Modular : The Key to Le Corbusier's Idea
Charles-Edouard Jeanneret was a swiss French architect
born in 1887 and took the pseudonym Le Corbusier in
1920, reflecting on his belief that anyone can reinvent
themselves at anytime. He undertook this change in the
1st publication of the journal, L’Esprit Nouveau.
Though he was a polymath, a man of many genius
talents, he was mainly famous for his architectural
works. One of his best and most important inventions is
the Modular.
In August 1943, he developed a visual scale of a
combination of Anglo Saxon foot inch scale and the
French metric scale to achieve a centre plain between
these incompatible scales. The system was developed in
the footsteps of Leonardo’s Vitruvian man and other
great men who wanted to use human body’s proportions
to improvise architectural functions.
Le Corbusier described the system of modular as “Range
of harmonious measurements to suit the human scale,
universally applicable to architecture and to mechanical
things.” Modular incorporated human measurements, the
Fibonacci series and the Golden ratio. Though the
system was developed to improvise the function and
appearance of architecture, the architect later codified
the system into 2 books, Le Modular (1948) and
Modular 2 (1955).
The visual representation of the concept, is based on a
stylized man standing with one arm raised, next to it are
2 vertical scales of measurement, a blue series which is
based on the figure’s height and the red series based on
figure’s naval height. The initial height was based on the
average French man’s height of 1.75 meters but was
Keywords- Fibonnaci series, Golden Ratio, Modular, Polymath.
revised in 1946, to 1.83 meters after finding inspiration
in detective novels, where men were usually 6 feet tall.
Hence, the overall height with the arm raised was set at
2.262 meters.
Le Corbusier’s modular can be seem applied in various
of his projects namely, Unite d’Habitation a Marseilles,
Church of Sainte Marie de la Tourette, Carpenter centre
for the Visual Arts and the most monumental of the all,
the city head of Chandigarh, The Capitol Complex.
In all the buildings, the plan, section, elevations and even
the detailing are made in governance with the modular.
In the Church at Eveux, he uses modular dimensions to
set the whole church in pale concrete panels. Even the
engineer of the project used the modular system to
design the ventilation on the exterior called
‘ondulatories’
In the Carpenter Center the ramp dimensions were
conceived by Corbusier as “visible essay on the
mathematics of the human body.”
The grandest application in the Capitol Complex, starts
from the site plan itself and goes in depth till the
planning of each building in the site with modular even
in the designing of brise-soleil on the elevation.
There have been 2 commemorative usages of the
modular, a Swiss coin showing the modular man,with
the words Le Corbusier on the top and Modular on the
right with years on the bottom and secondly on the
backside of the Swiss 10 CHF banknote, showing the red
and blue series.