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Le Corbusier architecture. Le Corbusier - a brilliant innovator in modern architecture

Le Corbusier architecture. Le Corbusier - a brilliant innovator in modern architecture

03.03.2020

The contribution of Charles-Edouard Jeanneret-Gris, who worked under the pseudonym Le Corbusier (1887-1965), to world architecture is very great. He is rightfully included in the list of leading architects of the 20th century, literally working on changing the face of residential development in Europe. Le Corbusier has many projects, let's highlight the most significant ones.

Let's start with the smallest house that was built by Le Corbusier - "Cabanon". The architect built this hut for his wife as a summer house, and the project itself was sketched out in just 15 minutes. Corbusier was sure that the house with an area of 3.66 by 3.66 m turned out to be very comfortable. The roof is flat, the ceiling is 2.26 m high. The hut has a bathroom, a dining room, a work area, and enough storage space. But it was decided to abandon the kitchen - there is a restaurant next to the house.

We already mentioned the “Village of Frouge” in Pessac, near Bordeaux, when we wrote about typical urban development. This is a truly landmark project by Le Corbusier, which had a social focus - it was planned to create inexpensive, typical, but at the same time comfortable housing for workers. Over 50 houses were built according to seven main projects, and the customer, a sugar industrialist, insisted on painting the buildings in different colors, to whom the village seemed too gloomy. The local authorities did not accept the project, implemented in 1926, and the settlement of the buildings began only in 1930.

The architect built the Savoy Villa (Poissy, a suburb of Paris) according to his five principles: with a roof-terrace, ribbon windows, concrete columns at the base, an open plan and a free facade. Le Corbusier applied a minimum of decor, the house is very simple, but elegant. Unfortunately, the flat roof, which was supposed to be a recreation area, soon began to leak, the building materials used in the 1920s did not allow it to be more reliable. Because of this, the architect had a dispute with the customer. Now the house is an architectural monument, owned by the French government.

Corbusier worked in different countries of the world, there is his significant project in Moscow. This is the office building of Tsentrosoyuz, located between Akademika Sakharov Avenue and Myasnitskaya. Now Rosstat is located here. Construction began in 1928 and was completed eight years later. The Tsentrosoyuz building is considered a model of European modernism of the beginning of the last century and is one of Moscow's architectural rarities. One of the first complexes with continuous glazing. It is not surprising that a monument to the architect himself was erected in front of this building.

Kuruchet House, 1949. This relatively small private mansion was proposed by the Argentine government to be included in the UNESCO list, because the building is considered the absolute of ultramodernism and an important milestone in the work of Le Corbusier. The house has four levels, outwardly it turned out to be very light, open, simple. The building, located in the province of Buenos Aires, was built by an architect for a doctor and therefore includes a medical office on the ground floor.

Villa La Rocha. The house, built in 1923 in Paris, includes a gallery and a residential wing. All the principles of Le Corbusier are again noticeable: a flat roof suitable for use, a minimum of decor on the facade, ribbon windows, support columns. The project was innovative for its time, brought fame to the architect, but the customers - the family of a wealthy collector - were not very satisfied and soon set about expensive repairs.

Villa "Le Lac" was built by the architect for his own parents, and he returned to this project more than once, coming to visit Soros in Switzerland. A rather simple house, which became the basis for the "new architecture" of Corbusier, was built in 1923. The three main principles are strip glazing, a flat roof and an open plan. The southern façade overlooking the lake is finished with aluminum, and this had to be done to hide a crack in the wall.

Residential unit in Marseille (France). Another social project of Corbusier, aimed at creating standard buildings and inexpensive housing for workers. The house was built in 1945, right after the war. There are 350 apartments in the building, up to 1.7 thousand people can live at the same time. There is a terrace with a kindergarten, a hotel-restaurant, a shopping street, and the apartments themselves are two-story, overlooking both sides.

Notre Dame du Haut, a chapel whose name means "Madonna on the Heights". An unusual project by Corbusier, who created a pilgrimage church made of concrete in the town of Ronchamp (France). The shape of the roof was inspired by a shell found by the architect, and the building itself fits perfectly into the picturesque landscape. The construction was completed in 1955 and belongs to the late period of Corbusier's work.

One of the most ambitious projects of Corbusier was the development of the city of Chandigarh, the new capital of the state of Punjab (India). In this city, the architect erected several iconic buildings, including the Secretariat, the Palace of Justice, the Museum and Art Gallery, and the Assembly Building. Corbusier also worked on the plan for the city itself, designed for half a million inhabitants and divided into about 60 rectangular residential sectors. This project was implemented from 1951 to 1962. Since Corbusier himself only outlined the plan of Chandigarh and erected the largest, main buildings in the center, his cousin, also an architect, Pierre Jeanneret, did the rest of the work.

Le Corbusier(fr. Le Corbusier; real name Charles Edouard Jeanneret-Gris (fr. Charles Edouard Jeanneret-Gris); 1887-1965) - French architect of Swiss origin, artist, designer, architectural theorist.

Le Corbusier is one of the most notable architects of the twentieth century, the pioneers of modern architecture, the creator of innovative buildings in the spirit of modernism. One of the first to use in his buildings a reinforced concrete frame, terrace roofs, large glazing planes on the facade, open supports in the lower floors of buildings, and a free floor plan. The views of Le Corbusier, set forth by him in numerous books, as well as his buildings, had an exceptional influence on the entire practice of modern architecture.

“To be modern is not a fashion, it is a state. Each of us must accept the conditions in which he lives, and adaptation to them is his duty, not a choice ... "

In September 2014, the architecture portal TOTALARCH.COM presented the CORBUSIER.TOTALARCH.COM project. The resource contains all the buildings, most of the projects, furniture, books by Le Corbusier, published in Russian and other materials that are the heritage of the Master.

Swiss period 1887-1917

Charles Edouard Jeanneret was born on October 6, 1887 in Switzerland, in the city of La Chaux-de-Fonds, the French-speaking canton of Neuchâtel. He belonged to a family where the craft of a watchmaker-enameller was traditional. At the age of 13, he entered the School of Art in Chaux-de-Fonds, where he studied arts and crafts with teacher Charles Leplatenier. Education at the School of Arts was based on the ideas of "Arts and Crafts", a popular movement at that time, founded by J. Ruskin, and also in the heyday of the Art Nouveau style. From the moment he entered the School of Art, Edouard Jeanneret began to engage in jewelry business and engrave watch cases on his own.

E. Jeanneret began his first architectural project at the age of less than 18, with the help of a professional architect. It was an apartment building built for the engraver Louis Fallet, a board member of the Art School. When the construction was completed, with the money he earned, he made his first educational trip - to Italy, Austria and France.

During this trip, E. Jeanneret was an intern, working as a draftsman for the architect and designer Josef Hoffmann, leader of the Vienna Secession (1907). Then - in Paris, in the workshop of the brothers Auguste (Auguste Perret) and Gustave Perret (1908-1910), architects who were among the first to use reinforced concrete in the construction of multi-storey residential buildings. In 1910-1911 he worked in Berlin, in the workshop of the great master of architecture Peter Behrens. In 1911, for the purpose of self-education, he traveled to the East - through Greece, the Balkans and Asia Minor, where he studied ancient monuments and traditional folk construction. This journey largely shaped his views on art and architecture.

Returning home, E. Jeanneret for several years, from 1912 to the end of 1916, worked as a teacher at the School of Arts in La Chaux-de-Fonds. Here in 1914 he opened his first architectural workshop. In Chaux-de-Fonds, he designed several buildings, mostly private residential buildings. The last two buildings - built for parents Villa Jeanneret/Perret(1912) and also Villa Schwob, (Turkish villa, 1916-1917), commissioned by a wealthy watch magnate, are already distinguished by their independent design and are quite original in architecture.

In the same period, Jeanneret created and patented a very significant project for his creative biography. Dom-ino(1914) (together with engineer M. Dubois). This project foresaw the possibility of building from large-sized prefabricated elements, which at that time was an innovative invention. Corbusier implemented the Dom-Hino concept later in many of his buildings. At the end of 1916, E. Jeanneret left La Chaux-de-Fonds and Switzerland forever to settle permanently in Paris.

Purist period 1917-1930

Upon arrival in Paris, Jeanneret takes a job as a staff architect at Max Dubois' Society for the Application of Reinforced Concrete. During his work in it, (April 1917 - January 1919), he completed several projects, mainly technical structures - a water tower in Podensac (Gironde), an arsenal in Toulouse, a power plant on the Vienne River and others. According to his projects, workers' settlements were also built, with residential buildings for one or two families. The architecture of these houses is close to traditional. Working in the aforementioned "Society ...", he becomes the director of a factory for the production of building products in the city of Alfortville, a subsidiary of the company. He also teaches drawing in a children's art studio.

In Paris, Jeanneret met Amédée Ozenfant, an artist who introduced him to contemporary painting, in particular Cubism. Ozenfant introduces Jeanneret to the Parisian artists, introduces him to Braque, Picasso, Gris, Lipchitz, and later to Fernand Léger. Jeanneret begins to actively engage in painting, which becomes his second profession. Together with Ozanfant, they arrange joint exhibitions of their paintings, declaring them as exhibitions of "purists". In 1919, Jeanneret and Ozenfant, with the financial support of La Roche, created the philosophical and artistic review journal L'Esprit Nouveau, in which Jeanneret leads the architectural department. He publishes his articles under the pseudonym "Le Corbusier". Esprit Nouveau magazine published for the first time " Five starting points of modern architecture» Le Corbusier, a kind of set of rules for modern architecture.

1. 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.

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. Tape windows. Thanks to the frame structure, windows can be made of almost any size and configuration, incl. freely stretch them with tape along the entire facade, from corner to corner.

5. 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.

Separately, such techniques were used by architects before Corbusier, who, having made a careful selection, combined them into a system and began to apply them consistently. In the 1920s, when the language of new architecture was just being formed, these “five starting points of architecture” for many young architects of the “new movement” really became the “starting point” in their work, and for some, a kind of professional creed. These rules were formulated repeatedly and in various ways. Here is a translation of one of Le Corbusier's original texts:

Five starting points of modern architecture

1. Racks. To solve a scientific problem means, first of all, to solve its elements. In a building, load-bearing elements can be separated from non-bearing ones. Instead of the former foundations, on which the building rested without a control calculation, dissected foundations appear, and in place of the former walls - separate racks. Racks and pile foundations are accurately calculated in accordance with the weight that falls on them. Piles are installed at certain equal intervals, not related to the internal layout of the house. They rise from the ground by 3, 4, 6, etc. meters and carry the first floor at this height. The rooms are thus free from dampness, they have enough light and air, the building site turns into a garden that runs under the house. The same plane is gained a second time thanks to the flat roof.

2. Flat roof, roof garden. The flat roof allows it to be used for residential purposes: terrace, garden... Sewers run inside the house. On the roofs, gardens with beautiful vegetation can be laid out, not only bushes, but also small trees up to 3-4 meters in height.

3. Free design of the plan. The pile system carries intermediate floors and reaches up to the roof. Internal walls are located in any places, and one floor does not depend on the other to any extent. There are no more capital walls, there are only membranes of any fortress. The consequence of this is absolute freedom in the design of the plan, i.e. the ability to freely dispose of all available funds, which should easily be reconciled with some high cost of concrete structures.

4. Extended window. Piles with intermediate floors form rectangular openings in the facade, through which light and air enter in abundant quantities. The window stretches from post to post, thus becoming an elongated window... The room is equally illuminated in all its places - from wall to wall. It has been proven that such a room is illuminated 8 times more intensely than the same room with vertical windows. The entire history of architecture revolves exclusively around window openings. And now reinforced concrete opens up the possibility of maximum lighting with the help of elongated windows.

5. Free design of the facade. Due to the fact that the foundation of the house is raised on load-bearing piles and is located in a balcony-like manner around the building, the entire facade is pushed forward from the supporting structure. Thus, the façade loses its load-bearing properties, and the windows can stretch to any length without direct relation to the internal articulation of the building. A window can be 10 meters long, as well as 200 meters (eg our League of Nations project in Geneva). Thus, the facade receives a free design.

These five main points are the foundation of the new aesthetics. We have nothing left of the architecture of past eras, as little as a literary and historical school education gives.

In 1922, Corbusier, together with his cousin Pierre Jeanneret, opened his architectural office in Paris. Pierre Jeanneret became his collaborator for a long time. In 1924, they rented a wing of an old Parisian monastery at st. Sevres, 35 (rue de Sevre, 35). A large group of Corbusier's employees constantly worked in this impromptu workshop, and most of his projects were created here.

For the exhibition "Autumn Salon" in 1922, the Jeanneret brothers presented project "Modern city for 3 million inhabitants", which proposed a new vision of the city of the future. Subsequently, this project was transformed into " Plan Voisin» (1925) - developed proposal for a radical reconstruction of Paris. The Voisin plan provided for the construction of a new business center of Paris on a completely cleared area. To do this, it was proposed to demolish 240 hectares of old buildings. Eighteen identical skyscraper-offices of 50 floors, according to the plan, were located freely, at a sufficient distance from each other. At the same time, the built-up area was only 5%, and the remaining 95% of the territory was allocated for highways, parks and pedestrian zones. The "Plan Voisin" was widely discussed in the French press and became something of a sensation. In this and his other urban planning projects - the plan for Buenos Aires (1930), Antwerp (1932), Rio de Janeiro (1936), the "Aubus Plan" for Algiers (1931) - Corbusier developed completely new urban planning concepts. Their common essence is to increase the comfort of living in cities through new planning methods, to create a modern system of roads in them - with a significant increase in the height of buildings and population density. In these projects, Corbusier proved himself to be a consistent urbanist.

In the 1920s, Corbusier designed and built several modernist villas that made his name. The most famous of them are located in Paris or its environs. This Villa La Rocha/Janneret (1924), Villa Stein in Garches(now Vaucreson, 1927), Paris, Villa Savoy in Poissy(1929). The characteristic features of these buildings are simple geometric shapes, white smooth facades, horizontal windows, and the use of an internal frame. They are also distinguished by the innovative use of internal space - the so-called. "free plan". In these buildings, Corbusier used his code "Five starting points of modern architecture."

In 1924, by order of the industrialist Henri Fruget, in the village of Pessac near Bordeaux, it was built according to the design of Corbusier. town "Modern Houses Fruge"(Quartiers Modernes Fruges). This town, consisting of 50 two-three-story residential buildings, was one of the first experiments in the construction of houses in series (in France). Here, four types of buildings are used, different in configuration and layout - tape houses, blocked and detached. In this project, Corbusier tried to find the formula for a modern home at an affordable price - simple forms, easy to build and at the same time possessing a modern level of comfort.

At the World Exhibition of Decorative Arts in 1925 in Paris, designed by Corbusier, was built Esprit Nouveau Pavilion(L'Esprit Nouveau). The pavilion included a full-size residential cell of an apartment building - an experimental apartment on two levels. Corbusier used a similar cell later, in the late 40s, when creating his Marseille Residential Unit.

30s - the beginning of the "international" style

By the beginning of the 30s, Le Corbusier became widely known, large orders began to come to him. One of the first such orders - Home of the Salvation Army in Paris(1929-31). In 1928, Corbusier participates in competition for the building of the People's Commissariat of Light Industry(House of Tsentrosoyuz) in Moscow, which was then built (1928-1933). Tsentrosoyuz was a completely new, in fact, unprecedented for Europe example of a modern business building. The construction was carried out under the guidance of the architect Nikolai Colli.

In connection with the construction of the Centrosoyuz, Le Corbusier repeatedly came to Moscow - in 1928, 1929, in the early thirties. He met with Tairov, Meyerhold, Eisenstein, admired the creative atmosphere that prevailed in the country at that time, and especially the achievements of the Soviet architectural avant-garde - the Vesnin brothers, Moses Ginzburg, Konstantin Melnikov. Started a friendly correspondence with A. Vesnin. Participated in the international competition for the building of the Palace of Soviets for Moscow (1931), for which he made a bold, innovative project.

The Swiss Pavilion in Paris, built in 1930-1932, was an architectural discovery of its kind - a dormitory for Swiss students on the territory of an international student campus. Its originality lies in the novelty of the composition, the most original moment of which was the open support-columns of the first floor, unusual in shape, effectively shifted to the longitudinal axis of the building. Immediately after the completion of the construction work, the Swiss pavilion attracted the attention of critics and the press, making people talk about themselves. In the post-war years, on one of the walls of the library hall, Corbusier created a large wall panel in an abstract symbolic vein.

In 1935, Le Corbusier visited the United States, with lectures he made a tour of the cities of the country: New York, Yale University, Boston, Chicago, Madison, Philadelphia, again New York, Columbia University. In 1936, he again makes a similar trip, now to South America. In Rio de Janeiro, in addition to lecturing, Corbusier takes an active part in the development of the project for the complex of the Ministry of Education and Education (with L. Costa and O. Niemeyer). On his initiative, solid glazing was used in the high-rise office block of the Ministry, as well as external sun blinds, also one of the first experiments of this kind.

Le Corbusier was one of the founders of the CIAM international congresses - congresses of modern architects from different countries, united by the idea of renovating architecture. The first CIAM congress took place in La Sarra, Switzerland, in 1928. Corbusier's urban planning concepts formed the basis of the "Charter of Athens", adopted at the IV International CIAM Congress in Athens, 1933. Le Corbusier's theoretical views are set forth in his books " To architecture"(1923)," urban planning"(1925)," radiant city"(1935), and others.

The impetus for his urban planning ideas was, according to his confession, a report on a newspaper interview with his teacher Auguste Perret (who, however, later refused his student for his too extreme ideas).

In his interview, Perret proposed the construction of a city consisting of only tower houses. Le Corbusier developed the idea further. In his imaginary city, the center is formed by a group of towers with a plan in the form of an equilateral cross. The towers house administrative offices and offices, as well as public and cultural buildings. To the west of the center is a large park, to the east is an industrial area. Residential areas surround the central part of the city and the park. In the center of the group of towers, both main thoroughfares, running from north to south and from west to east, intersect on concrete pillars from 3 1/2 to 5 meters high. The streets above serve for pedestrians and passenger traffic, while freight traffic moves below. Thus, the whole city is divided into two floors, and all communications - water supply, sewerage, gas, electricity, telephone - are located below, on the first floor. The residential area of the city is separated from the industrial area by a green stripe. Garden cities are located all around in the green zone.

Thus, the idea of deurbanization, coming from the garden city, was supplemented by the idea of hyperurbanization of tower cities. In 1933, the Association of Progressive Architects (CIAM), which included Le Corbusier, Bruno Taut, and Soviet architects, proclaimed an architectural charter in Athens. It defined the city as a residential and industrial complex connected with the surrounding area and dependent on political, cultural, social, economic and political factors. Four main functions of the city were also formulated:

housing, production, recreation and the fourth function - transport, combining the first three functions - figuratively this was depicted by a triangle with three vertices (habiter, travailler, cultiver 1 "esprit et le corps), through which the circle (circuler) passes.

The Charter of Athens created a solid foundation for the edifice of a new science, already under the roof, which received the name of urban planning, or urbanism.

All these years (1922-1940), young architects from different countries worked as apprentices in the Corbusier workshop in Paris at 35 Sevres Street. Some of them subsequently became very famous and even famous, such as Kunio Maekawa (Japan), Yunzo Sakakura (Japan), Jose Luis Sert (Spain-USA), Andre Wozhansky (France), Alfred Roth (Switzerland-USA), Maxwell Fry (England) and others.

Corbusier was married to Yvonne Gallis (fr. Yvonne Gallis), from Monaco, whom he met in Paris in 1922, the marriage was formalized in 1930. In the same year, Corbusier took French citizenship.

Period 1940-1947

In 1940 Corbusier's workshop was closed, and he and his wife moved to a farm away from Paris (Ozon, Pyrenees). In 1942 he made an official trip to Algiers, in connection with the town-planning project of the city of Algiers. Returning to Paris in the same year, due to the lack of orders, he studied theory, drew, wrote books. By this time, the beginning of the systematic development of "Modulor" - the system of harmonic proportions he invented, which Corbusier applied in his first large post-war project - the Marseille Block, dates back to this time. In Paris, he founded the Ascoral Research Society (Assembly of Builders for the Renewal of Architecture), in which he presided. In various sections of society, topics were discussed, one way or another connected with the problems of construction, housing and healthy living.

After liberation, restoration work began in France, and Corbusier was invited by the authorities to participate in them as a city planner. He carried out, in particular, plans for the reconstruction of the cities of Saint-Dieu (Saint-Dieu-de-Vogues) (1945) and La Rochelle (1946), which became a new original contribution to urban planning. In these projects, for the first time, the so-called "residential unit of impressive size" appears - the prototype of the future Marseille Block. In them, as in other urban planning projects carried out at that time, the idea of a “green city” is consistently carried out, or, according to Corbusier, “The Radiant City” (“La Ville radieuse”).

In Saint-Dieu, by order of the industrialist Duval, Corbusier erects the building of the manufactory Claude and Duval (1946-1951) - a four-story block with industrial and office premises, with continuous glazing of the facades. The Duval manufactory was the first to use the so-called brise-soleil, “sun cutters” - special hinged structures invented by Corbusier that protect the glazed facade from direct sunlight. Later, sun cutters become a kind of trademark of Corbusier's buildings, where they perform both a service and a decorative role.

In 1946, Corbusier, along with other famous architects from different countries (Niemeyer, Richardson, Markelius, etc.), was invited to prepare a project for the UN headquarters complex on the banks of the East River in New York. For some reason, he did not have to participate in the project until it was fully completed; he worked on it from January to June 1947. Although officially Corbusier does not appear among the authors, nevertheless, the general layout of the complex and the high-rise 50-story building of the Secretariat in particular (1951) largely reflect his design proposals.

The period of "new plasticism" - 1950-1965

The beginning of the 50s is the beginning of a new period for Corbusier, characterized by a radical renewal of style. He moves away from the asceticism and purist restraint of his earlier writings. Now his handwriting is distinguished by the richness of plastic forms, textured surfaces. The buildings built in these years make us talk about him again. First of all, this Marseille block(1947-1952) - an apartment building in Marseille, located alone on a spacious green area. Corbusier used in this project standardized "duplex" apartments (on two levels) with balconies overlooking both sides of the house. Initially, the Marseille block was conceived as an experimental dwelling with the idea of collective living (a kind of commune). Inside the building - in the middle of its height - there is a public service complex: a cafeteria, a library, a post office, grocery stores and more. On the enclosing walls of the loggias, for the first time on such a scale, coloring in bright pure colors was used - polychromy. In this project, proportioning according to the Modulor system was also widely used. Similar Residential Units (partially modified) were erected later in the cities of Nantes-Rezé (1955), Meaux (1960), Brie-en-Foret (1961), Firminy (1968) (France), in West Berlin (1957). These buildings embodied the idea of Corbusier's "Radiant City" - a city favorable for human existence.

In 1950, at the invitation of the Indian authorities of the state of Punjab, Corbusier embarked on the most ambitious project of his life - the project of a new state capital, the city of Chandigarh. The city, including the administrative center, residential areas with all infrastructure, schools, hotels, etc., was built over a period of about ten years (1951-60, completed during the 60s). Collaborating with Le Corbusier in the design of Chandigarh were architects from England, the spouses Max Fry and Jane Drew, as well as Pierre Jeanneret, the three Chief Architects who supervised the construction. They also worked with a large group of Indian architects headed by M. N. Sharma.

Buildings designed directly by Corbusier belong to 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 the expressive character of the image, powerful monumentality and represents a new word in the architecture of that time. As in the Marseilles block, they used a special concrete surface treatment technology called “béton brut” (fr. - raw concrete) for the exterior. This technique, which became a feature of Le Corbusier's style, was later picked up by many architects in Europe and countries in other regions, which made it possible to speak of the emergence of a new trend - "brutalism".

The construction of Chandigarh was overseen by Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of independent India. The city was created by designers "from scratch", in a new place, moreover, for a civilization of a different type than the western one. In general, it was a completely new unexplored experience. Subsequent assessments in the world of this urban planning experiment are very contradictory. However, in India itself, Chandigarh is considered today one of the most comfortable and beautiful cities. In addition, in India, according to Corbusier's designs, several buildings were erected in the city of Ahmedabad (1951-1957), which were also very original both in terms of plastic and internal design.

The fifties and sixties are the time of the final recognition of Le Corbusier. He is crowned with laurels, bombarded with orders, each of his projects is being implemented. At this time, a number of buildings were built that consolidated his fame as a European avant-garde architect No. 1. The main ones are the Ronchamp Chapel (1955, France), the Brazilian Pavilion in the student campus in Paris, the La Tourette monastery complex (1957-1960), the building of the Museum of Arts in Tokyo (1959). Buildings, very different in their architectural image, plastic solution, are united by one thing - they are all original, innovative works of architecture for their time.

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 this building, in its catchy unusual forms, all the varied experience of Corbusier of the last period was embodied. This is practically the only Le Corbusier building in North America (with officially recorded authorship).

Corbusier died in 1965 at the age of 78, at Cap Martin, on the Mediterranean Sea, where he lived in his summer house La Cabanon. This tiny residence, which served him for a long time as a place of rest and work, is a kind of example of the minimum dwelling according to Corbusier.

In addition to the architectural heritage, Corbusier left behind many works of plastic art and design - paintings, sculptures, graphic works, as well as furniture samples. Many of them are kept in the collection of the Le Corbusier Foundation, which is located in the villa La Rocha / Jeanner, built by him, in Paris. And also in the Heidi Weber pavilion in Zurich (Centre Le Corbusier), a high-tech exhibition building, also built according to his project.

In 2002, the Fondation Le Corbusier in Paris and the French Ministry of Culture took the initiative to have Le Corbusier's works listed as a UNESCO World Human Heritage Site. Having enlisted the support of the countries on whose territory there are his buildings - France, Argentina, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, India, Japan - these organizations prepared a list of Le Corbusier's works for inclusion in the "Monuments ..." and submitted their proposal to UNESCO in January 2008 G.

Like his contemporaries, he was constantly experimenting, striving to master his materials to perfection, to find the best ways to use them, to develop the most economical, standardized and industrial designs. Le Corbusier was first and foremost an engineer and did not think of architecture outside of engineering. For him, architecture was primarily the realm of precise mathematical calculations.

He came to this understanding of architecture through his passion for painting cubism and for a long time remained, as he called himself, "an admirer of the right angle." In modern technology, the architect saw the spirit of the times and it was in it that he looked for the foundations for renovating architecture. "Learn from machines." A residential building should be a perfect and comfortable "machine for housing", an industrial or administrative building - a "machine for labor and management", and a modern city should live and work like a well-oiled motor. In the "machine paradise", where everything is too straightforward and cold, a person will feel like a slave to technology, a slave to order. And it is necessary that the house was not only a “car for living”. This is "the place of our thoughts, reflections, and, finally, it is ... the abode of beauty, bringing our mind much-needed peace of mind."


Church of Saint-Pierre, Firminy, France. 1969 - Construction was carried out after the death of Le Corbusier, completed in 2006	National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo. 1957-1959	Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. 1962

Unite d "Habitation of Berlin-Charlottenburg, Flatowallee 16, Berlin. 1957	La Tourette monastery complex (Sainte Marie de La Tourette), Lyon, France. 1957-1960 (with Iannis Xenakis)	Maison du Brésil, University campus, Paris. 1957

Assembly building (Palace of Assembly). Chandigarh, Punjab, India. 1951-1962	Open Hand Monument. Monument "Open hand" Chandigarh (Chandigarh), Punjab, India	Museum at Ahmedabad, Ahmedabad, India. 1956

Mill Owners Association Building, Ahmedabad, India. 1951	College of Arts (Government College of Arts (GCA), Chandigarh, Punjab, India. 1959	Secretariat Building. Chandigarh, Punjab, India. 1951-1958

Museum and Gallery of Art (Museum and Gallery of Art). Chandigarh, Punjab, India. 1951	Cabanon Le Corbusier, Roquebrune-Cap-Martin. 1951	Chapelle Notre Dame du Haut, Ronchamp, France. 1950-1954

Curutchet House (La Plata), La Plata, Argentina. 1949	Marseille residential unit (Unité d "Habitation), Marseille, France. 1947-1952	Manufactory Duval (Usine Claude et Duval) in Saint-Dié-des-Vosges, France. 1945-1951

Clarte apartment building (Immeuble Clarté), Geneva, Switzerland. 1930	Villa Savoye, Poissy-sur-Seine, France. 1929-1931	House of Tsentrosoyuz in Moscow. 1928-1933

Houses in the village of Weissenhof Estate, Stuttgart, Germany. 1927	Home of the Salvation Army (Armee du Salut), Cite de Refuge, Paris. 1926-1928	Pavilion "Esprit Nouveau" (Pavillon de L "Esprit Nouveau), 1924, Paris - not preserved

The village of Fruges (Quartiers Modernes Frugès), Pessac, Bordeaux, France, 1924-1925	Villa La Roche / Jeanneret (Villa La Roche / Villa Jeanneret), Paris, 1923-1924	Villa Schwob (Villa Turku) Villa Schwob, La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland, 1916

Villa Jeanneret-Perret, La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland, 1912	Villa Fallet, La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland, 1905

Each era has its own outstanding personalities, brilliant discoverers who own minds. In the twentieth century, such a cult figure in architecture was the Frenchman Le Corbusier. Along with such contemporaries as Frank Lloyd Wright, Richard Neutra, Walter Gropius, Mies van Der Rohe, Alvar Aalto, he was a pioneer of new roads, a pioneer of modern architecture. Almost a whole century has passed under the sign of his ideas and his name.

The modern city according to Corbusier. Architectural fantasy of the 20s

The beginning of Corbusier's creative career as an architect coincided with the technical revolution of the new time, the main points of which were the emergence of such technical innovations as electricity, telephone communication and radio, the appearance of the automobile, the emergence of aviation, as well as the construction of new generation giant ships, ocean liners like the Aquitania ", "Olympic" or "Queen Mary-1". At the junction of traditional arts - theater, literature, fine arts and only invented photography, a completely new art, cinema, was born.

Marseille Block in green surroundings. By the way, the world first saw the LOGIA of apartments in such a representation at this very facility.

Television was invented (only in its rudiments, of course). The abundance of innovations and transformations in all areas made us talk about the advent of some new era. In construction, the turning point was the use of materials such as metal, glass and the recently invented reinforced concrete, reinforced concrete - they opened up prospects for builders and architects that seemed overwhelming, on the verge of fantasy. All these achievements of scientific thought, technology and design - phenomenal for their time - became for Corbusier the main inspirational moment of his work.

Marseille block. Terrace on the roof of the building: there is a solarium, a jogging track, a children's studio, a swimming pool. 1947-52

Le Corbusier (fr. Le Corbusier; real name Charles-Edouard Jeanneret-Gris (fr. Charles-Edouard Jeanneret-Gris); October 6, 1887, La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland - August 27, 1965, Roquebrune - Cap Martin , France) is a French architect of Swiss origin, a pioneer of modernism, a representative of international style architecture, an artist and designer.

Le Corbusier is one of the most significant architects of the twentieth century, his place is on a par with such architectural reformers as Frank Lloyd Wright, Walter Gropius, Mies van der Rohe. He achieved fame thanks to his buildings, always original in his own way, as well as to the talented pen of a writer-publicist.

Heidi WeberMuseum

Buildings designed by him can be found in different countries - in Switzerland, France, the USA, Argentina, Japan and even in Russia. The characteristic features of Le Corbusier's architecture are volumes-blocks raised above the ground; free-standing columns below them; flat, usable terraced roofs ("roof gardens"); "transparent", visible through facades ("free facade"); rough unfinished concrete surfaces; free floor spaces ("free plan"). Once belonging to his personal architectural program, now all these techniques have become familiar features of modern construction.

carpenter center

The extraordinary popularity of Le Corbusier's work can be explained by the universality of his approach, the social content of his proposals. It is impossible not to note his merits in the fact that he opened the eyes of architects to free forms. To a large extent, it was under the influence of his designs and buildings that there was a shift in the minds of architects, as a result of which free forms in architecture began to be used much more widely and with much more ease than before.

Center LeCorbusier

His personality traits are ambiguous: he is both a man of open consciousness, and a mystic, he is also a public leader, organizer of the International Congress of Contemporary Architects CIAM — and a hermit crab hiding from everyone in his tiny house-workshop on Cap Martin, this is an apologist for a rational approach , and at the same time an architect who created structures that seemed to contemporaries the height of eccentricity and irrationality.

Among the powerful of this world, Andre Malraux and Jawaharlal Nehru were his patrons. The characteristic features of Le Corbusier's image are a strict dark suit, a bow tie, and round horn-rimmed glasses, which have become his trademark.

Center Le Corbusier

Biography and creative activity

Swiss period 1887-1917

Le Corbusier, real name Charles-Edouard Jeanneret-Gris, was born on October 6, 1887 in Switzerland, in the city of La Chaux-de-Fonds, the French-speaking canton of Neuchâtel, in a family where the craft of an enamel watchmaker was traditional. At the age of 13, he entered the School of Art in Chaux-de-Fonds, where he studied arts and crafts with teacher Charles Leplatenier.

Education at the School of Arts was based on the ideas of the “arts and crafts” movement founded by J. Ruskin, as well as on the art nouveau style popular at that time. From the moment he entered this school, Edouard Jeanneret began to engage in jewelry business on his own, creating enamels and engraving monograms on watch cases.

E. Jeanneret undertook his first architectural project at the age of less than 18, with the help of a professional architect. It was the residence of the engraver Louis Fallet (Fallet's house), a board member of the School of Art. When the construction was completed, with the money earned, Jeanneret made his first educational trip - to Italy and the countries of Austria-Hungary

For about six months, Jeanneret was in Vienna, where he was busy with two new projects of residential buildings for Chaux-de-Fonds, studied the architecture of the Vienna Secession, met with artists and architects of this city, in particular with the then very popular Josef Hoffmann.

Seeing the drawings made by Jeanneret on a trip, Hoffmann offered him a job in his studio, which he refused, because he believed that the Secession (or Art Nouveau, as it is called in Russia) no longer meets modern challenges. The journey ended in Paris, where Jeanneret spent more than two years working as an intern draftsman for the firm of the brothers Auguste and Gustave Perret (1908–1910), innovators who promoted the newly discovered reinforced concrete. In 1910, for about six months, he trained (together with Ludwig Mies van Der Rohe and Walter Gropius) in the workshop of the famous German master of architecture Peter Behrens near Berlin (Neubabelsberg).

Later, for the purpose of self-education, Jeanneret took another trip to the East (1911) - through Greece, the Balkans and Asia Minor, where he had the opportunity to study ancient monuments, folklore and traditional folk construction of the Mediterranean. These travels became his universities and in many ways shaped his views on art and architecture.

Returning to his homeland, Jeanneret began working as a teacher at the School of Arts, the same one where he studied. In 1914 he opened his first architectural studio. In La Chaux-de-Fonds, he designed several buildings, mostly residential buildings, in particular, the Villa Jeanneret-Perret (1912) built for his parents. Commissioned by a local watch magnate, Villa Schwob (or "Turkish Villa", 1916-1917), according to Le Corbusier himself, was the first project in which he felt like an architect in full measure.

In the same period, Jeanneret created and patented the Dom-Ino project (1914), which was very significant for his creative biography (together with the engineer M. Dubois). It foresaw the possibilities of building from large-sized prefabricated elements, which at that time was an innovative step. Corbusier implemented the Dom-Hino concept later in many of his buildings.

In early 1917, Édouard Jeanneret left La Chaux-de-Fonds and Switzerland to settle permanently in Paris.

Purist period 1917-1930

Upon arrival in Paris, Ed. Jeanneret works as a consulting architect for Max Dubois' Society for the Application of Reinforced Concrete.

During his work in it (April 1917 - January 1919), he completed quite a few projects, mainly technical structures - a water tower in Podensac (Gironde), an arsenal in Toulouse, a power plant on the Vienne River, slaughterhouses in Challuy and Garshizy, and others .

These projects, not yet marked by special originality, were not included by Le Corbusier in his Complete Works. Working in the mentioned "Society ...", Ed. Jeanneret establishes a factory for the production of building products in Alfortville and becomes its director. He also teaches drawing in a children's art studio.

In Paris Ed. Jeanneret met Amédée Ozenfant, an artist who introduced him to modern painting, in particular Cubism. Ozenfant introduces Braque, Picasso, Gris, Lipchitz, and later Fernand Léger. Under the influence of these acquaintances, Ed. Jeanneret himself begins to actively engage in painting, which becomes his second profession.

Architects (from left): Erik Lallerstedt, Le Corbusier and Ivar Tengbom 1933 in Stockholm

Together with Ozanfant, they arrange joint exhibitions of their paintings, declaring them as exhibitions of "purists". In 1919, Jeanneret and Ozenfant, with the financial support of the Swiss businessman Raoul La Roche, began to publish the philosophical and artistic magazine Esprit Nouveau (French L'Esprit Nouveau - "The New Spirit"). Ed is in charge of the architecture department. Jeanneret, signing his articles with the pseudonym "Le Corbusier". The Esprit Nouveau magazine published Le Corbusier's Five Starting Points of Modern Architecture for the first time, a kind of set of rules for modern architecture.

In 1922 Ed. Jeanneret opens his architectural office in Paris, he takes his cousin Pierre Jeanneret as an employee, who becomes his constant companion. In 1924, they rented a wing of the old Parisian monastery at st. Sevres, 35 (fr. rue de Sevre, 35). Most of Corbusier's projects were created in this impromptu workshop, and a group of his assistants and employees worked here.

Haus Citrohan (Weißenhofsiedlung)

Stuttgart Germany

In the 1920s, Ed. Jeanneret (now Le Corbusier) designed and built several rich villas that made his name; most of them are located in or around Paris. These are buildings of a bright modernist style; their completely new and even defiant aesthetics for their time made Corbusier speak of the new leader of the European architectural avant-garde.

The main ones are the Villa La Roche/Janneret (1924), the Villa Stein in Garches (now Vaucreson, 1927), the Villa Savoy in Poissy (1929). The characteristic features of these buildings are simple geometric shapes, white smooth facades, horizontal windows, and the use of an internal frame made of reinforced concrete. They are also distinguished by the innovative use of interior space - the so-called "free plan". In these buildings, Corbusier applied his architect's code - "Five starting points of architecture."

Geneve immeuble Clarte

For the exhibition "Autumn Salon" in 1922, the Jeanneret brothers presented a model of the "Modern City for 3 million inhabitants", which offered a new vision of the city of the future. Subsequently, this project was transformed into the "Plan Voisin" (1925) - a developed proposal for a radical reconstruction of Paris. The Voisin plan provided for the construction of a new business center of Paris on a completely cleared area; for this it was proposed to demolish 240 hectares of old urban development.

Maison Blanch

Eighteen identical skyscrapers-offices of 50 floors each were located according to the plan freely, at a distance from each other. High-rise buildings complemented the horizontal structures at their feet - with the functions of all kinds of service and maintenance. At the same time, the built-up area was only 5%, and the remaining 95% of the territory was allocated for highways, parks and pedestrian zones (according to the accompanying annotation by L.K.) The “Plan Voisin” was widely discussed in the French press and became a kind of sensation.

In this and other similar projects - these are plans for Buenos Aires (1930), Antwerp (1932), Rio de Janeiro (1936), "Aubus Plan" for Algiers (1931) - Le Corbusier developed completely new urban concepts. Their common essence is to increase the comfort of living in cities through new planning methods, to create green zones in them (the concept of a "green city"), a modern network of transport routes - and all this with a significant increase in the height of buildings and population density. In these projects, Corbusier proved himself to be a consistent urbanist.

In 1924, by order of the industrialist Henri Fruget, in the suburb of Pessac near Bordeaux, the town “Modern Houses of Fruges” (fr. Quartiers Modernes Frugès) was built according to the project of Corbusier. This town, consisting of 50 two-three-story residential buildings, was one of the first experiments in the construction of houses in series in France.

Four types of buildings are used here, different in configuration and layout - ribbon houses (arcade type), detached houses (skyscraper type) and block houses. In this project, Corbusier tried to offer different types of modern homes at affordable prices - simple forms, easy to build, and at the same time with a modern level of comfort.

national museum of western artTokyo

At the International Exhibition of 1925 in Paris, the Esprit Nouveau pavilion was built according to the project of Corbusier. In terms of its aesthetics and internal structure, the pavilion was a kind of modernist architectural declaration, just like the pavilion of Soviet Russia by architect K. Melnikov for the same exhibition. The Esprit Nouveau pavilion included a life-sized living cell of an apartment building - an experimental apartment on two levels. Corbusier used a similar cell later, in the late 40s, when creating his Marseille Residential Unit.

1930s - the beginning of the "international" style

Residential building in the village of Weissenhof, Stuttgart, Germany. 1927

By the beginning of the 1930s, the name of Le Corbusier became widely known, large orders began to come to him. One of the first such orders was the House of the Salvation Army in Paris (1929-1931). In 1928, Corbusier participated in the competition for the building of the People's Commissariat of Light Industry (House of the Centrosoyuz) in Moscow, which was then built (1928-1935). Tsentrosoyuz was a completely new, in fact, unprecedented for Europe example of a modern business building. The construction was carried out under the guidance of the architect Nikolai Colli.

House of Tsentrosoyuz

Palace of Assembly Chandigarh

The Swiss Pavilion in Paris, built in 1930-1932, was an architectural discovery - a hostel for Swiss students on the territory of the International Campus. Its originality lies in the novelty of the composition, the most unexpected moment of which was the open support-columns of the first floor, unusual in shape, effectively shifted to the longitudinal axis of the building. Immediately after the completion of the construction work, the Swiss pavilion attracted the attention of critics and the press, making people talk about themselves.

Chandigarh High Court

In the post-war years, on one of the walls of the library hall, Corbusier created a large wall painting in an abstract and symbolic manner.

In 1935, Le Corbusier visited the United States, with lectures he made a tour of the cities of the country: New York, Yale University, Boston, Chicago, Madison, Philadelphia, again New York, Columbia University. In 1936, he again makes a similar trip, now to South America. In Rio de Janeiro, in addition to lecturing, Corbusier takes part in the development of the project for the building of the Ministry of Education and Education (architects L. Costa and O. Niemeyer).

On his initiative, solid glazing was used on the high-rise office block of this complex, as well as external sun-shading sun-blinds, one of the first experiments of this kind.

Le Corbusier was one of the founders of the international CIAM congresses - congresses of contemporary architects from different countries, united by the idea of renovating architecture. The first CIAM congress was held in La Sarraz, Switzerland in 1928. Corbusier's urban planning concepts formed the basis of the "Charter of Athens", adopted at the IV International Congress of CIAM in Athens, 1933. Le Corbusier's theoretical views are outlined in the books "Toward Architecture" (1923), "Urban Planning" (1925), "Radiant City" ( 1935) and others.

Chandigarh Secretariat

All these years (1922-1940), young architects from different countries worked as apprentices in the Corbusier workshop in Paris on the Rue Sèvres. Some of them subsequently became very famous and even famous, such as Kunio Maekawa (Japan), Junzo Sakakura (Japan), Josep Luis Sert (Spain-USA), Andre Wozhansky (France), Alfred Roth (Switzerland-USA), Maxwell Fry (England) and others.

New York City United Nations UNO United Nations General Assembly

Corbusier was married to Yvonne Gallis (fr. Yvonne Gallis), from Monaco, whom he met in Paris in 1922, the marriage was formalized in 1930. In the same year, Corbusier took French citizenship.

Japan Peace Bell of United Nations

Period 1940-1947

In 1940, the Corbusier workshop was closed, and he and his wife moved to a farm away from Paris (Ozon, Pyrenees). In 1942, Corbusier made an official trip to Algiers, in connection with the urban planning project of the city of Algiers. Returning to Paris in the same year, due to the lack of orders, he studied theory, drew, wrote books.

By this time, the beginning of the systematic development of the Modulor, the system of harmonic proportions invented by Le Corbusier, which he applied in the very first large post-war projects, dates back to this time. In Paris, he founded the research society "Ascoral" (Assembly of Builders for the Renewal of Architecture), in which he presided. In various sections of society, topics were discussed, one way or another connected with the problems of construction, housing and healthy living.

In these projects, for the first time, the so-called "residential unit" by Le Corbusier appears - fr. Unité d "habitation, a prototype of the future Marseille Block. In these, as in other urban development projects carried out at that time, the idea of a "green city" is consistently carried out, or, according to Corbusier, the "Radiant City" (fr. "La Ville radieuse ").

Corbusierhaus Berlin

In Saint-Dieu, by order of the industrialist Duval, Le Corbusier erects the building of the Claude and Duval Manufactory (1946-1951) - a four-story block with industrial and office premises, with continuous glazing of the facades. In the Duval manufactory, the so-called fr. brise-soleil ("sun cutters" - special hinged structures invented by Corbusier that protect the glazed facade from direct sunlight. From that moment on, sun cutters become a kind of trademark of Corbusier's buildings, where they perform both a service and a decorative role.

Villa Anatole Schwob

In 1946, Corbusier, along with other famous architects from different countries (Niemeyer, Richardson, Markelius, etc.), was invited to design the UN headquarters complex on the banks of the East River in New York. He worked on it from January to June 1947. For some reason, he did not have to participate in the project until it was completed, and officially Corbusier did not appear on the list of authors. However, the overall layout of the complex, and especially the high-rise 50-story Secretariat Building (built 1951), largely reflects his design proposals.

Le Corbusier(Le Corbusier). He's definitely a genius, whoever he really is. Le Corbusier did so much that now it does not matter who he was - a genius of his time, looking into the future, a talented compiler or someone who stole unnoticed ideas and made them his discoveries. He worked at a time when good students quickly became teachers themselves, when a lot of progressive high-quality ideas were born, and their implementation was so fast that the authors could turn out to be plagiarists, at a time when architects were a community.

“To be modern is not a fashion, it is a state. Each of us must accept the conditions in which he lives, and adaptation to them is his duty, not a choice ... "
Le Corbusier

! In September 2014, the architectural portal TOTALARCH.COM presented the project CORBUSIER.TOTALARCH.COM. The resource contains all the buildings, most of the projects, books by Le Corbusier, published in Russian and other materials that are the legacy of the master.

Le Corbusier(fr. Le Corbusier; real name Charles Edouard Jeanneret-Gris(fr. Charles Edouard Jeanneret Gris); 1887-1965) - French architect of Swiss origin, artist, designer, creator of International Style architecture.

Swiss period 1887-1917

Charles Edouard Jeanneret, - was born on October 6, 1887 in Switzerland, in the city of La Chaux-de-Fonds, the French-speaking canton of Neuchâtel. He belonged to a family where the craft of a watchmaker-enameller was traditional. At the age of 13, he entered the School of Art in Chaux-de-Fonds, where he studied arts and crafts with teacher Charles Leplatenier. Education at the School of Arts was based on the ideas of "Arts and Crafts", a popular movement at that time, founded by J. Ruskin, and also in the heyday of the Art Nouveau style. From the moment he entered the School of Art, Edouard Jeanneret began to engage in jewelry business and engrave watch cases on his own.

During this trip, E. Jeanneret was an intern, working as a draftsman for the architect and designer Josef Hoffmann, leader of the Vienna Secession (1907). Then - in Paris, in the workshop of the brothers Auguste Perret and Gustave Perret(1908-1910), architects who were among the first to use reinforced concrete in the construction of multi-storey residential buildings. In 1910-1911 he worked in Berlin, in the workshop of a major master of architecture Peter Behrens. In 1911, for the purpose of self-education, he traveled to the East - through Greece, the Balkans and Asia Minor, where he studied ancient monuments and traditional folk construction. This journey largely shaped his views on art and architecture.

In the same period, Jeanneret created and patented a very significant for his creative biography Dom-ino project(1914) (together with engineer M. Dubois). This project foresaw the possibility of building from large-sized prefabricated elements, which at that time was an innovative invention. Corbusier implemented the Dom-Hino concept later in many of his buildings. At the end of 1916, E. Jeanneret left La Chaux-de-Fonds and Switzerland forever to settle permanently in Paris.

Purist period 1917-1930

In Paris, Jeanneret met Amédée Ozenfant, an artist who introduced him to contemporary painting, in particular Cubism. Ozenfant introduces Jeanneret to the environment of Parisian artists, introduces Marriage, Picasso, Grisom, Lipschitz, later with Fernand Léger. Jeanneret begins to actively engage in painting, which becomes his second profession. Together with Ozanfant, they arrange joint exhibitions of their paintings, declaring them as exhibitions of "purists". In 1919, Jeanneret and Ozenfant, with the financial support of La Roche, create a philosophical and artistic review magazine " Esprit Nouveau» (« L'Esprit Nouveau”), in which the architectural department is led by Jeanneret. He publishes his articles under the pseudonym "Le Corbusier". Esprit Nouveau magazine published for the first time " Five starting points of modern architecture» Le Corbusier, a kind of set of rules for the newest
architecture.

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. Tape windows. Thanks to the frame structure, windows can be made of almost any size and configuration, incl. freely stretch them with tape along the entire facade, from corner to corner.
5. 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.

Five starting points of modern architecture

1. Racks. To solve a scientific problem means, first of all, to solve its elements. In a building, load-bearing elements can be separated from non-bearing ones. Instead of the former foundations, on which the building rested without a control calculation, dissected foundations appear, and in place of the former walls - separate racks. Racks and pile foundations are accurately calculated in accordance with the weight that falls on them. Piles are installed at certain equal intervals, not related to the internal layout of the house. They rise from the ground by 3, 4, 6, etc. meters and carry the first floor at this height. The rooms are thus free from dampness, they have enough light and air, the building site turns into a garden that runs under the house. The same plane is gained a second time thanks to the flat roof.
2. Flat roof, roof garden. The flat roof allows it to be used for residential purposes: terrace, garden... Sewers run inside the house. On the roofs, gardens with beautiful vegetation can be laid out, not only bushes, but also small trees up to 3-4 meters in height.
3. Free design of the plan. The pile system carries intermediate floors and reaches up to the roof. Internal walls are located in any places, and one floor does not depend on the other to any extent. There are no more capital walls, there are only membranes of any fortress. The consequence of this is absolute freedom in the design of the plan, i.e. the ability to freely dispose of all available funds, which should easily be reconciled with some high cost of concrete structures.
4. Extended window. Piles with intermediate floors form rectangular openings in the facade, through which light and air enter in abundant quantities. The window stretches from post to post, thus becoming an elongated window... The room is equally illuminated in all its places - from wall to wall. It has been proven that such a room is illuminated 8 times more intensely than the same room with vertical windows. The entire history of architecture revolves exclusively around window openings. And now reinforced concrete opens up the possibility of maximum lighting with the help of elongated windows.
5. Free design of the facade. Due to the fact that the foundation of the house is raised on load-bearing piles and is located in a balcony-like manner around the building, the entire facade is pushed forward from the supporting structure. Thus, the façade loses its load-bearing properties, and the windows can stretch to any length without direct relation to the internal articulation of the building. A window can be 10 meters long, as well as 200 meters (eg our League of Nations project in Geneva). Thus, the facade receives a free design.

These five main points are the foundation of the new aesthetics. We have nothing left of the architecture of past eras, as little as a literary and historical school education gives.

In 1922, Corbusier, along with his cousin Pierre Jeanneret opens his architectural office in Paris. Pierre Jeanneret became his collaborator for a long time. In 1924, they rented a wing of an old Parisian monastery at st. Sevres, 35 ( rue de Sevre, 35). A large group of Corbusier's employees constantly worked in this impromptu workshop, and most of his projects were created here.

For the exhibition "Autumn Salon" in 1922, the Jeanneret brothers presented the project " A modern city of 3 million inhabitants”, which proposed a new vision of the city of the future. Subsequently, this project was transformed into " Plan Voisin» (1925) - developed proposal for a radical reconstruction of Paris. The Voisin plan provided for the construction of a new business center of Paris on a completely cleared area. To do this, it was proposed to demolish 240 hectares of old buildings. Eighteen identical skyscraper-offices of 50 floors, according to the plan, were located freely, at a sufficient distance from each other. At the same time, the built-up area was only 5%, and the remaining 95% of the territory was allocated for highways, parks and pedestrian zones. The "Plan Voisin" was widely discussed in the French press and became something of a sensation. In this and his other urban planning projects - the plan for Buenos Aires (1930), Antwerp (1932), Rio de Janeiro (1936), the "Aubus Plan" for Algiers (1931) - Corbusier developed completely new urban planning concepts. Their common essence is to increase the comfort of living in cities through new planning methods, to create a modern system of roads in them - with a significant increase in the height of buildings and population density. In these projects, Corbusier proved himself to be a consistent urbanist.

In the 1920s, Corbusier designed and built several modernist villas that made his name. The most famous of them are located in Paris or its environs. This Villa La Rocha/Janneret (1924), Villa Stein in Garches(now Vaucreson, 1927), Paris, Villa Savoy in Poissy (1929). The characteristic features of these buildings are simple geometric shapes, white smooth facades, horizontal windows, and the use of an internal frame. They are also distinguished by the innovative use of internal space - the so-called. "free plan". In these buildings, Corbusier used his code "Five starting points of modern architecture."

In 1924, by order of the industrialist Henri Fruget, in the village of Pessac near Bordeaux, the town " Modern Fruget houses» (Quartiers Modernes Frugès). This town, consisting of 50 two-three-story residential buildings, was one of the first experiments in the construction of houses in series (in France). Here, four types of buildings are used, different in configuration and layout - tape houses, blocked and detached. In this project, Corbusier tried to find the formula for a modern home at an affordable price - simple forms, easy to build and at the same time possessing a modern level of comfort.

30s - the beginning of the "international" style

By the beginning of the 30s, Le Corbusier became widely known, large orders began to come to him. One of the first such orders - Home of the Salvation Army in Paris(1929-31). In 1928, Corbusier entered the competition for People's Commissariat of Light Industry building (House of Tsentrosoyuz) in Moscow, which was then built (1928-1933). Tsentrosoyuz was a completely new, in fact, unprecedented for Europe example of a modern business building. The construction was carried out under the guidance of the architect Nikolai Colli.

In connection with the construction of the Centrosoyuz, Le Corbusier repeatedly came to Moscow - in 1928, 1929, in the early thirties. met with Tairov, Meyerhold, Eisenstein, admired the creative atmosphere that prevailed in the country at that time, and especially the achievements of the Soviet architectural avant-garde - Vesnin brothers, Moses Ginzburg, Konstantin Melnikov . Started a friendly correspondence with A. Vesnin. Participated in an international competition for building of the Palace of Soviets for Moscow (1931), for which he made a bold, innovative project.

An architectural discovery of its kind was built in 1930-1932 Swiss Pavilion in Paris- a hostel for Swiss students on the territory of an international campus. Its originality lies in the novelty of the composition, the most original moment of which was the open support-columns of the first floor, unusual in shape, effectively shifted to the longitudinal axis of the building. Immediately after the completion of the construction work, the Swiss pavilion attracted the attention of critics and the press, making people talk about themselves. In the post-war years, on one of the walls of the library hall, Corbusier created a large wall panel in an abstract symbolic vein.

Le Corbusier was one of the founders of international congresses CIAM - congresses of modern architects from different countries, united by the idea of renovating architecture. The first CIAM congress took place in La Sarra, Switzerland, in 1928. Corbusier's urban planning concepts formed the basis of " Charter of Athens”, adopted at the IV International Congress of CIAM in Athens, 1933. The theoretical views of Le Corbusier are presented in the books “ To architecture"(1923)," urban planning"(1925)," radiant city"(1935), and others.

The impetus for his urban planning ideas was, according to him, a report on a newspaper interview with his teacher Auguste Perret(who, however, later refused his student for his too extreme ideas).

Thus, the idea of deurbanization, coming from the garden city, was supplemented by the idea of hyperurbanization of tower cities. In 1933, the Association of Progressive Architects (CJAM), which included Le Corbusier, And Bruno Taut, and Soviet architects, proclaimed an architectural charter in Athens. It defined the city as a residential and industrial complex connected with the surrounding area and dependent on political, cultural, social, economic and political factors. Four main functions of the city were also formulated:

housing, production, recreation and the fourth function - transport, combining the first three functions - figuratively this was depicted by a triangle with three vertices (habiter, travailler, cultiver 1 "esprit et le corps), through which the circle (circuler) passes.

Athens Charter created a solid foundation for the building of a new science already under the roof, which received the name of urban planning, or urbanism.

All these years (1922-1940), young architects from different countries worked as apprentices in the Corbusier workshop in Paris at 35 Sevres Street. Some of them later became very famous and even famous, such as Kunio Maekawa(Japan), Yunzo Sakakura(Japan), Jose Luis Sert(Spain-USA), Andre Wozhansky(France), Alfred Roth(Switzerland-USA), Maxwell Fry(England) and others.

Corbusier was married to Yvon Ghali(French: Yvonne Gallis), from Monaco, whom he met in Paris in 1922, officially married in 1930. In the same year, Corbusier took French citizenship.

Period 1940-1947

In 1940 Corbusier's workshop was closed, and he and his wife moved to a farm away from Paris (Ozon, Pyrenees). In 1942 he made an official trip to Algiers, in connection with the town-planning project of the city of Algiers. Returning to Paris in the same year, due to the lack of orders, he studied theory, drew, wrote books. By this time, the systematic development of " modulora”- the system of harmonic proportions he invented, which Corbusier applied in his very first large post-war project - the Marseille Block. In Paris, he founded a research society " Ascora l ”(Assembly of Builders for the Renewal of Architecture), in which he presided. In various sections of society, topics were discussed, one way or another connected with the problems of construction, housing and healthy living.

After liberation, restoration work began in France, and Corbusier was invited by the authorities to participate in them as a city planner. He carried out, in particular, plans for the reconstruction of the cities of Saint-Dieu (Saint-Dieu-de-Vogues) (1945) and La Rochelle (1946), which became a new original contribution to urban planning. In these projects, for the first time, the so-called "residential unit of impressive size" appears - the prototype of the future Marseille Block. In them, as in other urban planning projects carried out at that time, the idea of a "green city" is consistently carried out, or, according to Corbusier - "Radiant City" ("La Ville radieuse").

In Saint-Dieu, by order of the industrialist Duval, Corbusier erects the building of the manufactory Claude and Duval (1946-1951) - a four-story block with industrial and office premises, with continuous glazing of the facades. In the Duval manufactory, the so-called brise-soleil, "sun cutters» - special hinged structures invented by Corbusier that protect the glazed facade from direct sunlight. Later, sun cutters become a kind of trademark of Corbusier's buildings, where they perform both a service and a decorative role.

In 1946, Corbusier, along with other famous architects from different countries ( Niemeyer, Richardson, Markelius etc.) was invited to prepare the project of the complex UN headquarters on the East River in New York. For some reason, he did not have to participate in the project until it was fully completed; he worked on it from January to June 1947. Although officially Corbusier does not appear among the authors, nevertheless, the general layout of the complex and the high-rise 50-story building of the Secretariat in particular (1951) largely reflect his design proposals.

The period of "new plasticism" - 1950-1965

The beginning of the 50s is the beginning of a new period for Corbusier, characterized by a radical renewal of style. He moves away from the asceticism and purist restraint of his earlier writings. Now his handwriting is distinguished by the richness of plastic forms, textured surfaces. The buildings built in these years make us talk about him again. First of all, this Marseille block(1947-1952) - an apartment building in Marseille, located alone on a spacious green area. Corbusier used in this project standardized "duplex" apartments (on two levels) with balconies overlooking both sides of the house. Initially, the Marseille block was conceived as an experimental dwelling with the idea of collective living (a kind of commune). Inside the building - in the middle of its height - there is a public service complex: a cafeteria, a library, a post office, grocery stores and more. On the enclosing walls of the loggias, for the first time on such a scale, coloring in bright pure colors was used - polychromy. In this project, proportioning according to the system " modulor". Similar Residential Units (partially modified) were erected later in the cities of Nantes-Rezé (1955), Meaux (1960), Brie-en-Foret (1961), Firminy (1968) (France), in West Berlin (1957). These buildings embodied the idea of Corbusier's "Radiant City" - a city favorable for human existence.

Buildings designed directly by Corbusier belong to 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 the expressive character of the image, powerful monumentality and represents a new word in the architecture of that time. As in the Marseilles block, they used a special concrete surface treatment technology called “béton brut” (fr. - raw concrete) for the exterior. This technique, which became a feature of Le Corbusier's style, was later picked up by many architects in Europe and countries in other regions, which made it possible to talk about the emergence of a new trend - "brutalism".

The fifties and sixties are the time of the final recognition of Le Corbusier. He is crowned with laurels, bombarded with orders, each of his projects is being implemented. At this time, a number of buildings were built that consolidated his fame as the European avant-garde architect No. 1. The main ones are ronchamp chapel(1955, France), Brazilian pavilion on campus in Paris, Monastery complex of La Tourette (1957-1960), Tokyo Museum of Art building(1959). Buildings, very different in their architectural image, plastic solution, are united by one thing - they are all original, innovative works of architecture for their time.

One of Corbusier's last major works, a U.S.-built cultural Harvard University Center, Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts(1959-1962). In this building, in its catchy unusual forms, all the varied experience of Corbusier of the last period was embodied. This is practically the only Le Corbusier building in North America (with officially recorded authorship).

Distinctions and awards of Le Corbusier:

Elected honorary doctor (honoris causa) of the University of Zurich (for the study of mathematical orders, 1934),

Technical University in Zurich (1955), University of Cambridge (1959), Columbia University (New York, 1961), University of Geneva (1963);

Honorary member of many art academies
Awards of the French Legion of Honor: Order of the Knight (1937); order of the Commander (1952); Order of the Officer of the highest rank (1963).

Among other awards:
1953 - Gold Medal of the Royal Institute of British Architects;
1961 - AIA Gold Medal - American Institute of Architects;
1961 - French Order of Merit;
1963 - Gold medal in Florence;

The main buildings and structures built according to the designs of Le Corbusier:

1905 - Villa Fallet, La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland
1912 - Villa Jeanneret-Perret, La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland
1916 - Villa Schwob (Villa Turku) Villa Schwob, La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland
1922 - House-studio Ofanzan, Paris, France
1923-1924 - Villa La Roche / Jeanneret (Villa La Roche / Villa Jeanneret), Paris
1924-1925 - Quartiers Modernes Frugès, Pessac, Bordeaux, France

1924 - Pavilion "ESPRI NUVO" (Pavillon de L "Esprit Nouveau), Paris - not preserved
1925 - Villa Jeanneret, Paris
1926-1928 - Home of the Salvation Army (Armée du Salut), Cité de Refuge, Paris.
1926 - Villa Cook, Boulogne-sur-Seine, France
1926-1927 - Villa Stein\de Monzy, Vaucresson, France
1927 - Houses in the village of Weissenhof Estate, Stuttgart, Germany
1928-1933 - House of Tsentrosoyuz in Moscow
1929-1931 - Villa Savoye, Poissy (Poissy-sur-Seine), France
1930-1932 - Swiss Pavilion at the International Campus (Pavillon Suisse, Cité Universitaire), Paris
1930 - Clarte apartment building (Immeuble Clarté), Geneva, Switzerland
1930 - Maison Errazuriz, Chile
1931-1933 - House in Port Molitor (L.C. apartments) Paris, France
1931 - Participation in the competition project for the building of the Palace of Soviets in Moscow
1936 - Palace of Ministry of National Education and Public Health, Rio de Janeiro
1938 - The project of the skyscraper "Cartesian"
1945-1951 - Manufactory Duval (Usine Claude et Duval) in Saint-Dié-des-Vosges, France
1947-1952 - Marseille residential unit (Unité d "Habitation), Marseille, France
1949 - Curutchet House (La Plata), La Plata, Argentina
1949-1952 - Competitive design for the United Nations building in New York (United Nations headquarters), New York City
1950-1954 - Chapelle Notre Dame du Haut, Ronchamp, France
1951 - Cabanon Le Corbusier, Roquebrune-Cap-Martin
1951 Maisons Jaoul, Neuilly-sur-Seine, France

Indian projects:

1951-1959 - Buildings in Chandigarh - the new capital of the state of Punjab, India (with Iannis Xenakis):
1951 - Museum and Gallery of Art (Museum and Gallery of Art)
1951-1958 - Secretariat Building (Secretariat Building)
1951-1955 - Palace of Justice (Palace of Justice)
1953 - Governor's Palace
1951-1962 - Assembly Building (Palace of Assembly)
1959 - College of Arts (Government College of Arts (GCA)
1959 - College of Architecture (Chandigarh College of Architecture (CCA) 1951 - Villa Sarabhai, Ahmedabad, India
1951 - Villa Shodan, Ahmedabad, India
1951 - Mill Owners "Association Building", Ahmedabad, India
1956 - Museum at Ahmedabad, Ahmedabad, India

1956 - Saddam Hussein Gymnasium, Baghdad, Iraq

1952 - Unite d "Habitation of Nantes-Rezé, Nantes, France
1957 - Unité d "Habitation of Briey en Forêt, France
1957 - Maison du Brésil, Campus, Paris
1957-1960 - La Tourette Monastery Complex (Sainte Marie de La Tourette), Lyon, France (together with Iannis Xenakis)
1957 - Unite d "Habitation of Berlin-Charlottenburg, Flatowallee 16, Berlin
1957 - Unite d "Habitation of Meaux, France
1958 - Philips Pavilion, Brussels, Belgium (with Iannis Xenakis) - no longer preserved.
1961 - Center for Electronic Calculus, Olivetti, Milan, Italy
1962 - Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, Harvard University, Cambridge,
Massachusetts, USA
1957-1959 - National Museum of Art (National Museum of Western Art), Tokyo
1955-1957 - Jaoul houses in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France
1957-1959 - Brazilian Pavilion, International Campus, Paris
1963-1967 - Heidi Weber Pavilion (Le Corbusier Centre), Zurich
1964 - Unite d "Habitation of Firminy, France
1966 - Firminy-Vert Stadium, France
1965 - House of Culture Firminy (Maison de la culture de Firminy-Vert)
1969 - Church of Saint-Pierre, Firminy, France. Construction was carried out after the death of Le Corbusier, completed in 2006

Works of monumental art:

Wall paintings made by Corbusier with his own hands:
- 8 sgrafitos in the villa of Badovichi and Helen Gray on Cap Martin (1938-1939);
- in the building of the Duval manufactory, late 40s;
- in the Swiss dormitory of the international campus, Paris (size 55 sq. m., 1948);
- in Nivol's house (Long Island, USA, late 1940s);

Reliefs "Modulor" on the buildings of the Residential Units (in Marseille, 1951; in Reze-le-Nantes, 1955, and others);

Monument "Open hand" (including the sculptural image of the "hand" for the monument) - according to the sketches of Corbusier, in Chandigarh, India.

Large-scale enamels (based on sketches by L.K.):
- to enter the Ronshan Chapel (1951);
- for the large ceremonial entrance to the Assembly building, (Chandigarh, 1953).

Large decorative wall hangings (based on sketches by L.K.):
- Acoustic carpet for the meeting room of the Palace of Justice, Chandigarh (area 650 sqm, 1954);
- carpet for the hall of the presidential palace in Chandigarh (square 144 sq.m., 1956)
- panel carpet for the theater in Tokyo (area 210 sq.m., 50s);
- and many others, called Corbusier "mural-made" - according to the sketches he made for the carpet workshops in Aubusson in 1948-1950.


Villa Jeanneret-Perret, La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland, 1912	Villa Fallet, La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland, 1905

Villa La Roche / Jeanneret (Villa La Roche / Villa Jeanneret), Paris, 1923-1924	Villa Schwob (Villa Turku) Villa Schwob, La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland, 1916



Pavilion "ESPRI NUVO" (Pavillon de L "Esprit Nouveau), 1924, Paris - not preserved	Quartiers Modernes Frugès, Pessac, Bordeaux, France, 1924-1925

House of Tsentrosoyuz in Moscow. 1928-1933	Home of the Salvation Army (Armee du Salut), Cite de Refuge, Paris. 1926-1928

Clarte apartment building (Immeuble Clarté), Geneva, Switzerland. 1930	Villa Savoye, Poissy-sur-Seine, France. 1929-1931


Marseille residential unit (Unité d "Habitation), Marseille, France. 1947-1952	Curutchet House (La Plata), La Plata, Argentina. 1949

Chapelle Notre Dame du Haut, Ronchamp, France. 1950-1954	Manufactory Duval (Usine Claude et Duval) in Saint-Dié-des-Vosges, France. 1945-1951

Museum and Gallery of Art (Museum and Gallery of Art). Chandigarh is the new capital of the state of Punjab, India. 1951	Cabanon Le Corbusier, Roquebrune-Cap-Martin. 1951

Secretariat Building. Chandigarh is the new capital of the state of Punjab, India. 1951-1958

Mill Owners Association Building, Ahmedabad, India. 1951	College of Arts (Government College of Arts (GCA). Chandigarh - the new capital of Punjab, India. 1959

Assembly building (Palace of Assembly). Chandigarh is the new capital of the state of Punjab, India. 1951-1962	Museum at Ahmedabad, Ahmedabad, India. 1956

Maison du Brésil, University campus, Paris. 1957	Open Hand Monument. Chandigarh is the new capital of the state of Punjab, India.

Unite d "Habitation of Berlin-Charlottenburg, Flatowallee 16, Berlin. 1957	La Tourette monastery complex (Sainte Marie de La Tourette), Lyon, France. 1957-1960 (with Iannis Xenakis)

Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. 1962

National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo. 1957-1959	Church of Saint-Pierre, Firminy, France. 1969 - Construction was carried out after the death of Le Corbusier, completed in 2006

Biography(using materials from "One Hundred Great Architects", D. Samin)

The real name of the architect Le Corbusier is Charles Edouard Jeanneret. He was born on October 6, 1887 in Switzerland. He received his education in Vienna, Paris, Berlin, where he studied with famous architects of the 19th century. At the age of 35, he opened his own workshop, where he worked for a long time with his brother.

In the early 1920s, Le Corbusier formulated the principles of housing construction, which took shape under the name of purism. Le Corbusier propagated his position in the magazine Espri Nuovo (New Spirit) published by him in 1920-1926. He formed five principles: the house should be on pillars, with a flat roof, with a flexible internal layout, ribbon windows and a freely organized facade. They express not only material, but also aesthetic aspirations. These principles are reflected in the construction of many buildings of the architect. In particular, the Savoy villas in Poissy near Paris.

The architect also created a number of utopian urban projects for different countries. As for Paris, according to the ideas of the architect, the capital of France was to become a vertically oriented structure, in the tiers of which people lived. At the same time, the city was divided into functional zones. From the outside, it looked like it was about creating a smoothly working mechanism with human cogs. One of these projects was proposed for Moscow. However, it turned out to be too unrealistic. The architect did not take into account the historical type of Belokamennaya building and the specifics of the landscape. But a couple of more "earthly" buildings designed by Le Corbusier did appear in the Soviet capital.

Like his contemporaries, Corbusier was constantly experimenting, striving to master materials to perfection, to find the best ways to use them, to develop the most economical, standardized and industrial designs. Le Corbusier was first and foremost an engineer and could not imagine architecture without engineering. For him, architecture was primarily the realm of precise mathematical calculations. He came to this understanding through his passion for painting cubism and for a long time remained, as he called himself, "an admirer of the right angle." In modern technology, the architect saw the spirit of the times and it was in it that he looked for the foundations for renovating architecture. "Learn from the machines," he proclaimed. A residential building should be a perfect and comfortable "machine for living", an industrial or administrative building - a "machine for labor and management", and a modern city should live and work like a well-oiled motor.

Corbusier's projects have been implemented in India, USA, Russia, Switzerland, France, Algeria, Italy, Brazil, Japan. It remains only to be surprised at the productivity of the founder of the new style. Indeed, in addition to practical work, he created many theoretical works. About 50 articles appeared in journals.

In 1942-1955, Corbusier developed the modulor spiral, a dimensional scale by which all construction can be carried out on a human scale. The architect focused on the movement of a person - how he walks, sits, lies. He himself was in constant motion, dying at the age of seventy-eight, swimming too far on the Côte d'Azur in the Mediterranean.

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