Le Corbusier's Changing Attitude toward Form

Author(s): Peter Serenyi

Source: Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol. 24, No. 1 (Mar., 1965), pp.
15-23
Published by: University of California Press on behalf of the Society of Architectural
Historians
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/988274
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 15

-4

?u .1 -

Fig. 1. Maison Monol, 1919.

public and its later

Le Corbusier's Changing Attitude derivations, expressing an urban con-
Toward Form cept of an ideal world.
More than once Le Corbusier has referred to the im-
PETER SERENYI
mediate postwar years as the starting point for modern
architecture. "If we pose the question," he proclaimed in
No discussion of Le Corbusier's architecture of this dec- 1928, " 'Has the architectural moment of our epoch ar-
rived?' the answer is 'It has; because since the end of the
ade can begin without considering, however briefly, his
war period we possess a modern conception of architec-
earlier development. Between 1919 and 1922 Le Corbu-
ture.' This fact is certain and can be verified in every
sier embarked on a new path which he has never entirely
abandoned since. In the realm of domestic architecture country."' Let me add that Gropius, who has always
been more articulate in verbal than in visual images,
the Maison Monol of 1919 (Fig..1) and the Maison Citrcd-
summed up the effect of World War I on modern archi-
han of 1920-1922 (Fig. 2) mark the beginning of a new
tecture even more precisely. He declared that "the full
style. In these two projects lie the roots of all his later
consciousness of my responsibility in advancing ideas
houses, culminating in the Maison Jaoul of 1954 and the
based on my own reflections only came home to me as the
Villa Shodan of 1956. Moreover, all his unitis owe their
result of the war, in which these theoretical premises first
origin to the Immeubles Villas of 1922; while the Ville
took definite shape. After the violent interruption . . .
Contemporaine of 1922 is the ancestor of Chandigarh.
every thinking man felt the necessity for an intellectual
The historical events that preceded Le Corbusier's
change of front. Each in his own particular sphere of ac-
"Period of Invention" provide us with the best clues to a
better understanding of the origins of his style; for the1. Le Corbusier, "The Town and the House," Architectural Re-
chaos and disorder resulting from World War I made him view, LXIV, 1928, p. 224.
painfully aware of the need to create a new order based on
a more stable world. It is not surprising, therefore, that
both the Maisons Monol and Citrohan as well as the Ville
-s

Contemporaine revert to a distant past. While the former

find their sources in the architecture of the tribal societies ~~s?*-~

of the Eastern Mediterranean world, the latter recalls a

Platonic order based on numbers. In his desire to create a
I~
order in face of disorder, Le Corbusier conceived two
i4?

kinds ofutopias altogether too familiar to Western thought: a

the "Ideal Paradise," with its particular emphasis on the

individual, and the "Ideal City," with its primary concern
for the many. His private houses, placed in a garden set-
ting, embody the rural concept of the good life, which
Plato called Kronos: the seat of a distant tribal world char-
acterized by peace and tranquility. The Ville Contem-
poraine, on the other hand, corresponds to Plato's Re- Fig. 2. Maison Citrohan, 192o-1922.

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 :,S-F;;;'?,~:lt~e~?-

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ch

Fig. 3. Villa at Carthage, 192

tivity ment,
aspired to help 1928-1929
in bridging to
the dis
tween reality and idealism.
present.It was then th
of the mission of the architects
Although the of my
termi
first dawned on me."2
no particular releva
As earlier, mentioned
theLe Corbusier
years inven
1928-1929 d
As is after
of private houses shortly well known,
the war: it
t
and Citrohan. The latter,
signed angular and
the finest, anf
on the ground, dominating the
style: the setting;
Villa Savoyw
undulating and soft, same rests years on the that grou he
setting. To use Le Corbusier's
entirely fresh own interp wo
strong objectivity of typeforms, (Fig. under 3). This the i r
Mediterranean sun: malemade architecture.
largely possib In
less subjectivity rising
veld's against
work,a more cloude s
chitecture."3 In his private
and with houses,
the project then,
ual human figure-isolated
the facade and of lonely,
the Vill t
er elements-the studio
expressed symbolically. It and is the no
ribbon window-are
coincid
that most of his houses
fused withwere
the help of Debuilt for
Stijl vocabulary. As insin
Rietv
en, who were either artists or intellectua
project of 1923-1924, there is a strong interplay betw
Before turning tolines theand planes, between solids
period and voids, anddi
under bet
verticals and horizontals. But unlike Rietveld's desi
preface my brief remarks by proposing
the variousdevelopment:
Le Corbusier's artistic parts of the Villa at Carthage enjoy I.a le
1905 to 1919; II. Period of Invention,
degree of independence, owing this quality, among ot
First Mature Phase, 1922
to the to
tightness of 1928;and
the composition IV. Pe
to the unin
rupted nature of the roof line. But in later versions of
Villa
2. Walter Gropius, The New Architecture and the Bauhaus, at
Lon- Carthage the spaces and masses are gradua
don, 1935, p. 48. loosened up, culminating in the dynamic compositio
3. Le Corbusier, Modulor, Cambridge, 1958, p. 224. the Villa Shodan (Fig. 5).

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 17

Another example of the Citrohan project-the Maison

Errazuris of 1930 (Fig. 6) -marks the second change in
his style during the period under discussion. In this case
it is primarily Le Corbusier's attitude towards nature that
leads him to a reassessment of form. For example, the
exterior silhouette now becomes an active form, jutting
upward from the ground itself. During the 1920os such
visual activity was restricted to ramps or stairs, carefully

Ki
concealed behind the external envelope. In fact, a com- ?{ ! i? ! i!iiii / !iiii~~ii i i iii li!iiiiii~i, i~/ i:i. . ..i!i ,
parison between this house and the Villa Savoye (Fig. 7)
/ ! i i i~ii iii!: ii!ii ~ i~i~iiiiiii!il~ i~i :i~-i? ii,
shows how the outline of the ramp is transformed into the
space-inclosing mass, thus anchoring the entire interior
volume to the site. There are, of course, a number of varia-
tions on the theme of the Maison Errazuris which were
designed during this period, but with one exception, none
of them was ever executed.' The exception is the house in
Mathes of 1935. Here the functional independence of the
wall-so characteristic of his houses of the 192os---is en-
tirely given up in favor of creating a masonry structure
that serves both as a space-defining and as a load-bearing
element, hence foreshadowing his houses of the past ten
years. Fig. 4. Rietveld, Project for a House, 1923-1924.
Unlike its opposite, the Maison Monol had no successor
during the 192os. Some of its basic features, such as the
vaulted roof and the long, continuous spaces, first ap-
peared in Le Corbusier's own studio-apartment of 1930-visible in the low, earth-hugging structure, built partially
1933. Yet the first Monol type house was built only inof natural materials, and covered with grass. Moreover,
1935. This well-known structure, located in the suburbsthe area defined by the external walls of the house and the
of Paris, occupies an important place in Le Corbusier's small pavilion is transformed into an outdoor room,
oeuvre (Fig. 8). Unlike the Maison Citrohan and its laterwhose space becomes at one with nature. As is well known,
derivations, this week-end house does not stand uprightthe later descendants of this house range from the project
on the ground, dominating the setting; instead, it rests on of La Sainte Baume of 1948 to the Maison Jaoul of 1954.
it, spreading its parts on the terrain itself. In this house-- Before leaving the discussion of Le Corbusier's houses,
as in all Monol type structures-Le Corbusier expresses let me turn, however briefly, to their interiors. During the
a more subservient attitude toward nature. This is most 192os his houses were built around staircases and ramps,
creating an air of tension which was only resolved on the
4. For other examples of the Maison Citrohan with the butterfly
roof garden. As Le Corbusier has pointed out, the roof
roof see: Clarke Arundell of 1939; Lannamezon House of 1940; garden is a place "where the sky is always open; and far
MAS prefabricated house of 1939-1940. from the street, one can experience a feeling of security

: _; :5~.::-~i::--:-:: --;.:- ;z?:i:lii:-~:Za-i~l:;:-?::i::.: 1:?:::::::::::;j ..-3Y - 9 i;ii"~:-::::-::::i:; :::ii::::l:l;-:-:i: ;:-:::--;-~ :-;;r:::;-_-:~~:-:- i : :

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Fig. 5. Vil

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18

i
ii ?- -- ---? --;r~3~t~j~ ':
:i'

cb

~4 1 I I I I II I I I I FS

St

::-
it
1 11111 1 II?I1~ J o *
:::

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Fig. 6. Maison Errazuris, Chile, 1930.

and well comments

being."' This to
secludedsom
street and office
removed buildings,
from the tenm
must be that
understood occurred
as an dur
Arcad
as it were-an areathe flatness
where the of the
isolat
become at one with
for nature
large in
building pe
this decade, however,
creating Le a Corbus
more
garden in favor tops.
of Moreover,
creating a mor w
Moreover, the up in his
importance private
of th
taken over by significant
the fireplace. roleIn in
were isolated andspacious
often roof
fragilegard s
primary functionrelationship
was to betwe
define
can best be seen natural
in the surroundi
living room
Ville d'Avray ect
(Fig. for
9) thein
and Rent
the
house at serves
Stuttgart. In as
the a good
1930s, ex
h
fireplaces acquireMore
a important,
more plasti
means to anchor busier's
the best mor
house kno
ground. Such the first
fireplaces projects
can be foun
de Mandrot, in ment
the house
Errazuris for
proje
Mathes, not to the various
mention his source
numer
Turning to histhis brief
public essay.
building
origin goes back t
frames in the 192
5. Jean Badovici,
room
ed., Le
of the Villa
Corbusier et
(1928?), I, p. 13. surrounded by a

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3

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Fig. 7. Villa Savoye, 1929-1930. Fig. 8. Week-end house, near Paris, 1935.

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 19
: ::

?x~ ,--
"i ii;__?:i ?i?l;-Ak .~~:,i :::~li:

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~?
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;,1

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Fig. o10. Project for Rent

effect of a painting (F
the freestanding win
turned outside and is
There is another ki
were, an independent
Fig. 9. Villa Church at Vile d'Avray, 1928-1929.
peared in the project
(Fig. 12). Its compos
one which I would li
Doesburg's project for
13). As in the van D
frames make up the f
creating a rich, plasti
Corbusier's brise solei
looser and more fra
ft I&-I] qualities of De Stijl sp
~C~ji~or brise soleils of Chand
The year 1929 also
ofo r w fwsot
wwe Corbusier's t attitude
WWWWWWWlow
w- for the rebuilding o
MW or
utopian diagrams, b
oww as
orto
owOaw m
summed up in Laugi
low
and variety in gener
(Fig. 15), intended for
the first real effort o
awa
space based on the A
symmetry of the ear
~CB-~?~ ~ awr more open composit
acquire a greater sen
axis of the city links
was only in the projec
(Fig. 16) that most o
Mundaneum were mo
ic asymmetry of the
ous modern language.
indeed "animated by
them the landscape
tion," to use Le Corbu
Needless to say, the
best call Le Corbusier
was not the only sign

6. Le Corbusier, Toward
Fig. 11. Project for an Apartment in Algiers, 1933. 188.

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20

;#MC --------- - !?- ? -

14

IOU

Fig. 12. Project for a Law Court, Algiers, 1938.

sessment. There were also his "anti-city" city plans and

the plan for a farm, which played an equally significant
role in preparing the way towards fulfillment. Let me
begin with the former.
Ever since 1920, when Le Corbusier made the first
sketches for the Ville Contemporaine, his cities contained
an element of fear-a fear of the big city, to be more exact.
The most amusing illustration of this fear can be found in
the various cartoons reproduced in The City of Tomorrow,
accompanying the chapter, "Newspaper Cuttings and
Catchwords." The best of these, of course, is at the head
of the chapter, with the caption: "Heartrending farewells
of the father of a family about to cross the street in front
of the Gare de 1'Est."7 On the more serious side, there is
his long diatribe on the evils of the street, first published
in 1929.8 Here he condemns all conventional streets and I
boulevards, urging the immediate adoption of his elevated

7. Le Corbusier, The City of Tomorrow and Its Planning, London,

1947, P. 141.

8. Le Corbusier, Oeuvre comple~te, 191o-1929, Zurich, 1937, PP.

118-ii9.

:-e

C i:

Fig. 13. van Doesburg, Project for a House for an Artist, 1923. Fig. 14. Chandigarh, Law Court, 1956.

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 21

--

..1?- o,
~
C~S?-S~3r
t
\i

~ ?:z
c

;r~*b. 9-? '-j"?

~6~3~ %
r

rb -rryr~

L, ~n/t~c-?

Fig. 16. University of Brazil, 1936.

arteries of circulation, which would, as we know so well, not only separate pedes-
trian from vehicular traffic, but also trucks from cars and cars from bicycles. But
this is not all. There is also his Ville Contemporaine and the "Plan Voisin" for
Paris in which, to paraphrase John Summerson, the park is not in the town but the
town in the park.' Nothing done before or after, however, surpasses the plan for
Hellocourt of 1935 in terms of being an "anti-city" city. With the pretentious title
"urbanisation d'Hellocourt," Le Corbusier introduces a few scattered skyscrapers,
separated by wide open spaces and large areas of greenery (Fig. 17). Aristotle once
said that "men come together in cities in order to live; they remain together in
order to live the 'good life,'-a common life, for noble ends."'x In Hellocourt, how-

9. John Summerson, "Architecture, Painting and Le Corbusier," in his Heavenly Mansions,

New York, 1963, p. 191.
to. Aristotle, On Civics, quoted by Frederick Hiorns in Town Building in History, London, " ~-4

1956, p. o.

!Ilip,

10;11..'.

Fig. 17. Urbanisation d'Hellocourt, 1935.

Fig. 15. Mundaneum

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22

--- - - - ---- - - - - --

I - -=-0

&?~'r ?3~~~r~~

Fig. 18. "Plan Macia," Barcelona, 1932.

ever, men stay apart; in fact, twothey escape with

is achieved fromthe one an- o
help
other by isolating themselves comparison with van
in lonely towers, Doesbur
or "look-
outs"-to use Le Corbusier'sRussian
term-to liveof
Dance a private
1918 (Fig. life
21) i
tion of form combined with t
freed from communal responsibility.
It should be noted, however,characteristic
that the degree ofofDe Stijl comp
isolation
that permeates the plan of Hellocourt
pears in Le is Corbusier's
rather rareplan in Le for
buildings
Corbusier's city plans. It first appears inat the
each end Macii"
"Plan serve as
for Barcelona of 1932, wherewhile
two isolated skyscrapers
the others mark the areboun
placed in a vast and deserted landscape,
flows betweenfar theoutside
first two,thecr
city boundaries (Fig. 18). It again reappears, although in
a considerably modified version, in the project for Nem-
ours of 1934. Here the plan calls for eighteen unitis, each
?; i ?--???
I
housing 2500 people, with every building standing
a: : ;anr? :~
separ-
us

ately on a sloping terrain, facing the

???-:--;' '" :I sea (Fig. 19).
It seems that during the decade under discussion Le i-?,??: -i: - ~-i- ;?i::::::::~~cLearm~n~~ r
af:-;: :i

Corbusier devised two entirely different IT1 ~ approaches

M1~~.~ to ~LF~l~slrs~ "Z~L1_., ~_ L~
~~ZBP-~:'
city planning. The first, embodied in the plans for the n

Mundaneum and the University of --

L.~IP~IC4 Brazil,
~-~-= --- ,.- can
I best be
called classical, following the tradition
i-59 of the Acropolis. ? L: r;

The second, expressed in the I plans for Hellocourt, Barce-

I1 3 i -:

lona, and Nemours, to name just the most significant ex- -r_
s

amples, can perhaps be called "existentialist." In the for- ;:ii

sr ~i:a&i~::?

mer, Le Corbusier envisages a collective order based on s-

??

the interaction between man and man, and between man

and nature. In the latter, he views man as an isolated
za be-
ing, fulfilling himself through the act of living a solitary
~-~
life in nature.
While addressing himself to these two entirely different ::?:?:?

attitudes towards human order, during these very same

years Le Corbusier also searched for a means to reconcile
P
I"

them, for if seen in the proper light, the Ferme Radieuse

of 1934-1938 (Fig. 20) must be understood as a desperate
effort on Le Corbusier's part to reconcile the one and the
many, the country with the city, individuality and collec-
tivity, indeed existentialism with classicism. In it, he com-
bined the sense of freedom and openness of such plans as
Hellocourt with the more formal organization of his
"Acropolic style" of city planning.
Fig. 19. Plan for Nemours, 1934. Unity between these

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 23

1 IL() .1 (:O)OP E I'RATVE 5 P. T. T. 7 C LIU

s ATELIER S 4 El 0LE U IMAMEIUBEI ICATIP MAIRIE

HSt EMA I)I VI L LA; E

Fig. 20o. Ferme Radieuse, 1934-1938.

rhythm that is closely reminiscent of vanwhich Doesburg's

such mature plans as St. Die and Chan
painting. Though each building is treated as a separate
would remain incomprehensible.
unit, the whole composition is brought into unison by a
To conclude, the numerous important change
flowing space. Unlike in the plan for Nemours, forplace
took exam-in Le Corbusier's style during the dec
ple, where only a series of diagrammatic roads links
der the
discussion were realized: first, through his rea
buildings together, here the whole town revolves
ment around
of nature; second, through his renewed enco
and emanates from a space that is both living with
and active.
De Stijl; and third, through his fresh attit
Moreover, in order to achieve a greater sense wards
of unityhisbe-
own work of the 192os. All these change
tween man and nature, each building is covered
the way withforahis most mature style of the post-1945
Monol-type vaulted roof, which firmly anchorsOne
the can, therefore, justly call these years a pe
interior
spaces to the ground (Fig. 22). reflection and reassessment.
Although it is an ideal town, planted not on an actual
site but simply on a blank sheet, the Ferme Radieuse is far
Fig. 21. van Doesburg, Rhythm
removed from its ancestor, the Ville Contemporaine. of The
a Russian Dance, 1918.
gradual reassessment of form and content which is first
visible in the plan for the Mundaneum of 1929 comes to
an end here. It is a process of transformation without
...*..:I,

~:::i::
m:
I
:: _-78
I I- 2
-1-_ : ;?=:
-- ~~-
=-=

--

~:~~na

~I
~: ; W1~
hi:
,i

Fig. 22. Ferme Radieuse, 1934-1938.

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