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FWIW the one opportunity he got to execute on his ideas on a city scale (Chandigarh), it turned out fine. > Le Corbusier dreamed of "cleaning and purging citie

by adamjb 5y ago

FWIW the one opportunity he got to execute on his ideas on a city scale (Chandigarh), it turned out fine. > Le Corbusier dreamed of "cleaning and purging cities of disorder" with "calm and powerful architecture." (his words) His plan for Paris was never realized I can't help but point out that today's Paris is very much the product of a 19th C. rationalisation with broadly similar motivations and goals (including a desire for abundant parkland)

stephc_int13 5y ago
There is a huge difference between the Haussmann's renovation of Paris and the ideas of Le Corbusier. The goal of Haussmann was not to abolish everything that had been discovered and learnt by architects and city planners during the centuries before him, but instead to modernize and get rid of the obviously impractical designs. Pretty much like refactoring an old and messy code-base. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haussmann%27s_renovation_of_Paris https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haussmann%27s_renovation_of_Pa...
- adamjb 5y ago
  Yeah of course there's a wealth of difference between Haussmann and Corbusier, 70 years will do that. But if someone had that it was Haussmann that dreamt of "cleaning and purging cities of disorder" with "calm and powerful architecture" I wouldn't've blinked. >The goal of Haussman was [...] to modernize and get rid of the obviously impractical designs. That, and make the city easier to pacify with military force. Also it wasn't so obviously impractical. There was a lot written at the time about how Haussmann was destroying Paris by tearing out her heart and splitting her up and so on and so forth. Corbusier's central thesis was that the world had progressed but architecture had not, to the point where previous architecture was obsolete. With the nostalgic and excessive neoclassical style of the beaux-arts dominating the 19th C. it wouldn't've been hard to get that impression. From the tellingly titled "Towards a New Architecture": "Engineers have been busy with barrages, with bridges, with Atlantic liners, with mines, with railways. Architects have been asleep." He was not alone in that conception. He wasn't even the first of the modernists to articulate it. This desire to make a clean break with existing tradition (which you cast as the unique and defining sin of Corbusier) is more or less the foundation and the entire point of Modernism. Here's two examples that spring to mind. Loos writing in 1910ish alleged with new industrial processes the waste encouraged by the fact that styles go out of style made ornament criminally wasteful, so he advocated for architecture free of ornament. Theo van Doesberg and the rest of De Stijl gang took it in another direction around 1917, attempting to distil everything into category or continuum. In art and architecture this meant right angles and straight lines only (because angles are binary duh, though sometimes 45-degrees was okay), only black, white and the primary colours allowed, and the inside and outside of the building, painting, etc. existed as a continuum (Mondrian was a member for a while)
  - stephc_int13 5y ago
    The problem with Le Corbusier, in my opinion, is not about art style or aesthetics but about city planning and urbanism, or rather his disregard and even disdain for everything that worked for millennia.

by adamjb 5y ago

stephc_int13 5y ago

There is a huge difference between the Haussmann's renovation of Paris and the ideas of Le Corbusier. The goal of Haussmann was not to abolish everything that had been discovered and learnt by architects and city planners during the centuries before him, but instead to modernize and get rid of the obviously impractical designs. Pretty much like refactoring an old and messy code-base. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haussmann%27s_renovation_of_Paris https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haussmann%27s_renovation_of_Pa...

adamjb 5y ago
Yeah of course there's a wealth of difference between Haussmann and Corbusier, 70 years will do that. But if someone had that it was Haussmann that dreamt of "cleaning and purging cities of disorder" with "calm and powerful architecture" I wouldn't've blinked. >The goal of Haussman was [...] to modernize and get rid of the obviously impractical designs. That, and make the city easier to pacify with military force. Also it wasn't so obviously impractical. There was a lot written at the time about how Haussmann was destroying Paris by tearing out her heart and splitting her up and so on and so forth. Corbusier's central thesis was that the world had progressed but architecture had not, to the point where previous architecture was obsolete. With the nostalgic and excessive neoclassical style of the beaux-arts dominating the 19th C. it wouldn't've been hard to get that impression. From the tellingly titled "Towards a New Architecture": "Engineers have been busy with barrages, with bridges, with Atlantic liners, with mines, with railways. Architects have been asleep." He was not alone in that conception. He wasn't even the first of the modernists to articulate it. This desire to make a clean break with existing tradition (which you cast as the unique and defining sin of Corbusier) is more or less the foundation and the entire point of Modernism. Here's two examples that spring to mind. Loos writing in 1910ish alleged with new industrial processes the waste encouraged by the fact that styles go out of style made ornament criminally wasteful, so he advocated for architecture free of ornament. Theo van Doesberg and the rest of De Stijl gang took it in another direction around 1917, attempting to distil everything into category or continuum. In art and architecture this meant right angles and straight lines only (because angles are binary duh, though sometimes 45-degrees was okay), only black, white and the primary colours allowed, and the inside and outside of the building, painting, etc. existed as a continuum (Mondrian was a member for a while)
- stephc_int13 5y ago
  The problem with Le Corbusier, in my opinion, is not about art style or aesthetics but about city planning and urbanism, or rather his disregard and even disdain for everything that worked for millennia.