“Architecture is the learned game, correct and magnificent, of forms assembled in the light.”-Le

Corbusier

Planning Concepts

of Le Corbusier

Modern Movement

• Modernism describes a collection of cultural movements of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century

• Modernism is reductive, striving towards abstraction and purity

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Five principles of Le Corbusier

Planning concepts

• Ville Contemporaine (Contemporary City)

• La Ville radieuse (Radiant City)

• Planned city of Chandigarh

Background

• Le Corbusier (1887-1965)

• One of the most prominent architects of the 20th century.

• Self-proclaimed town-planner

• His building designs are certainly embedded and celebrated in architectural history

• His critics have been considerably less flattering in their comments on his city planning.

Ville Contemporaine(Contemporary

City)

• first comprehensive urban-planning

• Salon d’Automne in Paris : the Contemporary City for Three Million Inhabitants

• No matter how open and green, cities should be frankly urban

• Density itself is not a problem

• Slums exist because of the failure to provide the proper surrounding for high density living

• He protests against strict functionalism

Central cityProtected Green BeltFactories and Satellite towns

La Ville radieuse (Radiant

City)1924

• Built on the grounds where the vernacular European cities demolished

• Re arranged key features of Ville Contemporine

• Contain effective means of transportation

• Abundance of green space and sunlight

Theatres

Gardens

Sports Fields

Squares

Restaurants

Si bum apartment Seoul Korea

Empire state plaza Albany

Planned city of

Chandigarh

• One of the most significant urban planning experiments of the 20th century.

• It is the only one of the numerous urban planning schemes of Le Corbusier to have actually been executed.

• The site has some of his greatest architectural creations.

• Became a symbol of planned urbanism.

• Famous for its landscaping as for its architectural ambience. Most of the buildings are in pure, cubical form, geometrically subdivided with emphasis on proportion, scale and detail

• shape of the city plan is a rectangular shape with a grid iron pattern for the fast traffic roads

• The city plan was conceived as post war ‘Garden City’ wherein vertical and high rise buildings were ruled out, keeping in view the socio economic-conditions and living habits of the people.

Positives and Negatives• Le Corbusier’s architectural models are well-defined and

generally accepted, his urban ideas have not been so neatly packaged and disobey chronological marking out, simply because there is so much overlap

• frequently blamed for the monotonous, single use zoning and car-dependent developments immediately after the Second World War.

• Boring

• Class based conception of life – different classes being separately housed

• Doubts about the scale and degree of centralization

• Robert Hughes speaks of Le Corbusier's city planning in his series The Shock of the New

"...the car would abolish the human street, and possibly the human foot. Some people would have aero planes too. The one thing no one would have is

a place to bump into each other, walk the dog, strut, one of the hundred random things that people do ... being random was loathed by Le Corbusier ... its inhabitants surrender their freedom of movement to the omnipresent architect."

Thank You