A provocative writer, a gifted painter, an innovator in modern architecture, an author of urban theories and an unsurpassed polemicist of the 20th century - Le Corbusier, whose work can be seen in almost any city in the world.
Le Corbusier: a brief biography and the main principles of modern architecture
Le Corbusier, New York, 1947 1887
Charles Edouard Jeanneret-Gris was born in Chaux-de-Fonds (Switzerland). Later he took the pseudonym Le Corbusier.
1904
Corbusier graduated from the art school and completed his first architectural project for one of the school's board members. At that time he was 17 and a half years old.
“At 17 and a half years old, I designed my first house. He's just awful! I always avoid it."
Villa Fallet, La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland. 1905 1907
With the money earned, Corbusier left the provincial town and went on an educational trip to Italy, Austria, Hungary, completing the trip in France.
1908 - 1909
In Paris, he worked as an intern draftsman for Auguste and Gustave Perret. (Auguste and Gustave Perret) who were innovators in their field and promoted the use of the newly discovered reinforced concrete. Subsequently, they refused to call Corbusier their student for his "too extreme ideas."
1910
During 2 years of work in Paris, Corbusier learned German and moved near Berlin for an internship with the master of architecture Peter Bernes (Peter Behrens) who is often cited as the world's first industrial designer.
Portraits of Le Corbusier 1911
Charles went on another educational trip, this time to the east - through Greece, the Balkans and Asia Minor. There he studied ancient monuments and the traditional folk construction of the Mediterranean.
1912 - 1916
After the trip, he returned to his hometown and for 4 years taught at the school where he studied himself.
During the same period, Corbusier designed and patented the project House - Ino(Dom-ino: dumos - house, ino - innovation). It is based on the concept of building with large prefabricated elements. At that time it was a significant innovative step in architecture. The concept of Dom - Eno was later implemented by the architect in many of his buildings.
1917 - 1920
Charles never hid his dislike for his native city, so when the opportunity arose, he immediately moved to Paris. There he met Amede Ozanfant (Amede Ozenfant) who introduced him to contemporary painting. Then Corbusier painted his first picture.
“I prefer to draw than to talk. Drawing is faster, and leaves less room for lies."
Together with Ozanfant, they organized joint exhibitions of paintings, calling them exhibitions of "purists" - supporters of laconism, fighters against eclecticism and decor. And they created a philosophical and artistic review magazine "L'esprit Nouveau" (new spirit).
Issues of L'esprit Nouveau magazine 1925
“Everything in the house should be white. Every citizen is now obliged to replace curtains, bedding, wallpaper and everything else with white things. When you cleanse your home, you cleanse yourself.”
In the same year, Charles created the "Plan Voisin" (Plan Voisin) or the "Modern City of 3 million inhabitants" - a plan for the radical modernization of Paris, which he considered "built at the crossroads and trodden by donkeys' hooves."
The architect planned to destroy half of the buildings, increase the height of new ones (up to 20 floors), create a modern road system and divide the city “into squares”, thereby increasing the comfort of living in the city.
"My task, my desire is to pull a modern person out of chaos and catastrophes, placing him in a happy atmosphere and harmony."
1928
This year, Charles built the building of the Tsentrosoyuz in Moscow. It has become a new, unprecedented for Europe example of a modern business building solution.
1929
In his journal L'esprit Nouveau, Corbusier published The Five Points of Modern Architecture, a set of rules for modern architecture.
1. The house must stand on supports. Due to this, the premises get rid of dampness, have enough light and air, the building site becomes a garden that runs under the house.
2. Internal walls are located in any place: the layout of one floor does not depend on another. There are no capital walls, instead of them there are membranes of any fortress.
3. The facade is pushed forward from the supporting structure. Thus, it loses its load-bearing properties, and the windows can stretch to any length without direct relation to the internal division of the building.
4. A ribbon window into which window openings merge is a must. Due to this, not only the lighting of the premises improves, but also the geometric pattern of the facade is formed.
5. At the top of the house there should be a flat roof-terrace with a garden, “returning” to the city the greenery that the volume of the building takes. Waste pipes are placed inside the house.
Corbusier did not indulge his customers with decor. Color was the only kind of embellishment he allowed.
Portraits of Le Corbusier For many young architects of the “new movement”, the set of rules became the “starting point” in their work, and for some, a kind of professional credo.
Villa La Roche (Villa La Roche) and Villa Savoy (Villa Savoye), which Corbusier designed, are vivid illustrations of these rules.
IN Villa La Roche Since 1968, the Le Corbusier Foundation has been located, which is dedicated to the preservation and promotion of the architect's heritage.
Villa Savoy the owners left 75 years ago, exhausted by the fight against leaks. Now the villa is an architectural monument.
1940
In France, restoration work began, and the authorities invited Corbusier as a city planner. He created plans for the reconstruction of the French cities of Saint-Dieu and La Rochelle, in which he followed his idea of a "green city".
1946
Le Corbusier erected the building of the Claude and Duval manufactory - a four-story block with industrial and office premises, with continuous glazing of the facades.
During the construction, "sun cutters" (rise-soleil) were used - special hinged structures that protect the glazed facade from direct sunlight, which were invented by Charles himself. From that moment on, sun cutters became the hallmark of Corbusier's buildings. They perform both a service and a decorative role.
1948
Le Corbusier developed a system of proportioning in Modulor architecture based on the golden ratio and the proportions of the human body. When developing the system, Charles took three anatomical points: the top of the head, the solar plexus, and the top point of a person's raised arm.
The architect himself described it as "a set of harmonic proportions, commensurate with the scale of man, universally applicable to architecture and mechanics."
"Modulor" Le Corbusier 1950
The Indian authorities of Punjab invited Corbusier and other architects to design the new state capital. This project was the largest in his life.
The most complete and original works include the Assembly Palace, the Palace of Justice and the Open Hand monument.
Assembly Palace
"Open Hand"
Palace of Justice
1952
The beginning of a new Corbusier period: he moves away from asceticism and purist restraint. Now his handwriting is distinguished by the richness of plastic forms and textured surfaces.
The Marseille Block became one of the most famous projects in the new style. This is an apartment building in Marseille, which is located on a spacious green area.
Majority public places designed on the roof. It has a garden, a jogging track, a club, kindergarten, gym and small pool. Shops, medical facilities and a small hotel are located inside the building itself. This house, which Corbusier called "a city within a city", is spatially and functionally optimized for its inhabitants.
The project was conceived as an experimental housing with the idea of collective living (a kind of commune).
“It is my honor, joy and satisfaction to present you with the perfect size living unit, the exemplary model of modern living space.”
1950 - 1960
Corbusier designs a series of buildings that cement his reputation as Europe's No. 1 avant-garde architect.
The main ones are:
Ronchamp Chapel
The atheist Le Corbusier took up the job with complete creative freedom. He found inspiration in a large shell found on the beach, which seemed to him an expression of absolute security.
Monastery complex of La Tourette
The building was built in the shape of a rectangle with an inner courtyard, which is divided by covered galleries.
Museum of Western Art in Tokyo
19 years after the completion of construction, Kunio Makaeva, a student of Le Corbusier, added several additional rooms to the museum.
1965
Corbusier died at the age of 77. He drowned while swimming, presumably due to a heart attack. This happened at Cape Roquebrune, where he lived in his summer house Le Cabanon with an area of 15 square meters. Le Cabanon is a tiny residence that was built as an example of Corbusier's minimal dwelling.
“Youth and health guarantee the ability to produce a lot, but it takes decades of experience to produce well.”
2003 - 2006
José Ubreri, a student of Le Corbusier, completed the construction of the Saint-Pierre de Firmini church, the plan of which the great architect developed back in 1963. Then the lack of money caused the freezing of the project. José did not lose hope for the completion of the work and in the early 1990s he created a fund to raise funds. In 2003, construction was started again.
More works by Le Corbusier
Swiss pavilion, France, 1932
House of Culture, France, 1965
House Guiette, Belgium, 1926
United Nations Building, USA, 1952
House of Doctor Curuchet, Argentina, 1949
Villa Sarabhai, India, 1951
House in the village of Weissenhof, Germany, 1927
Secretariat Building, India, 1958 (Tomo Yasu), official site
You can catch the parallels between the works of Corbusier and the domestic architect Alexander Zhuk in our article about St. Petersburg.
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In the Museum. Pushkin opens a large exhibition dedicated to the pioneer of modern architecture - Le Corbusier. "Afisha" remembered the main buildings of the classic and found out what is happening to them now.
In the Pushkin Museum im. Pushkin brought graphics, paintings, projects and models of the most important architect of the XX century - Le Corbusier. Born in Switzerland in 1887, he became an adept in modernist architecture in the workshop of Peter Behrens, where he worked side by side with other founding fathers of modernism, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Walter Gropius. Moving to Paris in 1919, then under his real name, Jeanneret, he began working for the Society for the Use of Reinforced Concrete, befriending Braque and Picasso, and later publishing the provocative architectural magazine L'Esprit Nouveau, The New Spirit ”, in which he attacked bourgeois architecture that did not meet the requirements of the time. In 1925, he already showed a project for the reconstruction of the center of Paris - "Plan Voisin" - according to which it was necessary to demolish 240 hectares of the old city for the sake of skyscrapers and wide avenues. The plan shocked the old guard of architecture and delighted modernist architects around the world—and it has happened to more or less every architect's project ever since.
Residential building in Weissenhof
Built in 1927 as a model of new housing, now operates as a museum
The Weissenhof district in Stuttgart, Germany, was built as an exhibition of exemplary new housing - in addition to the Le Corbusier house, there are houses built by Mies van der Rohe, Peter Behrens and others. The Corbusier house was built of brick and covered with plaster on top. This is the very first building to use his famous five architectural ideas: ribbon windows, a roof garden, thin columns on the ground floor that give the building a floating look, an open layout inside, and a facade that does not carry any weight - all the weight is borne by the supports located inside the building (which, in particular, allows you to make ribbon windows). Now the house has been restored and the original interiors have been restored in it: for example, a living room with movable partitions and a bedroom with folding beds, which in the daytime had to be removed into some kind of concrete cabinets.
Villa Savoy in Poissy
Built in 1928-1931 for the industrialist Pierre Savoy, is listed as a national monument of France and functions as a museum
Villa Savoy, a country villa in Poissy, 33 km from Paris, is a canonical example of the application of the five principles formulated by Corbusier. The house originally stood proudly and alone in the middle of a large lawn - the ideal of modernist purism, a private home for a rich and happy man of modern times. But the fate of the villa and the owners was tragic: during the Nazi occupation it was occupied by German troops, then by American troops. Leaving, the Germans poured cement into the sewer, and the Americans fired at its windows for fun. After the war, the ruined and widowed Madame Savoy moved to live on a nearby farm, and used the villa as a barn, growing potatoes around it. Gradually, Poissy turned from a village into a suburb of Paris: the local authorities almost demolished the villa in order to build a school in its place. Only after Corbusier died in 1965 and was buried with great pomp as a hero of France was the villa given the status of a national monument. By that time, her roof had collapsed and the view of her was blocked by the building of the school built nearby. But then it was restored properly (the work was carried out from 1965 to 1997). Today, the perfect lawn surrounds her again, she sparkles white, and nothing blocks her view.
The building of the Central Union of Consumer Societies in Moscow
Built in 1930-1936, today the building houses Rosstat
For Moscow, this project was revolutionary: Corbusier planned a new type of institution for a new life in a new country. In the spirit of the times, the house is more like a factory or some kind of transformer machine than an office. The meeting room immediately catches your eye, which is separated into a separate volume and hangs over the main entrance, relying only on the thin columns characteristic of Corbusier. Inside, instead of stairs, there are ramps, along which employees descend like a conveyor belt. The glazing covering most of the building was part of the complex system conditioning. But the windows did not work normally, causing many problems for the employees - it was stuffy in summer and cold in winter. Now you can get into the building if you only agree on a visit with security: this is a state institution, and there is a pass regime.
UN Headquarters in New York
The complex of buildings erected in 1947 - 1951 a group of architects, which included Le Corbusier. Today, only the Secretariat and the UN General Assembly Hall are located here.
After the end of the war, New York literally begged the UN to build a building here, the land for construction was given free of charge - at that moment it was a great honor for the city. The headquarters, which symbolized the ideals of the democratic post-war West, was built in an area where before there were only slaughterhouses and a pencil factory. A whole council of architects was convened for the design, Corbusier designed the architecture of the main entrance - a curving hangar-like roof. Wallace Harrison, who oversaw the project, carried out a synthesis of the proposed ideas - and, they say, Corbusier left America seriously offended by the fact that his decisions were not processed too delicately. It is difficult to isolate the role of Corbusier in the project - his name was not even on the final list of architects, it is believed that his ideas "strongly influenced the overall appearance of the building." By the 1990s, the aging headquarters, with all its once-innovative solutions, became a burden on New York. The tax policy of the Reagan government plunged the UN into "chronic poverty", and spending money to maintain the monument became increasingly difficult. In 1999, the situation worsened: heating and air conditioning cost $10 million a year, largely due to 5,400 windows that were designed when energy was much cheaper. And when Donald Trump was about to build a new skyscraper right next to the headquarters, Mayor Giuliani refused to intervene in the situation: the symbol of democracy in the 1990s no longer brought the symbol of democracy to New York, even symbolic. But in the end, the decision on reconstruction was nevertheless made in 2010: it will cost 2 billion and should be completed by 2013.
Chandigarh city in India
City in North India, partly planned by Le Corbusier, built from 1951 to 1960s
The first urban ideas of Corbusier were well known for their radicalism, the project "City of 3 million inhabitants" - strict geometry, large avenues, skyscrapers surrounded by greenery - a real modernist paradise. When the opportunity arose to plan a real city, and in an open field at the foot of the Himalayas, Corbusier resorted to a more complex structure. The city is divided into sectors, each with its own function: residential, industrial, university, and so on. The main buildings - the Secretariat, the Supreme Court and the Assembly Hall - are located in the least visited part of the city, now they are always rather deserted around them, while other parts of the city are teeming with life. They form the cyclopean concrete core of the city: the Secretariat is a huge building 10 stories high, next door is the Supreme Court with an umbrella roof that is designed for the Indian heat, followed by heavy rains. Corbusier and his brother Pierre Jeanneret designed not only streets and houses, but even furniture, since there were no furniture stores in the city built on a bare spot - collectors are now buying up the remnants of this furniture at public auctions and reselling for a lot of money at Christie's.
"Marseille block" or Unité d'Habitation
Apartment building built in 1952
A simple concrete parallelepiped with a facade divided into small modules by loggias is raised above the ground on columns and resembles a giant sideboard. The building has 12 floors and is designed for 1500 people. Living cells here are designed by several different types- from small for bachelors to large for large families. Initially, premises for cafes and shops and a roof garden were designed, now one of the floors is occupied by the Hotel Le Corbusier. The building is maintained in a tolerable condition, but it cannot be called ideal. Guests of the hotel complain that the toilets and bathrooms are not very neat, the cots are broken, and although some of the apartments have original kitchens designed by Corbusier co-author Charlotte Perrian, they cannot be used. And to live in the smallest cells - they are no larger than a ship's cabin - is not very pleasant. But such a spartan layout was dictated by the post-war housing shortage. The hotel has a restaurant called "Architect's Belly".
Ahmedabad Weaving Mill Owners Association Building
Public building (1954)
Except in Chandigarh, where he arrived at the invitation of Jawaharlal Nehru, Corbusier built in another Indian city - Ahmedabad. Ahmedabad projects include the building of the Association of Weaving Factory Owners - existing since late XIX century and then a very influential corporation, the former basis of the economic prosperity of the city. The facade of the house is divided into deep cells, the walls of which are set at an angle and give a beautiful shade - it seems that it is always cool in this building, it is an open, ventilated structure made of rough concrete (beton brut), which Corbusier loved so much at this stage of his work. Trees grow right inside the concrete mesh, and a concrete ramp leads to the main entrance. The main hall cuts the building in half, occupying three cells vertically. There are only a few offices in the building itself, but there are a lot of open spaces for receptions and meetings. And unlike the outer box of the building, with its regular forms, Corbusier used curved, plastic lines inside, for example, in the smooth curving walls of the main hall. The weaving mills are said to have largely disappeared from Ahmedabad, but the Association still remains in the building.
Chapel at Ronchamps
Church (1955)
In the white chapel rising on a hill, you will no longer find the crystal clear forms of the early period of Corbusier: here his style becomes much more expressionistic, some even capture the influence of the surrealists in the forms of the chapel. The windows of various sizes, freely scattered along the façade, give unusual lighting effects inside. Thick walls, rounded volumes, a heavy roof that makes the building look like a deformed mushroom - one can feel the influence of pictorial experiments - this period in the work of Corbusier is called "new plasticism". The chapel quietly functioned for its intended purpose, simultaneously attracting up to 100 thousand tourists a year until recently, until it was decided to build a monastery for the sisters of the Order of St. Clare in the neighborhood. It was designed by Renzo Piano, and now 16 elderly nuns live there in cells made of glass and concrete, painted orange on the inside.
Convent of La Tourette in Lyon
Built by order of the Lyon Dominicans between 1957 and 1960 for years. Since its construction, it has been functioning as a monastery.
The monastery complex of rough gray concrete was built by Corbusier, who, by the way, considered himself a heretic Protestant, in the forest near Lyon and roughly resembles a traditional monastery complex with a square cloister courtyard in the middle - but, naturally, redesigned in the characteristic style of the architect. The monastery is located on a hillside, so its buildings also sort of go down the mountain. Here, again, a game with light is used, which breaks through the holes made in the thickness of the concrete. The monastery is designed for 100 brothers who live, pray, study and work here to this day, while expressing dissatisfaction with the large number of tourists - the abbot is always fighting with tourists, trying to limit the number and time of visits. The brothers did not manage to completely get rid of the tourists, but they still survived the cultural center that existed on the territory of the monastery.
National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo
The first public gallery of Western art and the only Le Corbusier building in Japan (1958-1959)
The opening of this museum was supposed to mark the restoration of diplomatic ties between France and Japan after the Second World War - it housed the collection of Matsukata (a rich man who made a fortune in military shipbuilding during the First World War and at the same time bought up a lot of first-class modernism in Paris), which was returned to the Japanese by the French government. The museum is a huge closed concrete parallelepiped, as usual with Corbusier, as if standing on only thin columns. There are also indoor ramps, a flat-roof garden, and an entrance that is via a staircase that leads off the street straight to the only huge window in the building, carved into the concrete at second-story level. In 1979 and 1997, two additional wings were added to the museum - but they did not particularly affect the overall appearance of the building.
IN2015 a monument to the greatest architect of the 20th century, Le Corbusier, was unveiled in Moscow. The monument is installed next to the only building in Russia, designed by him(st. Myasnitskaya, 39). IN30- 1990s, this building belonged to Tsentrosoyuz, under this name it entered the history of architecture. Now Rosstat is located there. So why in Soviet Moscow they built a house designed by a bourgeois architect? Could there be more houses like this?? And what does the building of the Central Union and the usual Khrushchev have in common?
For the Soviet avant-garde, Le Corbusier was like David Bowie for Soviet rock. The comparison is, of course, a stretch, but it gives some idea of the scale of the phenomenon. The 1920s, the first post-revolutionary decade, were the heyday of avant-garde art in the USSR: in painting, design, photography, and architecture. At that time, many avant-garde figures received official status in the young country, Malevich, Rodchenko, Tatlin, Stepanova and many others were recognized by the new government and called to serve the people. Constructivism was the main avant-garde trend in architecture. Ginzburg, Melnikov, the Vesnin brothers, Leonidov - these are the best of the best who worked in this style.
The main ideas of constructivism - simplicity and functionality - were absolutely in tune with the ideas that Le Corbusier promoted and implemented in European architecture. "A house is a machine for living", - these words of Le Corbusier could belong to any representative of the school of Soviet constructivism.
Villa Savoy in the Parisian suburb of Poissy by Le Corbusier. Photo: Omar Barcena
Le Corbusier became an influential theorist of architecture in his youth. In 1914, twenty-seven-year-old Charles-Edouard Jeanneret-Gris (this is the real name of Le Corbusier), after an internship at the architectural office of the Perret brothers in Paris, opened his own architectural studio. Even then, he was an ardent supporter of the use of reinforced concrete in construction. For the first time this material began to be used in his projects by his teacher, Auguste Perret. In the same 1914, Corbusier patented the Dom-Ino project, where the idea of \u200b\u200bbuilding a building was first formalized.
In 1919, together with the artist Ozenfant, they begin to publish the magazine L'Esprit Nouveau ("Esprit Nouveau"), where the pseudonym Le Corbusier first appeared as a signature under an article. In this journal, Le Corbusier published a manifesto that brought him European fame. It was called "Five starting points of modern architecture" and contained five principles that soon became known to every progressive architect. Here they are:
- The house is built on separate pillars. Car traffic is possible under the house or. The house seems to float above it all.
- The roof is made in the form of a terrace, flat. It is possible to use the roof functionally, including laying out a garden on it.
- The layout inside the building is free, it becomes possible due to the use of a reinforced concrete frame. Now the walls are no longer load-bearing, so inside the building they play the role of just partitions, they can be moved at will, which provides significant savings in the internal volume of the building, as well as materials.
- Windows in the frame architecture of the house can be located along the entire facade with a continuous tape, which increases the functionality of the window and improves illumination.
- The facade is relieved of the load, since the supporting columns are moved outside it, inside the house. Thus, the façade is formed from light hinged wall panels and rows of windows, which leads to significant savings in materials and the possibility of further constructive replacement of the façade.
Le Corbusier became a highly successful popularizer of his ideas. In 1922, he opened an architectural office in Paris, and in 1925 he proposed a sensational plan for the reconstruction of the center of Paris - "Plan Voisin", which brought him scandalous fame. Le Corbusier's impudent project called for the demolition of residential areas of a significant part of the center of Paris and the construction of a modern business center, consisting of eighteen 50-storey towers with infrastructure. The plan was eventually rejected, but the noisy controversy in the press did not subside for a long time.
Before that, in 1924, in the suburbs of Bordeaux, according to the project of Le Corbusier, a more modest, but also very significant project for the urban planning of those years, was implemented: the village "Modern Houses of Frouges", which consisted of fifty low-rise standard houses - one of the first experiments in the construction of cheap and fast serial housing in Europe.
The activities of Corbusier, who was becoming more and more famous in the world, could not pass by Soviet architects. There was no Iron Curtain then, information about new principles and trends reached the USSR quite quickly. Therefore, most constructivist architects became ardent admirers of the work of Le Corbusier. He was surprisingly related to them in terms of views, and as a theorist and popularizer of modern architecture, he knew no equal. In the late 1920s, Le Corbusier was even a member of the editorial board of the Soviet journal Modern Architecture.
With all this, by the end of the 1920s, Corbusier had no major completed projects. Projects of several villas near Paris in the avant-garde style made of reinforced concrete, in which its five principles were used, as well as the Esprit Nouveau pavilion at the International Exhibition in Paris, which was a model of a residential apartment in a frame house, were embodied. Therefore, Le Corbusier was interested in a major project. And then the competition Tsentrosoyuz building project in Moscow came in handy, and constructivist architects who were well acquainted with Corbusier and sympathetic to him warmly supported the idea of his participation in the competition.
The competition was announced in 1928. It was attended by both leading Soviet and several foreign architects. After three stages of the competition and quite a long debate, the board of the Centrosoyuz decided to commission the final design of Le Corbusier. Not the last role in the decision of the board was played by the appeal of leading constructivist architects.
The construction of the building lasted from 1930 to 1936, it was supervised by the Soviet architect N.Ya. Collie. During the construction process, the project was repeatedly refined in close cooperation with Le Corbusier. The complex, which is now architectural monument of constructivism, consists of three main working buildings of the same height, but of different lengths, located with the letter “H”, and a parabolic-shaped building connected to them into a single unit with a conference room. In the complex, you can easily find the embodiment of all five principles of Le Corbusier.
The buildings rise on pillars, partially, however, hidden by the walls of the facade. , as expected, flat. The windows are no longer tape, but form a continuous glazing. They can even be defined as glass double-layer walls with a vacuum between the layers to improve thermal insulation. The unglazed surfaces of the façade are made of light suspended slabs of pink tuff. The interior layout is free, with large open spaces and interfloor ramps.
Le Corbusier noted that 2,500 workers have all the conditions for work: a conference room, a dining room, wide sloping ramps as stairs and continuous mechanical elevators. In the 1930s, it was indeed the most modern office building with a high level of comfort. Today, the building continues to function successfully. True, its appearance after the recent reconstruction of the glazing does not correspond to the original.
The building of the Central Union today. Photo: Yuri Virovets
In the future, Corbusier twice offered his projects for implementation in the USSR. But, as they say, no luck. One of these projects was dedicated to global restructuring of Moscow. It appeared after Corbusier was asked to express his opinion on the concept of the socialist city of the architect N.A. Milyutin. Apparently, Milyutin's ideas seemed to Corbusier not global enough. Instead of analyzing Milyutin's project, he writes his "Response to Moscow". The meaning of the answer can be expressed something like this: guys, stop exchanging over trifles, it’s better to do a really large-scale business, here I sketched something for you. The "answer" was accompanied by extensive material from drawings on twenty sheets. In terms of boldness and breadth of conception, the project surpassed even the famous Plan Voisin. Only in this case, the whole of Moscow was offered to the root, except for a small island around the Kremlin. And instead build a completely different city, functionally divided into administrative, residential and industrial sectors. Blocks of skyscrapers, a lot of parks around, and everything that prevents this from being mercilessly demolished - this is Le Corbusier's urban planning concept.
Of course, the chances that this Le Corbusier project would be seriously considered by anyone, and even more so - accepted, were zero. And frankly, thank God. However, the project itself did not disappear without a trace, but served as the basis for the further development of Corbusier's urban planning ideas in the famous Radiant City project, which he then sought to implement around the world.
The second coming of Le Corbusier to the USSR was associated with participation in competition for the design of the Palace of Soviets. It was a grandiose event in the world of architecture. In addition to Corbusier, such luminaries of European architecture as Gropius and O. Perret took part in the competition. The competition was announced in July 1931 and lasted for almost two years in several rounds.
Le Corbusier's project was, as always, innovative and avant-garde. The skeleton of the structure was brought outside, forming a naked structural skeleton, and the internal volumes were suspended from it on steel cables. The large hall for 14,000 seats, with acoustics calculated using light waves, had the shape of a parabola, just like in the Tsentrosoyuz building. This project is considered one of the undoubted creative achievements of Le Corbusier. It is known that at the presentation of the layout before state commission led by Stalin, the master played the Internationale on the double bass. And the last verse was played right on the shrouds of the layout roof, specially made of strings. But Stalin did not appreciate the beauty of the moment and only casually threw to the interpreter: “Can he do Suliko like that?”
Neither the constructivism of Le Corbusier's project nor his original presentation impressed the high commission. As a result, the project of B. Iofan, made in the spirit of Stalin's Empire style, which was gaining momentum, won.
After this competition, left-wing European architects who sympathized with the USSR received painful blow: their ideas about Soviet power turned out to be quite idealized. Corbusier wrote that the project that won the competition "demonstrates the enslavement of modern technology by spiritual reaction" and "returns to the kingdom the pretentious architecture of former monarchical regimes."
The answer was not long in coming. Pretty soon avant-garde art in general and constructivism in particular were announced in the USSR decadent and alien to the ideals of the proletariat, and Le Corbusier himself is called a fascist and an enemy of the Soviet regime. After that, his name disappeared from everywhere in the USSR for a quarter of a century, including from Soviet textbooks on architecture.
Nevertheless, as Moscow Architectural Institute graduates recall, in the early 60s Corbusier again became so popular in the architectural environment that every second graduation project was then made as a direct imitation of him. Therefore, the influence of Corbusier is visible to the naked eye both in the construction of buildings, for example, a multi-storey tower (one of the "panels" - "brezhnevok"), and in urban planning. The same Novy Arbat with its towers-books (which some wit compared with false teeth) is a big hello to Corbusier and his plan for the reconstruction of Moscow. Hello, fortunately, it turned out to be a much more modest scale.
What about standard construction? Reinforced concrete panels, simple building geometry, lack of decor, flat roofs - these are the hallmarks of Corbusier's architecture. So New Cheryomushki, numerous quarters of Khrushchevs - this is also his idea, embodied with a delay of three decades. The implementation, however, let us down with the lack of a flight of thought and stinginess, the desire to save on everything. But in fairness, let's remember that in the master's system of proportions Modulor, the ceiling height of 226 cm was recognized as quite sufficient for housing. And we also honestly admit that many of the so-called residential units of Corbusier do not look very good now, half a century after the construction.
The 17-story Unité d'Habitation complex in Marseille (1945-1952). Photo: Guzman Lozano
Buildings made of glass and concrete have one thing in common: they age quickly. Three or four decades - and now they seem sprinkled with mothballs. And the more, the less pleasing to the eye. Corbusier was a "leftist" and believed that the new typical architecture would help overcome social contradictions. However, in most countries, prefabricated housing blocks were viewed from the outset as housing for the poor. In the USSR, Khrushchevs were also, as you know, people's housing.
Yes, Corbusier's panel cubes did not become a bright future for mankind, but his projects were implemented all over the world: in France, Germany, USA, Russia, Brazil, Japan, India, his architectural ideas have become an integral part of modern architecture, and he continues to be the most revered and most hated architect of the last century.
Alisa Orlova
Le Corbusier- French architect of Swiss origin, who was also a designer, artist, writer and publicist. He is a pioneer of modernism, a representative of international style architecture, embodied the ideas of functionalism in architecture. The buildings designed by him are located all over the world: in Europe, America, India, Japan.
In an effort to make life easier for the inhabitants of overcrowded cities, Le Corbusier was actively involved in urban planning and was one of the founders of the International Congress of Modern Architecture (CIAM).
Biography
Charles-Edouard Jeanneret-Gris was born on October 6, 1887 in the Swiss town of La Chaux-de-Fonds into the family of an enamel watchmaker.
From childhood, young Charles was attracted fine Arts and he entered the School of Art in Chaux-de-Fonds under the course of Charles Leplatenier, his teacher of architecture was René Chapalla, who greatly influenced early work. From the moment he entered the school, he began to independently engage in jewelry making, creating enamels and engraving monograms on watch cases.
In his youth, he tried to leave the provincial atmosphere of his native city and traveled around Europe. In September 1907 he made his first trip to Italy, then via Budapest to Vienna, where he stayed for four months and met Gustav Klimt and Josef Hoffmann. He then travels to Paris in 1908, where he finds work in the office of August Perret, a French pioneer in the field of reinforced concrete. All these trips influenced him and began to develop his own architectural style. Between October 1910 and March 1911 he worked near Berlin for the famous architect Peter Behrens, where he may have met Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Walter Gropius. At that time, he visited the Nursing Home and the monastery attached to him in the Ema Valley, and this greatly affected his position in life. From now on, he began to believe that all people should be able to live quietly and calmly, like monks in their monastery.
Later, in 1911 he traveled to the Balkans and visited Serbia, Bulgaria, Turkey and Greece, he returned with about 80 notebooks full of sketches of what he saw, in particular the Parthenon. He would then praise its forms in his book To Architecture.
During the First World War, Le Corbusier taught at his native art school in Switzerland and returned to Paris only after the war was over. During these four years in Switzerland he worked in the field of theoretical architecture, using modern techniques. Among other things, there was the Dom-ino House project - a model that offers open plan, consisting of concrete slabs supported by a minimum number of reinforced concrete columns at the edges. This design became the basis for most of his structures for the next 10 years.
He soon started his own architectural practice, along with his cousin Pierre Jeanneret. This cooperation lasted until the 1950s, with a break for the years of World War II.
In 1918, Le Corbusier met the cubist painter Amédée Ozenfant, in whom he found a kindred spirit. Ozanfant encouraged him to paint and they began to collaborate. Discarding Cubism as irrational and "romantic", they published their manifesto "After Cubism" and founded a new artistic movement, purism. Ozenfant and Le Corbusier founded the magazine L "Esprit nouveau (New Spirit).
In the first issue of the magazine in 1920, Charles-Edouard Jeanneret took on the pseudonym Le Corbusier (a slightly modified surname of his grandfather), under the auspices of the idea that everyone can create a new self.
In the period from 1918 to 1922, Le Corbusier did not build buildings, concentrating entirely on the theory of purism and painting. And in 1922, together with his cousin Pierre, he opened an architectural studio in Paris. In the 1920s, Le Corbusier designed several villas that made him famous. Almost all of them are located in the vicinity of Paris. All of them are buildings in the modernist style. They started talking about Corbusier, the new aesthetics of the villas excited the minds of the European public. The most notable works are Villa La Roche/Janneret (1924), Villa Stein in Garches (now Vaucreson, 1927), Villa Savoy in Poissy (1929). All of them are simple geometric shapes, white smooth facades, horizontal windows, using a reinforced concrete frame. In these structures, Corbusier applied his architect's code - "The Five Starting Points of Architecture".
In 1925, Corbusier and Pierre presented the "Plan Voisin" - a proposal for the restructuring of Paris. The plan provided for the demolition of about 240 hectares of old buildings and the erection of eighteen identical skyscrapers in their place with 50 floors. In this and subsequent plans, Le Corbusier proposed new planning methods to improve the comfort of living in cities, to create green areas and a network of transport routes in them.
In 1940, Le Corbusier closed his Paris workshop and moved to a farm in the Pyrenees. At this time he was engaged theoretical developments, in particular the Modulor proportion system, which he then actively used in buildings.
After the end of World War II, restoration work began in France, and Le Corbusier participated in them at the invitation of the authorities. In particular, he carried out plans for the reconstruction of the cities of Saint-Dieu (1945) and La Rochelle (1946), which became a new original contribution to urban planning.
For Saint-Dieu, Le Corbusier designed the Claude and Duval (1946-1951) manufactory building - a four-story block with industrial and office premises, with continuous glazing of the facades. During the construction of the Duval manufactory, the so-called "sun cutters" (fr. brise-soleil) were used - special hinged structures invented by Corbusier that protect the glazed facade from direct sunlight. Subsequently, the "sun cutters" became a kind of trademark of Corbusier's buildings, where they perform both a service and a decorative role.
In 1947, construction began on the famous "Marseilles Housing Unit" - an apartment building with complete infrastructure located inside one building.
In 1950, Corbusier began the implementation of his most ambitious project - new capital Punjab state, Chandigarh city. Corbusier developed the administrative center, residential areas with infrastructure, schools, hotels. The city was built over a period of about 10 years. Corbusier himself designed the Capitol, the administrative center of the city. These are the buildings of the Secretariat, the Palace of Justice and the Assembly. Each of them is distinguished by a bright characteristic of the image, powerful monumentality and represents a new word in the architecture of that time.
In the 1950s and 1960s, Le Corbusier was already recognized as an architectural genius. He was inundated with orders, his name thundered around the world. During this time, he built several structures that cemented his title as the number one European avant-garde architect. These are the Ronchamp Chapel in France (1955), the Brazilian Pavilion on a student campus in Paris, the La Tourette monastery complex (1957-1960), the building of the Museum of Western Art in Tokyo (1959).
One of Corbusier's last major works is the US-built cultural center at Harvard University, the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts (1959-1962).
In 1928, Corbusier participated in a competition for the construction of the building of the People's Commissariat of Light Industry (House of the Centrosoyuz) in Moscow. It was subsequently built according to his design. The building of the Centrosoyuz was a completely new example of a modern business building solution for Europe. The construction was carried out under the guidance of the architect Nikolai Colli.
In 1928, 1929, in the early thirties, the architect often came to Moscow in connection with construction. Here he met with Soviet cultural figures, in particular with Meyerhold and Eisenstein, and admired the creative atmosphere that prevailed in the country at that time. He was especially impressed by the achievements of the Soviet architectural avant-garde - the Vesnin brothers, Moses Ginzburg, Konstantin Melnikov. Later, Le Corbusier participated in the international competition for the building of the Palace of Soviets for Moscow (1931), for which he made an extremely bold, innovative project.
"Five Points of Architecture"
Le Corbusier's Five Points of Architecture was published in L'Esprit Nouveau in the 1920s. In these seemingly simple rules, Corbusier tried to formulate his concept of modern architecture. Here is their free retelling:
Support pillars. The house is raised above the ground on reinforced concrete pillars, while freeing up space under the living quarters - for a garden or a car park.
Flat roof terraces. Instead of the traditional sloping roof with an attic underneath, Corbusier proposed a flat roof-terrace, on which one could plant a small garden or create a place to relax.
Free layout. Since the walls are no longer load-bearing (due to the use of a reinforced concrete frame), the interior space is completely freed from them. As a result, the interior layout can be organized much more efficiently.
Ribbon windows. Due to the frame structure of the building and the absence, in connection with this, of load-bearing walls, windows can be made of almost any size and configuration, incl. freely stretch them with tape along the entire facade, from corner to corner.
free facade. The supports are installed outside the plane of the facade, inside the house (literally in Corbusier: freely located inside the premises). In this case, the outer walls can be made of any material - light, fragile or transparent, and take any shape.
modulor
modulor is a system of proportions developed by Le Corbusier. He described it as "a set of harmonic proportions commensurate with the scale of man, universally applicable to architecture and mechanics."
LE CORBUSIER. CITIES.
Earlier it was said that Le Corbusier was ambitious. Projects of "lonely" buildings were not enough for him. He dreamed of cities.
But a hundred years ago the world was different. Cities quickly filled with people. From 1810 to 1910, the population of Paris increased 5 times, reaching 3 million. The city was built up more slowly than it filled with people. The population density increased. Dark courtyards wells. Rooms devoid of light and sun. Huge flows of goods flowed into the city, and the road structure remained the same. Cities did not have time to be supplied with water and freed from waste. Rotting garbage cans. epidemics. Paris needed to be decompacted and sanitized.
In 1922, at the Salon d'Automne in Paris, Le Corbusier presented his first major urban project. "Radiant city" for 3 million inhabitants - "La ville radieuse".
Le Corbusier. "La ville radieuse"
It was a hymn to light, air and greenery. In the center of Le Corbusier placed the same-sized skyscrapers. They were supposed to stand among the gardens, at an equal distance from each other. Skyscrapers gave density, freeing up open spaces for greenery. He rejected the close and diverse experience of New York. At the epicenter of the Corbusian city was the station. Airplanes, cars, buses, subways, Railway. Later, something similar was carried out in the Paris Defense, without airplanes, of course. Around the center of "La ville radieuse" appeared 6-storey miandro-shaped quarters, consisting of thousands of villeinblocks. This scheme, almost without changing, he proposed for Paris. "Plan Voisin", 1925. A huge part of the quarters along Sevastopol Avenue was under demolition. It was replaced by a new "radiant city".
Le Corbusier. Skyscraper reconstruction of Paris "Pla Voisin".
Nowadays, of course, the question of the protection of monuments would arise. Then the situation was different. Le Corbusier, like other "progressives" of those times, was not so much worried about the plastic delights of the old quarters as social problems. Therefore, he sought, first of all, to “sanitize” the decaying, overcrowded areas, where the poor mostly huddled. Leaving the island of Cité untouched, and preserving the most significant objects (mainly cathedrals), he ruthlessly demolished all, as they would now say, “environmental” buildings. Proposing this, Le Corbusier was well aware that in bourgeois-democratic Paris it is extremely difficult to implement such a thing. Therefore, when he was called to Moscow, where the socialist dictatorship dominated, he decided that his finest hour had come. “This is where they think not about personal gain, but about the good of the people; this is where you can allocate huge funds at a time to create a supercity; that's where they can understand his minimalist architecture," he thought. Leaving the Kremlin, he proposed to demolish everything along Tverskaya and, almost without change, transferred the Parisian version to Moscow.
It must be said that at that time the residential development of Moscow was a depressing sight. Compared to Petrograd (from 1914 to 1924 St. Petersburg was called that way), there were very few multi-storey tenement houses. The city was covered by a sea of crumbling wooden low-rise buildings. Without sewerage, with wood heating, water pumps at the crossroads of the streets and occasional electric poles. No asphalt, cobblestone roads only here and there in the center. No wonder, until the end of the 50s, Moscow was called a "big village". With the transfer of the capital, a huge flow of people poured into the city. Housing was not built. The dark, damp basements were filled with people. Piece constructivist houses, which appeared later, and even Stalin's pompous "pallazo" did not save the situation. Only Khrushchev's five-story buildings in the 60s, at least partially, solved the housing problem.
In those 20s, millions of people had to be fed, washed, given work and shelter. Nobody thought about mass saving of monuments. The old world was going to be destroyed and a new one built. The Carthusian project of Le Corbusier was very suitable for this. But, of course, they did not build it. The country was very poor. Construction would take decades. There were no building materials. Churches were taken to pieces. There was no wood. Wooden mansions were demolished for firewood and at the same time the nails were straightened out for reuse. Even military armored cars and armored trains had to be "riveted" from scrap metal.
The Russian people were far from European standards. For "village" Moscow, the Corbusean city was too creative. For Muscovites, the five-story house was a construction miracle. And here, the forest of skyscrapers! Stalin, of course, stopped these capitalist fantasies. Nevertheless, the Master was given the opportunity to build a large Tsentrosoyuz complex on Myasnitskaya.
Le Corbusier later abandoned the idea of "marching skyscrapers". There were plans for small towns: Zlin, Nimur, etc. In these projects, he used the same type of residential blocks, in the manner of "Marseilles units", which he placed among the greenery in strict order, like warships in the roadstead.
Le Corbusier. City of Nimur.
For many decades, these projects have been the object of endless imitation in architectural firms, both here and abroad. But Le Corbusier would not have been a Grand Master if he had limited himself to this.
He was fascinated by the idea of putting transport on the roofs of residential buildings. That is, he greened the roofs of detached buildings, and for houses articulated in linear systems, offered to start transport. So there were amazing projects development of the cities of Algiers, Montevideo and São Paulo.
Le Corbusier. Sketches of the reconstruction of Sao Paulo and Montevideo.
In general, then the idea of active use of roofs was in the air. Let us recall, for example, the complex of Fiat factories, where a track for testing cars was built on the roof of the assembly shop. In practice, however, this approach proved to be unsustainable. And the point is not only that wheel vibrations loosened the structural basis of buildings. Communication with the ground, elevators, parking lots, as well as problems regarding fire prevention measures, made the "roof" projects ineffective. But, despite this, the elegant linear city of the Algiers project delights and will delight architects around the world for many years to come.
As we can see, the Master gradually began to move away from the orthodox worship of the right angle (the road of people) and became more and more interested in curved lines (the roads of donkeys). In my opinion, the most famous urban work created by Le Corbusier after "La ville radieuse" is the project of the city of Chandigarh, the capital of the Indian state of Punjab.
The structure of the city is "meshed". But the grid is not subject to rigid geometry. It is “alive” and, to a certain extent, curvilinear. Traffic and foot traffic are separated. The city is pierced by landscaped open-plan boulevards. Thus, it demonstrates the rejection of the traditional, "road - sidewalk" city that dominated those years. The simple and logical urban structure of Chandigarh determined the principles of city design for many decades. Even Soviet micro-districts, English, Swedish and Finnish satellite cities were influenced by a clear and logical "Chandigarh" planning.
Le Corbusier. City of Chandigarh.
But Chandigarh is not only famous for its urban layout. Le Corbusier designed and built the unique administrative center of this city. Moreover, he unexpectedly placed it on the periphery of the main planning grid. Actually out of town. He declared that consumer functions should be inside the city, and power outside it. The planning structure of the center demonstrates the rejection of symmetrical schemes. They show the most severe adherence to absolutely new system coordinates resulting from the Modulor he created.
It is a thankless task to describe the buildings of the center of Chandigarh themselves. Perhaps in India, such a surfeit of plastic is quite appropriate. But it is impossible to finally judge the architectural merits of these structures without seeing them in nature. Characteristically, this architecture has neither analogues nor imitations. It is very important that Le Corbusier created a unique world of plastic forms in the center of Chandigarh, which was supposed to symbolize Hindu national architecture. Or, even more incredible, become her! "Swing" to create a national style in a country with ancient architectural traditions is a very bold creative step. Many believe that he succeeded.
I have not been to Chandigarh. They say that a few years after the construction, the concrete began to stain, the floors began to leak (heavy rains). Many parts of buildings have fallen into disrepair (primitive building technologies). At one time, they even wanted to demolish the center of Chandigarh. But now the houses are in order, and this complex has become one of the desired tourist sites.
View of downtown Chandigarh.
Finishing a brief article about the great Architect of the 20th century, we can add that the described works by Le Corbusier are only a small fraction of what he created. His contribution to architecture is invaluable. Many of his works gave rise to entire trends in architecture, for example, the complex and multifaceted work of the so-called "American Five" (1973): Richard Meyer, Peter Eisenman, Michael Graves, John Heiduk and Charles Guotmi grew up on the early works of the Master.
For about a hundred years, Le Corbusier set the tone in architecture, urban planning, architectural theory, style, painting and even sculpture. But most importantly, he is one of those who laid the foundation for that boundless phenomenon that we now call "modern architecture."