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Urban renewal was the realization of Le Corbusier's ideology at a large scale. It really was his vision. Focussing on a detail whether corridors have light or n

by trgn 5y ago

Urban renewal was the realization of Le Corbusier's ideology at a large scale. It really was his vision. Focussing on a detail whether corridors have light or not, I think is somewhat of a diversion. Urban renewal did not fail because it was done cheaply, or dumbed down (which it was). It failed because it was fundamentally the wrong approach to city building. We're still living with the consequences. Our current built environment is modernist; mediated by technology, planned, bureaucratic. It's due time Le Corbusier is getting his comeuppance. It took a long long time. The first criticism were in the 70s, but postmodernism could not get beyond pageantry. And when I was in college 20 years ago, modernism was still venerated in the architecture departments, because the architect-as-god remained so appealing (btw Ayn Rand was similarly infatuated, it's an odd quirk of history how both communism and libertarians found common ground in this one domain). It's slowly fading. I think the dyke is going to break, and we'll put Le Corbusier where he belongs. A hugely influential misanthrope, who made categorically bad architecture. (also really sad, because early in his career, Le Cobusier's single family homes were really quite appealing).

TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
LC was - somewhat credibly - accused of fascist sympathies. https://brill.com/view/journals/fasc/6/2/article-p196_196.xml?language=en https://brill.com/view/journals/fasc/6/2/article-p196_196.xm... Urban renewal wasn't necessarily the wrong solution in itself. The 18th and 19th centuries weren't necessarily any better at humane building. In the UK postwar worker housing stock was terrible - outside toilets, little or no insulation, no central heating, and often poorly built. So blocks were a solution of sorts. But they usually were poorly built and unimaginatively designed, optimised for low cost, but with no practical understanding of community or community spaces. A typical UK block has some decorative grass around it, but that's it. There's no common space, no common facilities, and no colour or texture. Later renovations which add at least some of the above are more popular and have fewer social problems.
- trgn 5y ago
  Thanks for that link. I don't know about his personal thoughts, but just judging from his work, LC's architecture certainly had a fascist tinge, in the sense that through that kind of architecture man submits to authority. A-tower-in-the-park is a very authoritarian top-down way to house people. There was also his exaltation of destruction, to create a clean slate from which a new architectural order can arise, and fascists certainly appreciate violence as a force of change. Just do deviate a little from LC in particular. But both communism and fascism are the political realizations of modernism, in that they only can function through the mediation of high technology. In communism, equity is achieved through perfect bureaucracy; the system of production and wealth reallocation being a well-oiled machine, perfectly transparent and predictably manipulated. It is in communism, that humans completely submit to the machine the most. In fascism, dominion is achieved through incessant violent action. Technology is the necessary lever to maintain dominance over the enemy. It is in fascism that humans submit to their leader, exhilarated by their shared power through technology (Tanks! Bombs! Nuclear Reactors!) Since no technology is perfectly reliable, or technological dominion is never guaranteed, both are doomed to fail.
  - syntheweave 5y ago
    There's a commonality between modernism and the realization of an the industrial mass consumer society in the 20th century that transcends the ideological divides of the time. Factories, warehouses, office buildings, tower blocks, shopping malls, highways and suburbs all have the same rationales of mass production economics beating at their heart. A skyscraper is simply a "people warehouse". In this respect the gradually growing criticisms of modernism and the fraying of the postwar political order go hand-in-hand. A criticism of a one-size-fits-all lifestyle equally applies across the fascist/communist spectrum, and the "Californian ideology" that SV represented drove a stake into it by standing up for the individual, albeit in an amoral, Randian sense: cool toys for those who could afford them, digital sharecropping for the rest. The highly provisioned, toy-like offices of Google etc follow from that premise.
    - trgn 5y ago
      +100 > the gradually growing criticisms of modernism and the fraying of the postwar political order go hand-in-hand fwiw - I think the growing criticism of modernism are a good thing. The alternative, a more humanistic attitude to life and liberty (corny I know), and a more organic model of political organization seem preferable. I also agree that the amoral SV-ethos was wrong, because of the elitism you point out.
agumonkey 5y ago
I kinda disagree, a little bit. You can live happily in a big housing project, as long as some basics are there. No noise, not too dense, some green spaces and also a fair owner. Lots of buildings failed because owners stopped caring, so everything rot, and people here didn't help either. Some of my family lived in these and it felt ok enough. Some other projects 500m for them became no-go zones. Quite surprising. That said I'm not pro big-structures[0], I understand it spoils the area too much. Near my town, an ex no-go zone has been replaced by smaller buildings, that was enough to regrow a peacefulness that left for 30 years. It's walkable, the woods nearby are walkable, almost shocking. [0] even though, I still love them for some reasons
- trgn 5y ago
  tbf, I do agree with you. For sake of argument, "big housing project", is just another name for "big apartment building". And I agree that many places do "big apartment building" quite well. But "big apartment building" only works well in a big thriving city, within its existing fabric. Not as in, let's raze the city, and put a big building in this new empty space. And I think Le Corbusier was explicitly about the latter.

by trgn 5y ago

TheOtherHobbes 5y ago

LC was - somewhat credibly - accused of fascist sympathies. https://brill.com/view/journals/fasc/6/2/article-p196_196.xml?language=en https://brill.com/view/journals/fasc/6/2/article-p196_196.xm... Urban renewal wasn't necessarily the wrong solution in itself. The 18th and 19th centuries weren't necessarily any better at humane building. In the UK postwar worker housing stock was terrible - outside toilets, little or no insulation, no central heating, and often poorly built. So blocks were a solution of sorts. But they usually were poorly built and unimaginatively designed, optimised for low cost, but with no practical understanding of community or community spaces. A typical UK block has some decorative grass around it, but that's it. There's no common space, no common facilities, and no colour or texture. Later renovations which add at least some of the above are more popular and have fewer social problems.

trgn 5y ago
Thanks for that link. I don't know about his personal thoughts, but just judging from his work, LC's architecture certainly had a fascist tinge, in the sense that through that kind of architecture man submits to authority. A-tower-in-the-park is a very authoritarian top-down way to house people. There was also his exaltation of destruction, to create a clean slate from which a new architectural order can arise, and fascists certainly appreciate violence as a force of change. Just do deviate a little from LC in particular. But both communism and fascism are the political realizations of modernism, in that they only can function through the mediation of high technology. In communism, equity is achieved through perfect bureaucracy; the system of production and wealth reallocation being a well-oiled machine, perfectly transparent and predictably manipulated. It is in communism, that humans completely submit to the machine the most. In fascism, dominion is achieved through incessant violent action. Technology is the necessary lever to maintain dominance over the enemy. It is in fascism that humans submit to their leader, exhilarated by their shared power through technology (Tanks! Bombs! Nuclear Reactors!) Since no technology is perfectly reliable, or technological dominion is never guaranteed, both are doomed to fail.
- syntheweave 5y ago
  There's a commonality between modernism and the realization of an the industrial mass consumer society in the 20th century that transcends the ideological divides of the time. Factories, warehouses, office buildings, tower blocks, shopping malls, highways and suburbs all have the same rationales of mass production economics beating at their heart. A skyscraper is simply a "people warehouse". In this respect the gradually growing criticisms of modernism and the fraying of the postwar political order go hand-in-hand. A criticism of a one-size-fits-all lifestyle equally applies across the fascist/communist spectrum, and the "Californian ideology" that SV represented drove a stake into it by standing up for the individual, albeit in an amoral, Randian sense: cool toys for those who could afford them, digital sharecropping for the rest. The highly provisioned, toy-like offices of Google etc follow from that premise.
  - trgn 5y ago
    +100 > the gradually growing criticisms of modernism and the fraying of the postwar political order go hand-in-hand fwiw - I think the growing criticism of modernism are a good thing. The alternative, a more humanistic attitude to life and liberty (corny I know), and a more organic model of political organization seem preferable. I also agree that the amoral SV-ethos was wrong, because of the elitism you point out.

agumonkey 5y ago

I kinda disagree, a little bit. You can live happily in a big housing project, as long as some basics are there. No noise, not too dense, some green spaces and also a fair owner. Lots of buildings failed because owners stopped caring, so everything rot, and people here didn't help either. Some of my family lived in these and it felt ok enough. Some other projects 500m for them became no-go zones. Quite surprising. That said I'm not pro big-structures[0], I understand it spoils the area too much. Near my town, an ex no-go zone has been replaced by smaller buildings, that was enough to regrow a peacefulness that left for 30 years. It's walkable, the woods nearby are walkable, almost shocking. [0] even though, I still love them for some reasons

trgn 5y ago
tbf, I do agree with you. For sake of argument, "big housing project", is just another name for "big apartment building". And I agree that many places do "big apartment building" quite well. But "big apartment building" only works well in a big thriving city, within its existing fabric. Not as in, let's raze the city, and put a big building in this new empty space. And I think Le Corbusier was explicitly about the latter.