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I don't understand this article. Le Corbusier is the epitome of the opposite: architecture that architects love, but that the people who have to live or work in

• noneeeed 4y ago
  It's a very light article with a title that over-promises. The fact that Pessac was easily modified appears to be accidental, and the article finishes with a passing comment by LC that I wholeheartedly agree with, but doesn't really amount to much. Feels like something dashed off to somehow prove a point? I very much like Tim Harford's reporting when it comes to statistics and numbers in life and the news (his More Or Less radio programme/podcast is great) and his older stuff on economics, but his more recent obsession with "cautionary tales" (the title of his other podcast) frequently seems to involve stories that are superficially interesting but frequently fail to convince me that they have a strong point.
  • 4gotunameagain 4y ago
    > The fact that Pessac was easily modified appears to be accidental Why is it accidental in your opinion? Corbusier's Five Points of Architecture[1] specifically dictate free design of f.x. the ground plan, in order to facilitate further modification. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Corbusier%27s_Five_Points_of_Architecture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Corbusier%27s_Five_Points_o...
    • noneeeed 4y ago
      The accidental thing seemed implied by the article, that the changes were an act of "resistance", rather than something that was designed for. My comment was more a criticism of the article than of Le Corbusier, whose work I mostly like (much more so than many contemporary architecture). A better article would have pointed to those 5 points, rather than simply repeating one pithy quote, which seemed to be the entire supporting evidence.
• agumonkey 4y ago
  Most of what I saw of him feels cold and failed. That said the "cite radieuse", when inside, felt cozy, original and well built (from walls, orientation thus lighting, heating). People living there said they were very pleased.
  • pharke 4y ago
    Agreed on the Cite Radieuse, the hallways are what I wish all apartment building halls looked like. Essentially interior streets, two stories high with apartment windows facing onto them, large windows to the exterior, benches or places for people to sit and enjoy the sunlight and meet their neighbors. The highrise as the modern incarnation of a village with all of the communal charm would be a delight. https://i.pinimg.com/originals/84/79/92/84799263a8dfa6fef6bff8af7e7cbc5f.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/originals/84/79/92/84799263a8dfa6fef6bf... Completely impractical since every developer will choose the standard closed in, windowless and unadorned hallway because it is the cheaper option.
    • bobthepanda 4y ago
      I think the bigger thing would be accessibility. In the US all units in a new residential building with an elevator must be adaptable for accessibility. If each individual apartment was two floors then each would need accommodation for an elevator or staircase lift.
    • HFguy 4y ago
      Is that just the first floor or is every floor like that? I can't find pictures of what the interiors of the apartments look like.
      • agumonkey 4y ago
        Can't say for sure but here's a 15min video with a tour of it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-ISAAZsq4Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-ISAAZsq4Y
      • pharke 4y ago
        > Inside, wide corridors ("streets in the sky") run along the central long axis of every third floor of the building. Each apartment lies on two levels, such that the room on one side of a corridor belongs to the apartment that is mostly below the corridor floor, while that on the opposite side belongs to the apartment above. On those floors without corridors, the apartments stretch from one side of the building to the other, and each has a balcony on the western side. If you search for floorplans of it, it looks like there are also interior corridors but I think every apartment has access to one of those wide corridors. I'm not sure what the point of having both interior and exterior corridors is, I would think it would be better to get rid of the interior corridor and give the extra space to the exterior one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit%C3%A9_d%27habitation#La_Cit%C3%A9_Radieuse,_Marseille https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit%C3%A9_d%27habitation#La_C... Edit: Well this is disappointing. After further research, it looks like that corridor is just the main one and the rest of the floor have dark, internal corridors and then enclosed balconies. What a missed opportunity, imagine a whole building full of corridors like the ones in the image, if you're going to build two story apartments then why not do it that way?
• aphroz 4y ago
  That's not the best picture of it. There are better pictures here: https://www.archdaily.com/940878/le-corbusiers-cite-fruges-lessons-from-a-modern-social-housing-neighborhood https://www.archdaily.com/940878/le-corbusiers-cite-fruges-l... And this was built more than 100 years ago.
  • achikin 4y ago
    Looking at the pictures I can’t tell what’s exactly wrong with those buildings.
    • brimble 4y ago
      The fronts looked to me like they were unfinished or had been really, really badly renovated. Those back photos look much better.
    • deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  • recuter 4y ago
    They were building pretty spiffy stuff 100 years ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Frank_Lloyd_Wright_works https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Frank_Lloyd_Wright_wor...
    • flr03 4y ago
      Those are not exactly factory workers housing though.
      • recuter 4y ago
        He never got to make it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadacre_City https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadacre_City https://franklloydwright.org/revisiting-frank-lloyd-wrights-vision-broadacre-city/ https://franklloydwright.org/revisiting-frank-lloyd-wrights-...
  • wongarsu 4y ago
• somenewaccount1 4y ago
  You have to read to the last line where he points out the takeaway for managers: "Life is always right;it's the architect that is wrong" -Le Corbusier Ergo, make sure employees retain some control.
  • coldtea 4y ago
    >"Life is always right;it's the architect that is wrong" -Le Corbusier Well, he was 100% the opposite of that in pracrice. Forcing the architect's will.
    • ajkjk 4y ago
      That's the opposite of the point here. > The very fact that his designs were so easily modified was, arguably, their strength.
      • coldtea 4y ago
        Well, most weren't. They stand looking as bad/gloomy and unlivable decades after as they did their first day.
        • rhn_mk1 4y ago
          That doesn't detract anything from the observation, even if true.
          • coldtea 4y ago
            That's fine, since my point wasn't that the idea is wrong, but that "he was 100% the opposite of that in practice".
  • simonebrunozzi 4y ago
    And you should read @jules' full comment, because that sentence is mentioned at the end of the comment.
• toast0 4y ago
  > So what exactly did Le Corbusier get right, according to the article? "The very fact that his designs were so easily modified was, arguably, their strength." -- this is what fans of Le Corbusier always praise him for, and it always sounds really bad to me. The main strength of the architecture is that you have to radically change it to make it liveable...? Some famous architects make/made terribly unusable buildings that were also hard to modify to make usable. Having a famous architect that contemplates that his design may not be correct is amazing progress. His work tends to be utilitarian and not visually exciting (especially earlier work); but avoiding load bearing walls and having lots of windows was innovative and useful. Although, apparently the occupants found too much light and added shutters.
  • atoav 4y ago
    Designing architecture in such way it can be easily changed when down the line inevitebly the usage changes is a value in itself. A big chunk of architecture IMO suffers from architects thinking they know how living or working is supposed to look like and push that ideology onto others while most often the offices of that architect look suspiciously different.. I work in a building from an era that preceeds Modernism and adapting the building to anything other than was originally 250 years ago envisioned is a nightmare of limitations, reshuffles and regulations, a stairway that goes down into an hallway just to go up on the other side. Accessability nightmare etc.
    • a9h74j 4y ago
      > Designing architecture in such way it can be easily changed when down the line inevitebly the usage changes is a value in itself Reminds me of a building influenced/designed by Christopher Alexander. IIRC there was a 2D array of unformly spaced ca 6x6in wooden beams -- to mount walls/dividers etc against as needed.
• wwalexander 4y ago
  Le Corbusier was also partly responsible for the American ideal of the ultra-zoned, socially-stratisfied, car-centric city. Le Corbusier saw society as a machine, not an organism, and his work reflects this outlook; a comprehensive plan for alienation and the decay of community.
  • systemvoltage 4y ago
    I want society to be like a machine and less like an organism. Seems like your personal belief system does not align with Le Corbusier. > American ideal of the ultra-zoned, socially-stratisfied, car-centric city IMO the best thing about America. Lots of land. Lots of space to build things. I am not a fan of crowded hectic life, $2M houses, having to ration electricity, live in a cardboard box sized apartment in a highly dense but "walkable" city.
    • wwalexander 4y ago
      > I want society to be like a machine and less like an organism. Unfortunately, this desire is at odds with the fundamental nature of a group of organisms, but you are welcome to fashion your own personal life/community into a machine if you so choose. > Seems like your personal belief system does not align with Le Corbusier. It does not, but that’s okay, we’re discussing the pros and cons of architectural philosophies here! Unfortunately, Le Corbusier put no value on the expressed desires and needs of the communities who had to live in his projects, whose buildings were torn down to make way for Le Corbusier’s machines. Humans and communities are not machines and cannot be engineered. > I am not a fan of crowded hectic life, $2M houses, having to ration electricity, live in a cardboard box sized apartment in a highly dense but "walkable" city. The issues with car-centricity go far beyond dense urban areas. The most easily-recognized example is probably the stroad [1], which also discretizes and alienates formerly human-oriented areas. I grew up in rural Maine and have lived in two of America’s largest cities, and I’ve seen our mechanization throughout. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stroad?wprov=sfti1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stroad?wprov=sfti1.
  • monkeydreams 4y ago
    > Le Corbusier was also partly responsible for the American ideal of the ultra-zoned, socially-stratisfied, car-centric city. Le Corbusier saw society as a machine, not an organism, and his work reflects this outlook; a comprehensive plan for alienation and the decay of community. What a myopic perspective on a man who thought that workers should be treated to a life beyond that of misery on the ant-hill of cramped tenements which grew up around factories in which they worked. Just because someone's solutions grew ubiquitous and the flaws in this paradigm grew too obvious, does not mean that these flaws were the plan all along.