LE CORBUSIER (1887-1965)

INTRODUCTION
Le Corbusier was a famous French Architect, Designer and Painter, famous for his
contributions to Modern Architecture and theoretical studies of modern design. His career
spanned five decades, with his iconic buildings constructed throughout central Europe, India,
Russia, and one structure each in North and South America.

EARLY CAREER: VILLAS

 Corbusier was attracted to visual arts and studied under painter L’Eplattenier, who
persuaded him to become an architect. Because of him, He got his first project Villa
Fallet (1905).
 In 1907, he travelled around Europe which led him to Vienna, where he designed Villa
Stotzer and Villa Jaquemet.
 Similarities between first three villas: Villa Fallet, Villa Stotzer and Villa Jaquemet:
(i) Each house is composed on the basis of a rusticated stone podium with an
elaborate and expressive roof.
(ii) Impressive symmetrical main facades with dominant linear axis.

CORBUSIER’S FIVE POINTS OF NEW ARCHITECTURE

In 1926, Le Corbusier formulated his ideologies and schemes adopted in his ‘5 Points of New
Architecture’. The villa Suvoye and the Monastery la tourette are one of the most important
examples of his adopted schemes that reflect these five points that include:
1. The pilotis (Column) elevating the mass off the ground: He lifted the bulk of the
structure off the ground, supporting it by columns, piers or reinforced concrete stilts.
These pilotis, in providing the structural support for the house, allowed him to elucidate
his next two points.
2. The free plan: achieved through the separation of the load-bearing columns from the
walls subdividing the space.
3. A Free Façade: meaning non-supporting walls that could be designed as the architect
wished. The free façade is the corollary of the free plan in the vertical plane.
4. The long horizontal strip of sliding windows.
5. Roof Garden: to compensate for the green area consumed by the building and replacing
it on the roof.

CORBUSIER’S ‘MODULAR’ THEORY

 Corbusier took Leonardo's suggestion of the golden ratio in human proportions to an
extreme: he sectioned his model human body's height at the navel with the two sections in
golden ratio, then subdivided those sections in golden ratio at the knees and throat; he
used these golden ratio proportions in the Modulor system.
 He then claimed that the proportions of ideal human figures embodied the golden ratio,
and that buildings designed in accordance with it would be both beautiful and well-
 adapted to human needs and hence defined the ‘Modulor’ as ‘A harmonic measure to the
human scale Universally applicable to architecture and mechanics.
 The Importance of Modular:
(i) Harmonious Proportions to everything.
(ii) Helped to design with regard to Human scale.
(iii) He considered it to be in accordance with nature.
 The application of the Modulor can be best seen at Unite d’Habitation at Marseilles in
France, Chapel of Notre Dame du Haut at Ronchamp, France, the administrative centre at
Chandigarh, Punjab, etc.

L’ESPRIT NOUVEAU
 L’Espirt Nouveau was a periodical edited by Le Corbusier and Ozenfant, published in
Paris from October 1920 to January 1925: the main channel for promoting the ideas of
Purism which was a movement in French painting advocating an art of clarity and
objectivity in tune with the machine age.
 The theories in the magazine attempted to show that there were direct links between
certain lines, proportions, forms, colours and structures within the mind.

CORBUSIER’S LATER WORKS

In his late career, Corbusier designed a number of modernist buildings some of which incude:
(i) Chapel of Notre Dame, Ronchamp.
(ii) Sainte Marie De La Tourette.
(iii) Heidi Weber Museum

CHAPEL OF NÔTRE DAME DU HAUT, RONCHAMP, FRANCE (1955)

 This was Corbusier’s first Post Modern Building: he departs from his principles of
standardization and the machine aesthetic, giving in instead to a site-specific response:
(i) It was difficult to transport bulky material as the site was on a hill, so he used
cement and sand used as primary building materials.
(ii) It is built on a site where a church destroyed during the Second World War once
stood. Much of the stone from the earlier church has been reused for filling.
 Instead of rectilinear and standard geometries, his architecture now became more
‘primitive’ and sculptural.
 Main Features of the Chapel:
(a) Roof seems to be hovering above walls as 10 cm gap left between the walls and the
roof; which gives a supernatural feeling.
(b) Small windows carved out in the South wall. These windows are smaller from outside
but provide brilliant diffused light to the interior.
(c) The windows seem to be randomly placed, but are actually based on careful
calculations through the Modulor.
(d) Bands of light with colored glazing infuse color into the otherwise monotone.

SAINTE MARIE DE LA TOURETTE (1957)

 It is an institutional building that consists of a hundred bedrooms for teachers and
students, study halls, a hall for work and one for recreation, a library and a refectory.
 The structural frame of the building is of rough reinforced concrete. The panes of glass
located on the three exterior faces are similar to those of the Secretariat at Chandigarh.
 The fenestration is also composed of large concrete elements reaching from floor
to ceiling, perforated with glazed voids and separated from one another by ventilators-
vertical slits covered by metal mosquito netting and furnished with a pivoting shutter.
 At La Tourette, aspects of Corbusier's developed architectural vocabulary are visible:
(i) The vertical brise-soleils used with effect in India.
(ii) Light-cannons piercing solid masonry walls.
(iii) Window-openings separated by Modulor-controlled vertical divisions.
 In contrast with Ronchamp, the building does not crown and complement the site, but
instead dominates the landscape composition.

HEIDI WEBER MUSEUM (1960)

Heidi Weber Museum is an art museum in Zürich dedicated to the work of the Swiss
architect Le Corbusier.
 It is the last building designed by Le Corbusier marking a radical change of his
achievement of using concrete and stone, framed in steel and glass, in the 1960s created
as a signpost for the future.
 Corbusier made intensive use of prefabricated steel elements combined with multi-
colored enameled plates fitted to the central core, and above the complex he designed a
'free-floating' roof to keep the house protected from the rain and the sun.
 The walls consist of enameled panels. The placing of these enamel panels was planned
according to a particular rhythmic system. The entire building complex was placed on a
concrete ground floor. The building has two floors – five single-storied and one double-
storied room.

CORBUSIER’S CONCEPTS OF CITY PLANNING

1. Voisin Plan: Corbusier’s concept of ‘the City’ was based upon clearance of most of the
landscape (except for historical monuments), and the erection of the modern steel and
glass skyscrapers that would house the business and artistic elite. The workers were
placed at the edges of the city in modern apartment structures, close to their workplace -
the factory and around 85 % of the land was left to natural landscapes and playgrounds.
2. Radiant Plan: In the Radiant City, however, the pre-fabricated apartment houses were at
the center of ‘urban’ life and were available to everyone based upon the size and needs
the families. The business center was positioned to the north of the apartments and
consisted of Cartesian (glass & steel) skyscrapers every 400 meters.

CORBUSIER’S PLANNING OF CHANDIGARH

 Only one of Corbusier’s city planning proposals was realized, that for Chandigarh, the
capital of the Punjab, India (begun 1953). Geometrically classical, Chandigarh is divided
into different sectors. The plan embodied four basic principles:
(i) Decongestion of the centers of cities.
(ii) Increase of density.
(iii) Enlargement of the means of circulation.
(iv) Enlargement of the landscaped areas.
 According to him use of high- rise structures would permit the accommodation of an
urban population, yet leave large areas of the ground free for parks and recreational.
 Rapid flow of traffic would be enhanced by the separation of pedestrian and motor car.
For this he formularized a system of traffic separation – the Seven V’s: establishing a
breakdown of traffic into a series of 7 categories containing every level of circulation
from arterial roads to apartment house corridors.

BUILDINGS IN CHANDIGARH
Open Hand Monument
 Open hand in Chandigarh, India is one of the most significant monuments of the city: It
has been designed in the form of a giant hand made from metal sheets that rotates like a
weathercock, indicating the direction of wind.
 The significance of open hand is that it conveys the social message of peace and unity
that is "open to give & open to receive."
The Secretariat Building
 The Secretariat building is a long, horizontal building composed of six eight storeyd
blocks separated by expansion joints. It bears close resemblance to the Marseilles
apartment block, one of Corbusier's earlier projects.
 The façade of the building gives a sculptural appearance with exposed concrete ramps,
and small square windows with projections for sun control.
The Palace Assembly
 Le Corbusier’s main concept for the design of the assembly came out of his desire to
establish a set of relationships across space between symbolic elements. His architecture
here, is not restricted to an entrance, nor to a façade but to the functions and spaces within
the building.
 The two legislative chambers, the curvilinear assembly hall and the pyramidal governor’s
council, were designed as freestanding structural forms enclosed within a rectilinear shell.
Chandigarh High Court
 The High Court is a linear block with the main facade towards the piazza. It has a
rhythmic arcade created by a parasol-like roof, which shades the entire building.
 The entrance is high Portico, resting on three giant pylons painted in bright colors- this
grand entrance intended to manifest the Majesty of the Law to all who enter.