3 ms·

Brasilia, the capital of Brazil (mentioned in the article) was built by disciples of Le Corbusier. It is a horrible place, a totalitarian technocracy modeled as

by zorked 11y ago

Brasilia, the capital of Brazil (mentioned in the article) was built by disciples of Le Corbusier. It is a horrible place, a totalitarian technocracy modeled as a city, a place that forgot that humans exist. But it is also a very interesting failed experiment.

toolslive 11y ago
Le Corbusier and followers are responsible for quite some ghettos in France and Belgium, and still he's seen as a hero by many architects. As a consequence, instead of starting over, money is being poured into preservation and restoration of these monstrosities . An example from Leuven: http://www.cvaa.be/en/project/social-housing-project http://www.cvaa.be/en/project/social-housing-project or Antwerp: http://www.standaard.be/cnt/tp2cvh63 http://www.standaard.be/cnt/tp2cvh63 you can find many more
- raverbashing 11y ago
  It might be that his constructions resulted in ghettos but it's not his exclusivity (or that the fault lies exclusively due to his way of building stuff) Yeah, some should be conserved (maybe for historical purposes) but sometimes it would be better to start over
- agumonkey 11y ago
  These aren't even monstruosities. Compared to actual social-architectural catastrophies they're cute. There's a few stuff that went very very bad in this era of urban growth, and Le Corbusier was only part of it. If you look at his first big 'bar' in Marseille, cite radieuse, it was an acceptable concept, spacious hallways, carefully designed flats, with good lighting, good thermal thinking. Then you have national projects that took the idea of 1000s of people in a small land surface and removed all the actual individual value and beauty. It was all cramped and low-cost. Industrialization of social structures, that went sour pretty fast. Even though, based on the ads of the day, they truly believed in doing good and being correct in their proposal.
- _delirium 11y ago
  Doesn't them being ghettoes mainly have to do with them being occupied by poor people, not the architecture? Europe also has ghettoes in a number of other architectural styles. And in the other direction, Manhattan is packed full of International Style modernism, and yet not considered a ghetto... because it's full of wealthy people.
sanoli 11y ago
I lived there for some years. It's not nearly as bad as you say. The main inconvenience is that it is very car-centric, but the consequence is that you get to walk around in nice green surroundings if you don't want to drive/take the bus. Other than that, it's a pretty nice place (I'm comparing it to other cities in Brazil, not to Paris). Brasília is basically this: https://eugene-kaspersky-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/files/2014/02/brazil-brasil-brasilia-3.jpg https://eugene-kaspersky-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/files/2014/... http://www.domusweb.it/content/dam/domusweb/en/news/2010/04/21/brasilia-50-years-later/Brasilia%200151_UPD.jpg http://www.domusweb.it/content/dam/domusweb/en/news/2010/04/... edit: Just to mention that the buildings in the photos are all residential buildings.
galfarragem 11y ago
Architects are not wizards. Few things have intrinsical value. What one generation values is not necessarily what the next one will. To complicate the situation, individual values might not even be aligned with collective values/interests within that generation. For some time american suburbs were not even questionable as the best lifestyle that you could get, nowadays people are not sure anymore. Values change continually. Large developments involve a lot of resources so they must be politically defendable. The architect has to distill reality and ideals to propose (bet) on something.
- vlehto 11y ago
  But there is more to it than that. Le Corbusier has to propose something that makes people say "classic corbusier" or something like that. No name architects have to propose something weird if they ever wish to be remembered by anybody. Bad rock star architect probably makes lot more money than good no name architect. Politicians actually making the decision are playing with someone else money. In most cases nobody remembers them in any way. Only if the building comes famous for looks or budget, the politicians get anything out of it. So again incentives for eccentricity. If you would let regular people to vote on architecture, you would likely see incremental changes. And the system would be lot more like you described.
  - galfarragem 11y ago
    In general democracies are not great for architectural experimentation in large scale. There are too many veto players and experimentation must be aligned with investors short-term values/interest (AKA public or private money will only be spent if somebody will get fast gains from that investment, being it cash or advertisement). In pro-totalitarian regimes, ideals are the most important. If architects don't diverge from that ideals, they have carte blanche to experiment. E.g. Frank Gehry eccentricity is chosen mostly for the advertisement that will bring to the development. Even so, FB headquarters amount of experimentation is minimal. High level of experimentation is costy, risky and the potential reward would be minimal.
    - 11y ago

by zorked 11y ago

toolslive 11y ago

Le Corbusier and followers are responsible for quite some ghettos in France and Belgium, and still he's seen as a hero by many architects. As a consequence, instead of starting over, money is being poured into preservation and restoration of these monstrosities . An example from Leuven: http://www.cvaa.be/en/project/social-housing-project http://www.cvaa.be/en/project/social-housing-project or Antwerp: http://www.standaard.be/cnt/tp2cvh63 http://www.standaard.be/cnt/tp2cvh63 you can find many more

raverbashing 11y ago
It might be that his constructions resulted in ghettos but it's not his exclusivity (or that the fault lies exclusively due to his way of building stuff) Yeah, some should be conserved (maybe for historical purposes) but sometimes it would be better to start over
agumonkey 11y ago
These aren't even monstruosities. Compared to actual social-architectural catastrophies they're cute. There's a few stuff that went very very bad in this era of urban growth, and Le Corbusier was only part of it. If you look at his first big 'bar' in Marseille, cite radieuse, it was an acceptable concept, spacious hallways, carefully designed flats, with good lighting, good thermal thinking. Then you have national projects that took the idea of 1000s of people in a small land surface and removed all the actual individual value and beauty. It was all cramped and low-cost. Industrialization of social structures, that went sour pretty fast. Even though, based on the ads of the day, they truly believed in doing good and being correct in their proposal.
_delirium 11y ago
Doesn't them being ghettoes mainly have to do with them being occupied by poor people, not the architecture? Europe also has ghettoes in a number of other architectural styles. And in the other direction, Manhattan is packed full of International Style modernism, and yet not considered a ghetto... because it's full of wealthy people.

sanoli 11y ago

I lived there for some years. It's not nearly as bad as you say. The main inconvenience is that it is very car-centric, but the consequence is that you get to walk around in nice green surroundings if you don't want to drive/take the bus. Other than that, it's a pretty nice place (I'm comparing it to other cities in Brazil, not to Paris). Brasília is basically this: https://eugene-kaspersky-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/files/2014/02/brazil-brasil-brasilia-3.jpg https://eugene-kaspersky-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/files/2014/... http://www.domusweb.it/content/dam/domusweb/en/news/2010/04/21/brasilia-50-years-later/Brasilia%200151_UPD.jpg http://www.domusweb.it/content/dam/domusweb/en/news/2010/04/... edit: Just to mention that the buildings in the photos are all residential buildings.

galfarragem 11y ago

Architects are not wizards. Few things have intrinsical value. What one generation values is not necessarily what the next one will. To complicate the situation, individual values might not even be aligned with collective values/interests within that generation. For some time american suburbs were not even questionable as the best lifestyle that you could get, nowadays people are not sure anymore. Values change continually. Large developments involve a lot of resources so they must be politically defendable. The architect has to distill reality and ideals to propose (bet) on something.

vlehto 11y ago
But there is more to it than that. Le Corbusier has to propose something that makes people say "classic corbusier" or something like that. No name architects have to propose something weird if they ever wish to be remembered by anybody. Bad rock star architect probably makes lot more money than good no name architect. Politicians actually making the decision are playing with someone else money. In most cases nobody remembers them in any way. Only if the building comes famous for looks or budget, the politicians get anything out of it. So again incentives for eccentricity. If you would let regular people to vote on architecture, you would likely see incremental changes. And the system would be lot more like you described.
- galfarragem 11y ago
  In general democracies are not great for architectural experimentation in large scale. There are too many veto players and experimentation must be aligned with investors short-term values/interest (AKA public or private money will only be spent if somebody will get fast gains from that investment, being it cash or advertisement). In pro-totalitarian regimes, ideals are the most important. If architects don't diverge from that ideals, they have carte blanche to experiment. E.g. Frank Gehry eccentricity is chosen mostly for the advertisement that will bring to the development. Even so, FB headquarters amount of experimentation is minimal. High level of experimentation is costy, risky and the potential reward would be minimal.
  - 11y ago