LE CORBUSIERContemporary Architect

A Great epoch has begun.

There exists a new spirit.

“Space and light and order. Those are the things that men need just as much as they need bread or a place to sleep.”

Life story Original Name – Charles Edouard Jeanneret. Birth Date – October 6, 1887. Birth Place – LaChaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland. Second son of Edourad Jeanneret (dial painter)

and Madame Jeanneret-Perrct (teacher). Influence - His family's Calvinism, love of the arts,

and enthusiasm for the Jura Mountains. His Master - Charles L'Eplattenier, a teacher

at the local art school. At thirteen, Le Corbusier abandoned matchmaking, and continued his studies in art

and decoration, with the intention of becoming a painter. Insisted by his master to study architecture. Pioneer in studies of modern high design. Dedicated to providing better living conditions for the residents of the crowded

cities.

Contd… 1920’s – adopted his pseudonym. Architecture teacher in the art school – Rene Chapallaz. 1907 – traveled to Paris – found work in the office of Augeste Perret, the French

pioneer of Reinforced Concrete. 1908 – Studied architecture. Between October 1910 and March 1911 – worked for renowned architect, Peter

Behrens near Berlin. Taught at his old school during World War I. Worked in theoretical architectural studies using modern techniques. Began his own architectural practice in 1922 with his cousin, Pierre Jeanneret –

partnership lasting 50 years. Established a new artistic movement, Purism in collaboration with Cubist painter,

Amedee Ozenfant. Between 1918 & 1922, no building – concentrating his efforts on Purist theory and

painting.

Contd… 1929 – Met entertainer and actress Josephine Baker while returning from South

America to Europe. Practiced sketches by drawing nude images of Baker. Married Yvonne Gallis, a dressmaker and fashion model – died in 1957. Had a long extramarital affair with Swedish-American heiress Marguerite Tjader

Harris. His first house, Villa Pallet. In Switzerland – designed a series of villas &

embarked on a more theoretical study for a

structural frame of reinforced concrete. Envisaged it as an affordable, prefabricated

system for the construction of new housing – wake of World War I’s destruction. Developed with the help of Max Dubois and Perret, the system differed from the

then standard Hennibique frame in its idealization of floors as flat slabs without exposed beams.

VILLA PALLET

Contd… At the end of war – moved to Paris – worked on concrete structures under

Government contracts – also ran a small brick manufacturing. Dedicated most of his efforts to the more influential, and lucrative, discipline of

painting. Proposed an architecture – satisfying both the demands of industrial and the

timeless concerns of architectural form. Included the first city plan, the Contemporary city.

Proposed two housing types

Vaulted Maison Monol Maison Citrohan

ARCHITECTURE CAREER During 1920’s – realized his first mature architecture in a series of villas. Foundation of architecture – Dom-ino House (1914-1915)

Proposed an open floor plan consisting of concrete slabs supported by a minimal number of thin, reinforced concrete columns around the edges, with a stairway providing access to each level on one side of the floor plan.

DOM-INO HOUSE

IDEAS

•Lifting the bulk of the structure off the ground supporting by pilotis.•A free façade.•An open floor plan.•Long strips of ribbon windows providing maximum illumination.•The roof garden.

His Five Points

of Architec

ture:

IDEAS The Modular:

Use of Golden ratio for the scale of architectural proportion. Use of human measurements, Fibonacci series and the double unit.

○ E.g..:- 1927 Villa Stein, Graches. Placed system of harmony

and proportion at the centre of his design philosophy.

Furniture:“Chairs are architecture, sofas are bourgeois” Started experimenting in 1928.

VILLA STEIN

Three different types

Type-needs Type-furniture

Human-limb objects

influence Most influential in the sphere of urban planning. City of the future – large apartment buildings isolated in a park like setting on

pilotis. Heavily influenced by problems he saw in industrial cities at the turn of 19th to 20th

century. Leader of the modernist movement to create better living conditions & a better

society through housing concepts.

Carpenter center It is located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Building type – University art center. It is built with the reinforced cast-in-place concrete masonry. It is his only major building in the United States – designed to house classes in

architecture, film and other arts.

Contd… It is designed with the collaboration of Chilean architect Guillermo Jullian de la

Fuente. The building was completed in 1963. He never actually saw the building. No architecture style was involved in it. It is governed by the Harvard University. Its wonderful collection of concrete forms bring together

many of the design principles and devices from his earlier

works.

Its concrete has a smooth, precise finish; tall, thin columns

break up its interior spaces. A great curvilinear ramp bisects the structure and connects

the main stair and an exhibition space.

Contd… At the heart is the cubic volume from which curved studios pull away from one

another on the diagonal. The whole is cut through by an S-shaped ramp which rises from one street and

descends towards the other. The layers and levels swing out and back from the grid of concrete pilotis within,

making most of cantilevering to create interpenetrations of exterior and interior. Also a sequence of spatial events is linked by the promenade architecture of the

ramp.

Contd… From Quincy street there are two possible approaches to the building: up the ramp

or down to the main gallery entrance. The ramp was intended to be the centerpiece of the building, taking people directly

to its center. This ramp provides an impressive experience. Different type of lightings was designed at different times of day. The use of concrete pilotis elevated the building above the ground. The pilotis extended the landscape beneath the building. When site plan was being drawn up, he suggested that all the tree locations be

marked with a high level of precision. But, in the final design, he aligned some of the pilots with the existing tress. The pilotis vary in diameter throughout the building, depending on the load they

are forced to carry. In many places these pilotis are designed to give the building a feeling of freedom.

Contd…

Contd… It was built with a philosophical belief that a visual arts building should demostrate

innovation and creativity. There is a definite relationship between the brick of the surrounding buildings and

the concrete and glass of the carpenter center. Unlike brick, the light colored concrete reflects morning sun and captures

afternoon shadows, from trees and other elements. The curved surface of the concrete compress or elongate these shadows, giving

them visual life as the angle of the sun changes.

Contd… Extensive cantilevering and a reliance on reinforced concrete to create large areas

of open space. It is fully of load-bearing columns. All the five levels of the building are designed to be configurable through movable

partitions. Every time you go, you see a new thing in this building.

Contd…

MAIN PLAN

Contd…

PRACTISING SKETCH

Contd…

SECTION B

SECTION A

Centre Le Corbusier• The Centre Le Corbusier or Heidi Weber

Museum is an art museum in Zürich (Switzerland) dedicated to

the work of the Swiss architect Le Corbusier. • This building should exhibit his works of art in

an ideal environment created by the architect himself.

• It is the last building designed by Le Corbusier marking a radical change of his achievement of using concrete and stone, framed in steel and glass, in the 1960s created as a signpost for the future.

• Le Corbusier made intensive use of prefabricated steel elements combined with multi-coloured enamelled plates fitted to the central core, and above the complex he designed a 'free-floating' roof to keep the house protected from the rain and the sun.

• The Centre Le Corbusier is a "Gesamtkunstwerk", i.e. a total work of art, and reflects the harmonic unity of Le Corbusier's architecture, sculptures, paintings, furniture designs and his writings which is unique and possibly the only one such existing structure in the world.

• The museum is listed as a Swiss heritage site of national significance.[1]

•Villa Savoye (French pronunciation: [sa'vwa]) is a modernist villa in Poissy, in the outskirts ofParis, France. •It was designed by Swiss architects Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret, and built between 1928 and 1931

• A manifesto of Le Corbusier's "five points" of new architecture, the villa is representative of the bases of modern architecture, and is one of the most easily recognizable and renowned examples of the International style.

Villa Savoye

• The Villa Savoye is probably Corbusier's best known building from the 1920s, it had enormous influence on international modernism.

• It was designed addressing his emblematic "Five Points", the basic tenets in his new architectural aesthetic:• Support of ground-level pilotis,

elevating the building from the earth and allowed an extended continuity of the garden beneath.

• Functional roof, serving as a garden and terrace, reclaiming for nature the land occupied by the building.

• Free floor plan, relieved of load-bearing walls, allowing walls to be placed freely and only where aesthetically needed.

• Long horizontal windows, providing illumination and ventilation.

• Freely-designed facades, serving as only as a skin of the wall and windows and unconstrained by load-bearing considerations.

• Unlike his earlier town villas Corbusier was able to carefully design all four sides of the Villa Savoye in response to the view and the orientation of the sun.

• On the ground floor he placed the main entrance hall, ramp and stairs, garage, chauffeur and maids rooms.

• At first floor the master bedroom, the son's bedroom, guest bedroom, kitchen, salon and external terraces.

• The salon was orientated to the north west whilst the terrace faced the south.

• The son's bedroom faced the south east and the kitchen and service terrace were on the north east.

• At second floor level were a series of sculpted spaces that formed a solarium.

Chandigarh

In 1950 invited by Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru to design the city.

• Grid Iron Plan• Hierarchy of movement from highways to pedestrian walkways.• Metaphor of a human being.

• Head – Capital Complex.• Heart – Commercial Centre.• Arms – Academic and Leisure Facilities.

• Incorporated his principles of light, space and greenary.

Chandigarh – Provisional capital of Punjab.

Commencing of work started in 1951 until his death in 1965.

Design

Contd…

Garden Along the Main Road

Contd… Divided the city into different sectors. Each sector having the residential and commercial zones. Planning was done in such a way that a tourist can also find his own way. Maps displayed along the walkways and footpaths. Roads

Designed and oriented in such a way that most of the time during the day, they are under shadow. Huge parking areas for the commercial zones. Parking lanes – broad as main roads. Pedestrian walkways segregated from the

main road with the help of wide lawn strip. Huge gardens along the main roads.

Roads in Chandigarh City

Urban and Architectural Work of Le Corbusier in Chandigarh

• The city of Chandigarh is situated at the base of the Shiwalik Range of the Himalayas, at 333m above sea level, approximately 260 km northwest of India's capital, New Delhi.

• The site is a gently sloping plain, with two seasonal rivulets - Patiali-ki-Rao and Sukhna Choe -marking its northwest and southeast boundaries.

• The city forms the urban core of the "Union Territory of Chandigarh", which has a total area of 114 sq km. All of the urban and architectural work of Le Corbusier listed in this document is located within Chandigarh's "Phase One", an area of approximately 70 sq. km. which can be regarded as the city's "Historic Core."

• The most significant role played by Le Corbusier in Chandigarh was in conceiving the city's present urban form.

• It is the well-ordered matrix of his generic ‘neighborhood unit' and the hierarchical circulation pattern of his ‘7Vs' that has given Chandigarh its distinctive character.

• The Matrix comprises a regular grid of the fast traffic V3 roads which define each neighbourhood unit, the ‘Sector'.

• The Sector itself was conceived as a self-sufficient and - in a radical departure from other precedents and contemporarous concepts - a completely introverted unit, but was connected with the adjoining ones through its V4 - the shopping street, as well as the bands of open space that cut across in the opposite direction.

• Day-to-day facilities for shopping, healthcare, recreation and the like were arrayed along the V4 - all on the shady side.

Chandigarh - Monument

• The vertical green belts, with the pedestrian V7, contained sites for schools and sports activities.

• Besides determining the city's urban form, Le Corbusier, as the "Spiritual Director" of the entire Chandigarh Capitol Project, was also responsible for designing the key ‘Special Areas' of the city, each of which contains several individual buildings.

• The most significant of these is the ‘Capitol Parc' - the ‘head' and la raison d'être of the entire enterprise.

• A parallel undertaking - one of almost equal significance as the Capitol, was Le Corbusier's design of the city's ‘heart', the City Centre. In time, the design of the ‘Cultural Complex' along the ‘Leisure Valley', including the Government Museum and Art Gallery and the College of Art (L-C's Centre for Audio-visual Training), as well as some other smaller works (such as the Boat Club and parts of the Sukhna Lake, which essentially were seen as integral parts of the Capitol parc) were also undertaken by him.

Capital Complex

National Museum of Western Art

• The National Museum of Western Art is the premier public art gallery in Japan specializing in art from the Western tradition.

• The Museum is located in the museum and zoo complex in Ueno Park in Taito, central Tokyo.

• This popular Tokyo museum is also known by the English acronym NMWA (National Museum of Western Art).• Externally the building is clad in

prefabricated concrete panels which sit on U-shaped frames supported by the inner wall. T

• The building generally is constructed of reinforced concrete and the columns have a smooth concrete finish.

• The museum is square in plan with the main body of the galleries raised on piloti to first floor level. The layout is influenced by Le Corbusier's Sanskar Kendra museum in Ahmedabad which was being designed at the same time.

• Entrance for visitors is at ground floor level via the 19th Century Hall.

• This double height space is lit from above with a north glazed pyramidal skylight intersected with reinforced concrete beams and a column.

• On the opposite side of the hall from the entrance, the ascent to the paintings gallery is via a promenade ramp which affords better views of Rodin's scupltures.

• The paintings gallery wraps around 19th Century Hall, the ceiling is initially low but is raised to two storeys around the perimeter to display the paintings.

• There are also balconies at this level that push back into the 19th Century Hall to re-orient the visitor. • Le Corbusier designed the paintings gallery to be lit by natural daylight via four lighting troughs, but these are no longer used and the galleries are now artificially lit.

Presented By

S. Hananeel & Shahas Babu. K