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PROTAGONIST / VISIONS IN CONCRETE

ks running beneath the new architectures and bright ho- struction problems. The construction holds things up. Ar-

mes (“the eyes are made to see forms in the light”). They chitecture is meant to move people. Architecture is the “re-

would be built as if on an assembly line, but at the same ti- lationships”, it is a “pure creation of the spirit”. With these

me designed to be happy places to live in. Le Corbusier’s words he explained his idea of a project as an unstable and

urban utopia, which in the decades that follow was mistrea- curious journey through the modern city.

ted, generating the dreadful suburbs of our cities, was a tan- A nd this vision can be found throughout all his works,
from the pure and absolute villas in all their dazzling
gible dream which put man first and the possibility of living Mediterranean whiteness, even when built in the he-
differently, thanks to the modern project. In fact when gi-
ven the chance to build the prototype in Marseille of what

we would now term “council housing”, he produced one of art of Paris, down to the Indian design for the new capital of

the masterpieces of twentieth-century modern architectu- the Punjab which arrived during his phase of greater maturi-

re. L’Unité d’Habitation, built in the suburbs ty: a new city conceived for half a million in-

of Marseille as a model for reconstruction in } Houses are habitants with a Parliament, Courts, Ministri-
post-war France, is actually a factory building “machines for living es, large reinforced concrete buildings separa-
of rough, brutal concrete which hosues a ful- in”, an insight into ted by immense open spaces of water and gre-
ly-fledged urban universe: 19 storeys for 337 a fast-changing world enery which were supposed to communicate
appartments, for a population of 1,700 te- with the mountain chains standing tall behind

nants. Each apartment is organised over two the city. On 27 August 1965, Le Corbusier to-

levels, looking into a large loggia sheltered by blinds and ok a swim in the waters of his much-loved Mediterranean, ne-

overlooking the surrounding countryside. On the eighth ver to return. It is an evocative image which he would have lo-

floor is a “rue interieur” with shops, whilst on the top floor ved; the idea of disappearing, swallowed by the waters that ge-

there are public premises with a kindergarten, nursery and nerated all the great legends of classical culture in one final

playground for children, sun terrace and a 300 metre track! embrace with Mother Nature. “Passion turns inert stones in-

All organised and designed according to the “Modulor”, the to drama”; this could be a perfect epitaph for telling the life

modern version of the Da Vinci man. “Architecture is art, a story of one of the greatest and most problematic creators of

phenomenon that arouses emotions above and beyond con- a century which changed the destiny of man.

© FLC/SIAE, 2015 Top, the Notre-Dame du Haut chapel (above) and Villa Stein-de-Monzie (bottom); an autographed sketch with the layout of the interiors
of Villa Meyer, published in 1927 in “L’Architecture vivante”. Adjoining page, the floor plan of “Ville radieuse”:
according to Le Corbusier, for creating a green, well-organised functional city tailored to suit the needs of one and a half million inhabitants.

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