4 ms·

Le Corbusier’s Algerian Fantasy: Blocking the Casbah

31 points by tintinnabula 9y ago

eecc 9y ago
I fail to see Feminine in a concrete curtain so bit it would obscure the Sun. But then I may just be biased by this article I recently read: https://www.city-journal.org/html/architect-totalitarian-13246.html https://www.city-journal.org/html/architect-totalitarian-132...
- astrodust 9y ago
  Brutalism is a cancer of architecture. So many of these buildings are anti-human on so many levels, reducing people to nothing but unthinking, uncaring agents in a machine.
  - dogecoinbase 9y ago
    Brutalism is about truth in architecture -- buildings look like what they're made of, and what they do. People are agents in the machine everywhere. Brutalism just exposes it.
    - eecc 9y ago
      Well, there’s also truth and material exposure in beautiful brickwork... imho, brutalism is more about wwii ptsd (and general postwar rebuilding effort and no money to waste on frills
    - astrodust 9y ago
      That's the fluffy cover story. The truth is a lot of these buildings show just how little public housing gives a shit about the people that live in it, how unconcerned corporations are about the liveability of public spaces, etc.
  - whitepoplar 9y ago
    I agree. Have you read anything by Salingaros or Alexander?
    - eecc 9y ago
      Nope, thanks for the tip
mcguire 9y ago
"...a general disillusionment with technology in the face of the market crash of 1929 and the rise of Fascism and Nazism (all frightful by-products of a collective faith in progress)." No. Just no. Progress, or even a "collective faith in progress", had nothing to do with the market crash of 1929, the subsequent depression, or the rise of Fascism and Nazism (although they get bonus points for recognizing a difference between the two).
- Apocryphon 9y ago
  Both fascism and communism are Industrial Age ideologies that had faith in certain aspects of progress (modern efficiency and order, economic modernization, shiny steel war machines, etc.). Certainly fascism and Nazism had a lot of Romantic, anti-modern reactionary ideals, but it was synthesized with a lot of the trappings of progress. The Italian Futurists were compatible with Italian Fascism, after all. Not sure how the market crash applies to progress, unless the Roaring Twenties were supposed to be an unprecedented time of irrational economic exuberance that foreshadowed our modern credit-driven economy.
twic 9y ago
> the market crash of 1929 and the rise of Fascism and Nazism (all frightful by-products of a collective faith in progress) Oh come on.
jhpriestley 9y ago
I find that 95% of the material I read that touches on urban design takes a particular viewpoint: small-scale, accretive, "human", heterogeneous, walkable, urban spaces are good; large-scale, top-down, "inhuman", car or transit-focused, urban spaces are bad. Le Corbusier is a villain, Jane Jacobs a hero. Does anyone know a good source for the counterargument? It seems like there must be another side to the story. Moscow is full of concrete superblocks and it's actually pretty nice. San Francisco is all eclectic little urban micro-neighborhoods and it has very serious problems with public nuisances and crime. Maligned modernist projects like Pruitt-Igoe were often used to house the very poor, and it seems like sometimes the architecture is blamed for what may be just an association between poverty and crime. According to at least some studies, tearing down project housing relocated a lot of crime to the suburbs, only modestly decreasing overall crime rates http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/The-312/April-2012/Did-the-Destruction-of-Chicagos-Public-Housing-Decrease-Violent-Crime-Or-Just-Move-It-Elsewhere/ http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/The-312/April-201...
- theoh 9y ago
  > large-scale, top-down, "inhuman", car or transit-focused, urban spaces are bad You are combining a few different strands there. There are people who think brutalist megastructures are dehumanizing but who are generally pro-car. Likewise you shouldn't conflate car-friendly and transit-friendly approaches to planning: they are very different. Top-down planning is ever-present to varying degrees. Jacobs' nemesis Robert Moses wanted to do extremely serious surgery on Manhattan, with the assistance of the architect Paul Rudolph. Luckily it didn't happen, though other major projects went ahead. It was part of the whole post-war prioritization of the car (in Europe and America) which is now seen a mistake, and you will not find serious theorists defending it. You ask for a counterargument to Jacobs' ideas, but I think that invites a dualistic framing of the problems. See e.g. this article: https://archpaper.com/2016/05/best-use-abuse-criticize-jane-jacobs/ https://archpaper.com/2016/05/best-use-abuse-criticize-jane-... In terms of examples of successful modernist planning which are seen as a desirable model today, Neave Brown's Alexandra Road estate in London might be of interest. It's a megastructure, concrete, alongside a major railway line, with uncompromising modernist aesthetics. There is parkland, but not an ocean of space which isolates blocks from circulation routes. (This is a common criticism of the Zeilenbau/Corbusian approach to planning, which has to be weighed against the benefits of having greenery between blocks). It is an immense "gesture" of structure which follows the curve of the railway, but faces away from it to control noise levels. I'm mentioning all this because it is the particular architectural decisions and strategies that make the difference. It's not a result of picking one side or the other in the Moses/Jacobs debate. You could perhaps argue that it represents a third way, but there are many possibilities. If there is a meaningful countercurrent to Jacobs' ideas, it's the idea of pursuing architecture/planning itself rather than an ad-hoc folksy urbanism.

31 points by tintinnabula 9y ago

eecc 9y ago

I fail to see Feminine in a concrete curtain so bit it would obscure the Sun. But then I may just be biased by this article I recently read: https://www.city-journal.org/html/architect-totalitarian-13246.html https://www.city-journal.org/html/architect-totalitarian-132...

astrodust 9y ago
Brutalism is a cancer of architecture. So many of these buildings are anti-human on so many levels, reducing people to nothing but unthinking, uncaring agents in a machine.
- dogecoinbase 9y ago
  Brutalism is about truth in architecture -- buildings look like what they're made of, and what they do. People are agents in the machine everywhere. Brutalism just exposes it.
  - eecc 9y ago
    Well, there’s also truth and material exposure in beautiful brickwork... imho, brutalism is more about wwii ptsd (and general postwar rebuilding effort and no money to waste on frills
  - astrodust 9y ago
    That's the fluffy cover story. The truth is a lot of these buildings show just how little public housing gives a shit about the people that live in it, how unconcerned corporations are about the liveability of public spaces, etc.
- whitepoplar 9y ago
  I agree. Have you read anything by Salingaros or Alexander?
  - eecc 9y ago
    Nope, thanks for the tip

mcguire 9y ago

"...a general disillusionment with technology in the face of the market crash of 1929 and the rise of Fascism and Nazism (all frightful by-products of a collective faith in progress)." No. Just no. Progress, or even a "collective faith in progress", had nothing to do with the market crash of 1929, the subsequent depression, or the rise of Fascism and Nazism (although they get bonus points for recognizing a difference between the two).

Apocryphon 9y ago
Both fascism and communism are Industrial Age ideologies that had faith in certain aspects of progress (modern efficiency and order, economic modernization, shiny steel war machines, etc.). Certainly fascism and Nazism had a lot of Romantic, anti-modern reactionary ideals, but it was synthesized with a lot of the trappings of progress. The Italian Futurists were compatible with Italian Fascism, after all. Not sure how the market crash applies to progress, unless the Roaring Twenties were supposed to be an unprecedented time of irrational economic exuberance that foreshadowed our modern credit-driven economy.

twic 9y ago

> the market crash of 1929 and the rise of Fascism and Nazism (all frightful by-products of a collective faith in progress) Oh come on.

jhpriestley 9y ago

I find that 95% of the material I read that touches on urban design takes a particular viewpoint: small-scale, accretive, "human", heterogeneous, walkable, urban spaces are good; large-scale, top-down, "inhuman", car or transit-focused, urban spaces are bad. Le Corbusier is a villain, Jane Jacobs a hero. Does anyone know a good source for the counterargument? It seems like there must be another side to the story. Moscow is full of concrete superblocks and it's actually pretty nice. San Francisco is all eclectic little urban micro-neighborhoods and it has very serious problems with public nuisances and crime. Maligned modernist projects like Pruitt-Igoe were often used to house the very poor, and it seems like sometimes the architecture is blamed for what may be just an association between poverty and crime. According to at least some studies, tearing down project housing relocated a lot of crime to the suburbs, only modestly decreasing overall crime rates http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/The-312/April-2012/Did-the-Destruction-of-Chicagos-Public-Housing-Decrease-Violent-Crime-Or-Just-Move-It-Elsewhere/ http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/The-312/April-201...

theoh 9y ago
> large-scale, top-down, "inhuman", car or transit-focused, urban spaces are bad You are combining a few different strands there. There are people who think brutalist megastructures are dehumanizing but who are generally pro-car. Likewise you shouldn't conflate car-friendly and transit-friendly approaches to planning: they are very different. Top-down planning is ever-present to varying degrees. Jacobs' nemesis Robert Moses wanted to do extremely serious surgery on Manhattan, with the assistance of the architect Paul Rudolph. Luckily it didn't happen, though other major projects went ahead. It was part of the whole post-war prioritization of the car (in Europe and America) which is now seen a mistake, and you will not find serious theorists defending it. You ask for a counterargument to Jacobs' ideas, but I think that invites a dualistic framing of the problems. See e.g. this article: https://archpaper.com/2016/05/best-use-abuse-criticize-jane-jacobs/ https://archpaper.com/2016/05/best-use-abuse-criticize-jane-... In terms of examples of successful modernist planning which are seen as a desirable model today, Neave Brown's Alexandra Road estate in London might be of interest. It's a megastructure, concrete, alongside a major railway line, with uncompromising modernist aesthetics. There is parkland, but not an ocean of space which isolates blocks from circulation routes. (This is a common criticism of the Zeilenbau/Corbusian approach to planning, which has to be weighed against the benefits of having greenery between blocks). It is an immense "gesture" of structure which follows the curve of the railway, but faces away from it to control noise levels. I'm mentioning all this because it is the particular architectural decisions and strategies that make the difference. It's not a result of picking one side or the other in the Moses/Jacobs debate. You could perhaps argue that it represents a third way, but there are many possibilities. If there is a meaningful countercurrent to Jacobs' ideas, it's the idea of pursuing architecture/planning itself rather than an ad-hoc folksy urbanism.