Chapter 10: Return to order in Paris
- In 1924, Le Corbusier had turned his back on his youthful experiences in Germany in the first
months of WWI
- French artists had generally resisted the condemnations of Cubism oiced in more chauvinist circles
in Paris
Purist forms and urban compositions
- “Construct with sublime intentions”
- “After a period of exuberance and force must follow a period of organization, of arrangement, of
science – that is to say, a classic age” (quote from Paul Dermée)
o Such calls to order were heard by Le Corbusier but also the painter Amédéé Ozenfant
o In 1920, Dermée, Le Corbusier and Ozenfant founded L’Espirit Nouveau together
A multidisciplinary journal that served as the major platform for their theories and
critiques until 1925
1918: manifesto Après le cubism (After Cubism)
It reflected their interest in Greek temples and in the machines introduced
into everyday life by the war
The new term “purism” was intended to “express in an intelligible word
the character of the modern spirit”
L’Espirit nouveau displayed a keen sense of history and an acute attention to the
products of technology
- “Vers une architecture” (toward an architecture)
o Manifesto by Le Corbusier that celebrated mechanization, which affirmed the necessity of
using “regulating lines” to proportion buildings, and advised the study of ancient and
Baroque architecture in order to absorb the “lesson of Rome”
The impact of Le Corbusier’s writings was reinforced by the power of his
theoretical projects
His Contemporary City for Three Million Inhabitants and his Plan Voisin
for Paris described a new metropolitan organism crisscrossed by
highways and dominated by the glass towers of a “city of business”
Le Corbusier and the modern house
- Le Corbusier injected the latest developments in painting into two domestic projects
o A studio for Ozenfant
o A house for the Baselborn banker Raoul La Roche
In the latter he radically modified his design after seeing an axhibition of
architecture by the De Stijl group at a Paris gallery
o He only succeeded in building a single workers’ housing complex for the industrialist Henri
Frugès
He brought together the theoretical modelshe had been working on for ten years
Including Dom-ino
Maison Citrohan three-story layout
o 5 points of Le Corbusier (possible due to the use of reinforced concrete)
Pilotis
Roof terrace
Free plan
Ribbon window
Free facade
Grand vessels in Paris and Geneva
- Domestic programs did not satisfy Le Corbusier’s ambitions; he aimed for more important
commissions
- His failure to win the 1927 competitions for the headquarters of the League of Nations in Geneva
was a personal trauma
o His project elevated the principle of pilotis and terraces to the scale of a grand public edifice
, Despite the publicity campaign throughout Europe, the conservative jury remained
unswayed
- He was also thwarted in his efforts to erect a Mundanéum, or World City, in Geneva
o Using a plan based on the golden section
o His invocation of classical proportions and his ziggurat-shaped museum spurred attacks
from radical architects like the Russian El Lissitzky
His criticism was echoe by the Prague critic Karel Teige, who scorned the
“puzzling, archaic impression”
- In Moscow it was that Le Corbusier won his first major commission: the headquarters of the Cetral
Union of Consumer Cooperatives
- With the project of the City of Refuge in Paris, Le Corbusier was finally able to incorporate his
fascination with ships into his architecture
- In 1924, Le Corbusier had turned his back on his youthful experiences in Germany in the first
months of WWI
- French artists had generally resisted the condemnations of Cubism oiced in more chauvinist circles
in Paris
Purist forms and urban compositions
- “Construct with sublime intentions”
- “After a period of exuberance and force must follow a period of organization, of arrangement, of
science – that is to say, a classic age” (quote from Paul Dermée)
o Such calls to order were heard by Le Corbusier but also the painter Amédéé Ozenfant
o In 1920, Dermée, Le Corbusier and Ozenfant founded L’Espirit Nouveau together
A multidisciplinary journal that served as the major platform for their theories and
critiques until 1925
1918: manifesto Après le cubism (After Cubism)
It reflected their interest in Greek temples and in the machines introduced
into everyday life by the war
The new term “purism” was intended to “express in an intelligible word
the character of the modern spirit”
L’Espirit nouveau displayed a keen sense of history and an acute attention to the
products of technology
- “Vers une architecture” (toward an architecture)
o Manifesto by Le Corbusier that celebrated mechanization, which affirmed the necessity of
using “regulating lines” to proportion buildings, and advised the study of ancient and
Baroque architecture in order to absorb the “lesson of Rome”
The impact of Le Corbusier’s writings was reinforced by the power of his
theoretical projects
His Contemporary City for Three Million Inhabitants and his Plan Voisin
for Paris described a new metropolitan organism crisscrossed by
highways and dominated by the glass towers of a “city of business”
Le Corbusier and the modern house
- Le Corbusier injected the latest developments in painting into two domestic projects
o A studio for Ozenfant
o A house for the Baselborn banker Raoul La Roche
In the latter he radically modified his design after seeing an axhibition of
architecture by the De Stijl group at a Paris gallery
o He only succeeded in building a single workers’ housing complex for the industrialist Henri
Frugès
He brought together the theoretical modelshe had been working on for ten years
Including Dom-ino
Maison Citrohan three-story layout
o 5 points of Le Corbusier (possible due to the use of reinforced concrete)
Pilotis
Roof terrace
Free plan
Ribbon window
Free facade
Grand vessels in Paris and Geneva
- Domestic programs did not satisfy Le Corbusier’s ambitions; he aimed for more important
commissions
- His failure to win the 1927 competitions for the headquarters of the League of Nations in Geneva
was a personal trauma
o His project elevated the principle of pilotis and terraces to the scale of a grand public edifice
, Despite the publicity campaign throughout Europe, the conservative jury remained
unswayed
- He was also thwarted in his efforts to erect a Mundanéum, or World City, in Geneva
o Using a plan based on the golden section
o His invocation of classical proportions and his ziggurat-shaped museum spurred attacks
from radical architects like the Russian El Lissitzky
His criticism was echoe by the Prague critic Karel Teige, who scorned the
“puzzling, archaic impression”
- In Moscow it was that Le Corbusier won his first major commission: the headquarters of the Cetral
Union of Consumer Cooperatives
- With the project of the City of Refuge in Paris, Le Corbusier was finally able to incorporate his
fascination with ships into his architecture
