation for
most of his architecture for the next
ten years.
11

12
Dom-ino – so called because the houses
could be joined end to end like dominos.
By November 1914, one fifth of the Belgian
population was homeless.
a standardised, two-storey house made up
of concrete slabs supported on columns
and a staircase.
That was it – no walls, no rooms, just a
skeleton.

Wonder: Dom-ino model does actually work??
• More than one speaker pointed out that the Dom-ino model doesn't actually
work.
• First of all, the columns are too slender to support those slabs, and
secondly, the placement of the staircase prevents the houses being joined
end to end as the name implies.
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2. Visual and philosophical concerns with modern mechanization
(Werkbund- Germany).
14
Peter Behrens:
In 1910- Le Corbusier worked with him
when he was designing his factories
for the AEG.
He learnt from him:
• Focus on the smallest and
largest articles of design.
• To believe in the necessity of
'types' standard elements of
design amenable to mass
production.

2. Visual and philosophical concerns with modern mechanization
(Werkbund- Germany).
Walter Gropius: Influenced by pavilion use of glass. Understood the
necessity for an alliance between art and the machine.
15
Walter Gropous's Fagus Factory | 1913 | early
modernism

16
Walter Gropous's Fagus Factory | 1913 | early
modernism

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Werkbund pavilion

3. Cubism
Took from cubism
• Combination of abstract forms with
fragments.
• Handling of space in ambiguous layers.
But
• Rejected the decorative trend of cubism and
advocated a return to dear, ordered forms
that were expressive of the modem machine
age as documented in their 1918 book After
Cubism.
18
The aficionado, Pablo Picasso. 1912

4. De Stijl
Took from De Stijl
• Abstraction But Rejected a non-objective .
19

Example:
• Outlines of bottle and guitar
represented pure geometrical
shapes.
• The bottle is seen from the side,
above, and below By
fragmenting the bottle in such a
manner, the viewer has a
greater understanding of the
bottle than a photograph or a
realistic painting would provide.
• Demonstrates the idea of pure
form in all objects.
20
Life Still painting 1920 le Corbusier
Introduction to purism

21
For Cubist architecture, like the bottle, should expresses more than
what the eye can actually see.

• From 1920 to 1925 Ozenfant and Le Corbusier published the magazine
“The New Spirit” L’Esprit nouveau, which preached purist theories.
• He and Amedee Ozenfant: Called their work
After Cubism or PURISTS.
• Pure, precise geometric forms were the appropriate ones for the machine
age.
How to express the machine age?
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• Look for harmony. But in
engineering objects.
• He compared the Parthenon to a
machine (cars).
• To reinforce the idea of
standards, such as basic
elements as columns,...etc in the
temples and wheels, lamps,...etc
in the cars.
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Greek temples and cars, Le Corbusier, 1923
Le Corbusier's most influential book
Towards An Architecture

So a car can be equivalent to a house... lt is a service provider like a Car.
A house can be:
• Mass-produced.
• Work as efficiently as a motorcar.
• Function effectively as a machine for living in, i.e., . A house whose
functions had been examined from the ground floor up and stripped to
the essentials.
25

Le Corbusier established his concept of the dwelling as a system that is:
• Standardized,
• Mass produced to solve the housing crisis after the war.
• Serviceable like the modem car.
Minimal Architecture
• A house would be a machine for living, not reducing man to the level of an
automaton but uplifting him by as precise an environment in totality as the
precision of an automobile brake.
• Ventilation, sound insulation, sun-traps in winter, and sun shields in summer
were all a part of this precision and of Le Corbusier's ideals for a total
environment.
26

Le Corbusier created a five point system for a new architecture:
1. Pilotis (structural grid).
2. Free plan: floor space was free to be configured into rooms without concern,
for supporting walls.
3. Free facade (facade not dependent on structural considerations).
4. Ribbon window (greater light in interiors).
5. Roof garden (bringing nature from the ground plane to the roof plane).
The 5 points glorify the possibilities of industry in building, and are devised
deliberately to oppose historical conventions in the production of
architecture.
27

28
above: Le Corbusier Comparative sketches
to show the advantages of the 'Five Points'

Vriations on the Syntax of the
“Five Points of New
Architecture
29
Maison La
Roche
Villa Stein / de
Monzie
Villa Savoye

– Designed as a weekend country house.
– Situated just outside of the city of Poissy in a meadow which was originally
surrounded by trees .
– A masterpiece of Le Corbusier's purist design.
– 5 points of architecture are applied clearly.
– No columns on the façade because of the cantilevers, and the façade is just a
curtain.
30
Le Corbusier
Villa Savoye, 1928-31

Le Corbusier "Five Points“
1. The Pilotis (supports).
2. The roof gardens.
3. The free plan.
4. The Ribbon window.
5. The free design of the
façade.
32
Le Corbusier

best example of Le Corbusier goal to create a house which would be a
machine for living (in).
33
Le Corbusier

• Modular design -- the result of his researches into mathematics, architecture
(the golden section) and human proportion.
• Pilotis— the house is raised on stilts to separate it from the earth, and to
use the land efficiently.
• Pure color — white on the outside, a color with associations of newness,
purity, simplicity, and health
34
Le Corbusier

• Ribbon windows (echoing industrial architecture, but also providing openness
and light).
• Integral garage (the curve of the ground floor of the house is based on the
turning radius of the 1927 Citroen).
35
Le Corbusier

• The ground-floor walls become semicircular, based on the turning radius of
a car.
• Exterior wall is wide enough for a car to pass through.
36
Le Corbusier

Structure
• shifting of the columns (conditional
structure, versus the exterior's
rational structure).
• Supported by a regular skeleton
frames which were undisguised
37
.
Le Corbusier

• The combination of raised living
spaces and ribbon windows
resulted in rooms with panoramic
views.
• Used a large horizontal windows to
carefully frame the landscape to
transform it into a two-dimensional
picture.
• The living room is connected to the
terrace through a huge sliding
glass wall that faces south. This
exposure means plenty of sunlight
enters the living room and the
terrace.
38
Le Corbusier

Villa Stein / de Monzie, 1926-8:
• Emphasis was on circulation elements.
 No borders to space.
 Double volume intersecting spaces.
 House on Pilotis (columns):
 Roof grades introduced in it
 Five points of Architecture Explored:
» Free Plan.
» Pilotis.
» Free Façade.
» Roof Gardens.
» Ribbon Windows.
42
Le Corbusier

43
Le Corbusier
Villa Stein / de Monzie

44
Villa Stein / de Monzie
Le Corbusier

Le Corbusier
Maison La Roche, Paris, 1923-5
– It is not a typical house, it is a prototype for:
• Free Plan.
• Standardization.
• Place for equipments.
• A place for industrial Metaphors (machine).
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Thank you 
46

history of contemporary architecture - 16. Le Corbusier.ppt

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