Le Corbusier. Towards a New Architecture.

Translated from the thirteenth French edition Dover

Publications, Inc. New York 1986

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The Plan is the generator.

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The elements of architecture are light and shade, walls and space.

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The problem of the house is a problem of the epoch. The equilibrium of society to-day depends upon it.
Architecture has for its first duty, in this period of renewal, that of bringing about a revision of values, a
revision of the constituent elements of the house.

Mass-production is based on analysis and experiment.

Industry on the grand scale must occupy itself with building and establish the elements of the house on a
mass-production basis.

We must create the mass-production spirit.

The spirit of constructing mass-production houses.

The spirit of living in mass-production houses.

The spirit of conceiving mass-production houses.

If we eliminate from our hearts and minds all dead concepts in regard to the house, and look at the question
from a critical and objective point of view, we shall arrive at the cc House-Machine, the mass-production
house, healthy (and morally so too) and beautiful in the same way that the working tools and instruments
which accompany our existence are beautiful.

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The primordial instinct of every human being is to assure himself of a shelter. The various classes of
workers in society to-day no longer have dwellings adapted to their needs ; neither the artisan nor the
intellectual.

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The happy towns are those that have an architecture. () Houses make the street and the street makes the
town and the town is a personality which takes to itself a soul, which can feel, suffer and wonder. How at
home architecture could be in street and town !

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For the architect we have written our THREE REMINDERS.

MASS ()
SURFACE ()
PLAN ()
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The purpose of construction is to make things hold together ; () Architecture is a

matter of harmonies, it is a pure creation of the spirit.

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In other words, an architectural structure is a house, a temple or a factory.

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Geometry is the language of man. (BUILDING)

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A house is a machine for living in. Baths, sun, hot-water, cold-water, warmth at will, conservation of food,
hygiene, beauty in the sense of good proportion. An armchair is a machine for sitting in and so on.

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The house of the earth-man is the expression of a circumscribed world.

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An extreme confusion reigns. Architecture as practised provides no solution to the present-day problem of
the dwelling-house and has no comprehension of the structure of things. It does not fulfil the very first
conditions and so it is not possible that the higher factors of harmony and beauty should enter in.

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A house : a shelter against heat, cold, rain, thieves and the inquisitive. A receptacle for light and sun. A
certain number of cells appropriated to cooking, work, and personal life.

A room : a surface over which one can walk at ease, a bed on which to stretch yourself, a chair in which to
rest or work, a work-table, receptacles in which each thing can be put at once in its right place.

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(d) Pictures are made to be looked at and meditated on. In order to see a picture to advantage, it must be
hung suitably and in the proper atmosphere. The true collector of pictures arranges them in a cabinet and
hangs on the wall the particular painting he wants to look at ; but your walls are a riot of all manner of
things.

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Demand a bathroom looking south , one of the largest rooms in the house or fiat, the old drawing-room for
instance. One wall to be entirely glared, opening if possible on to a balcony for sun baths ; the most up-to-
date fittings with a shower-bath and gymnastic appliances.

An adjoining room to be a dressing-room in which you can dress and undress. Never undress in your
bedroom. It is not a clean thing to do and makes the room horribly untidy. In this room demand fitments for
your linen and clothing, not more than j feet in height, with drawers, hangers, etc.
Demand one really large living room instead of a number of small ones.
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A building is like a soap bubble. This bubble is perfect and harmonious if the breath has been evenly
distributed and regulated from the inside. The exterior is the result of an interior.

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An axis is perhaps the first human manifestation ; it is the means of every human act. The toddling child
moves along an axis, the man striving in the tempest of life traces for himself an axis. The axis is the
regulator of architecture. To establish order is to begin to work. Architecture is based on axes.

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Architecture only exists when there is a poetic emotion.

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LE CORBUSIER AND PIERRE JEANNERET, 1924. MASS-PRODUCTION ARTISANS DWELLINGS

The problem was that of housing artisans in a large and well-lit workshop; of lowering costs by the
elimination as far as possible of partitions and doors, and by the reduction in the normal wall surfaces and
heights of rooms this by a little architectural management. The houses are built round a single hollow
column of reinforced concrete. The walls are of compressed straw sheets {which have good insulating
properties') rendered on the outside by I 1/2 cement rendering thrown on under pressure by a cement-gun
and plastered inside. There are only two doors to a house. The loft or upper floor , on the diagonal, allows the
ceiling to be developed to its full extent (21 feet X 21 feet) ; the walls also are displayed to their full
dimensions , and, moreover, the use of the diagonal creates an unexpected dimension : this little house , 21
feet square, gives along the diagonal the effect of a dimension of 30 feet in length.

(Exemplo da casa x para mtrica da casa escreve que eu entendo)