LE CORBUSIERGajalakshmiRufaidaShakthiZainab

LE CORBUSIER Charles-Eduoard Jeanneret-Gris was born in La Chaux

de Fonds,Switzerland in 1887 Trained as an artist,he travelled extensively through

Germany and the East. In Paris,he studied under Auguste Perret. He

adopted the name Le Corbusier in the early 1920s. His early work was related to nature. During World War II, Le Corbusier produced little

beyond some theories on his utopian ideals and on his modular building scale.

IDEOLOGIES Le Corbusier’s post-war buildings rejected his earlier

industrial forms and utilized vernacular materials,brute concrete and architectural structures.

Near the end of his career he worked on several projects in India which utilized brutal materials and sculptural forms.

In these buildings he re-adopted the recessed structural columns,the expressive staircase,and the flat undecorated plane of his celebrated five points of architecture.

Le Corbusier did not fare well in international competition,but he produced town-planning schemes for many parts of the world,often as an adjunct to a lecture tour.

In these schemes,the vehicular and pedestrian zones and the functional zones of the settlements were always emphasised.

NOTRE DAME DU HAUT Ronchamp, France

  ARCHITECT : LE CORBUSIER , 1955 LOCATION : RONCHAMP, FRANCE BUILDING TYPE : CHURCH   CONSTRUCTION SYSTEM : REINFORCED CONCRETE CLIMATE : TEMPERATE CONTEXT : RURAL, MOUNTAINS STYLE ,EXPRESSIONIST MODERN ATTRIBUTES : SOFT-FORM COMPOSITION, DEEP WINDOWS WITH COLORED GLASS

WALL THICKNESS 4’ TO 12’

Informally known as Ronchamp, the Chapel of Notre dame du Haut in Ronchamp, france, is considered one of the finest examples of architechture by the Architect Le Corbusier and one of the most important and successful example of religious architecture in the 20th century.

DESIGN CONCEPT: •Simple, Geometric shape from Le Corbusier’s earlier buildings have given way to more subtle, fractal, natural shapes here, leading to the description of Ranchamp as the first Post-Modern buidling.

•The billowing roof of concrete was planned to slope towards the back where a fountain of abstract forms is placed on the ground. When it rains, the water comes pouring off the roof and down on to the raised slanted concrete structures , creating a dramatic but natural fountain.

•Small pieces of stained glass are set deep within the walls, which are seven feet thick.•The thick, curved walls- especially the buttress-shaped south wall and the vast shell of concrete roof, give the building a massive, sculptural form. •The heaviness of the walls and roof is misleading.

•The interior of the Chapel is modest, with plain pews down the south side only.•The complex shape and Ronchamp start from a theme of acoustic parabolas, plaiying up practical role on the east wall to reflect the sound from the outside altar for the pilgims gathered on the hill.

LE CORBUSIERUnite d’Habitation- UNITED HABITATION

THE UNITED HABITATIONS

SIDE VIEW

The building is constructed in rough-cast concrete,as the hoped-for building proved too expensive in light of post-war shortages. Although the program of the building is elaborate structurally it is simple: A RECTILINEAR FERROCONCRETE GRID into which are slotted precast individual apartment units- “like bottles into wine rack’ as the architect put in Through ingenious planning, twenty-three different apartment configurations were provided to accommodate single persons and families as large as ten , nearly all the double height living rooms and the deep balonies that form the major external feature.

THE UNITED HABITATIONS

INTERIOR

The marseille building comprises 337 floors arranfed over twelve stories, all suspended. The inside corridors run through the centre of the long axis of every third follr of the building,with each apartment lying on two levels

THE FRONT SIDE The United Habitations is popular with its recidents and is now occupied by middle- class professionals.

VILLA SAVOYE

One of the most famous houses of the modern movement in architecture, the Villa Savoye is a masterpiece of LeCorbusier’s purist design. It is perhaps the best example of LeCorbusier’s goal to create a house which would be a “machine a habiter”, a machine for living in.Located in a suburb near Paris, the house is as beautiful and functional as a machine. It is a wonderful demonstration of LeCoorbusier’s ‘Five points of a new architecture’,which he developed in 1927,exploiting the new oppurtunities of reinforced concrete.

The pilotis (supporting columns): 'The house on pilotis! The house is firmly driven into the ground - a dark and often damp site. The reinforced concrete gives us the pilotis. The house is up in the air, far from the ground: the garden runs under the house...'

Free plan: 'Until now: load-bearing walls; from the ground they are superimposed, forming the ground floor and the upper stories, up to the eaves. The layout is a slave to the supporting walls. Reinforced concrete in the house provides a free plan! The floors are no longer superimposed by partition walls. They are free.'The roof gardens: '...the garden is also over the house, on the roof... Reinforced concrete is the new way to create a unified roof structure. Reinforced concrete expands considerably. The expansion makes the work crack at times of sudden shrinkage. Instead of trying to evacuate the rainwater quickly, endeavor on the contrary to maintain a constant humidity on the concrete of the terrace and hence an even temperature on the reinforced concrete. One particular protective measure: sand covered with thick concrete slabs, with widely spaced joints; these joints are sown with grass.'

The horizontal window: 'The window is one of the essential features of the house. Progress brings liberation. Reinforced concrete provides a revolution in the history of the window. Windows can run from one end of the facade to the other.'

The free facade: 'The columns set back from the facades, inside the house. The floor continues cantilevered. The facades are no longer anything but light skins of insulating walls or windows. The facade is free.'