1916-1926
Modernist theories & dogma
Le Corbusier


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golden section
domino system
french purism
l'esprit nouveu
four types of buildings
"vers une architecture"
five points of architecture
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Le Corbusier, modernist, purist and prolific architect, painter and writer, wouldn't had been where he was in his career if not for the 'tour' around Europe  in his early years. They lasted from 1907 to 1912, when Charles Edouard Jeannerct (his original name) was 20-25 years old. Corbusier's travels took him to Italy, Vienna, Munich (where he worked in Peter Behrens office), and Paris (where he took up an apprenticeship to Auguste Perret, a father of reinforced concrete construction). They concluded with a Voyage d'Orient: to Eastern Europe, Balkans, Turkey and culminated in a visit to Acropolis. 
As an architect, Le Corbusier was largely auto-didact, and in this journey he taught himself a lot what was later the foundation for his practice. Through research of architecture, drawing of buildings and making scrumptious notes he gathered a base of knowledge which shaped his critical thinking. These notebooks were published in 1965; the story starts with the central character defined as having something missing whether he, recognizes it or not. Thus the hero sets off in quest for what is missing, and it is this quest that propels the narrative forward. Defined as a rite of passage, the journey becomes a testing ground full of tension and struggles in which the hero is transformed and finally achieves a new status. (Short analysis of Le Corbusier's book by M. Christine Boyer here http://www.design.upenn.edu/arch/news/Human_Settlements/primitive.html).


Great influence on Corbusier's work had studies of Parthenon and the Golden Ratio.

Also called divine proportion, is when the sum of the quantities to the larger quantity is = the ratio of the larger quantity to the smaller one:

Golden ratio (φ) is a mathematical constant and equals:



Golden proportion is believed to be the most aesthetically pleasing and harmonious, so many artists and architects apply it their work in a principle of a golden rectangle, spiral or triangle:

Golden proportion is closely related to Fibonacci's numbers, where every number is a sum of two previous number in the sequence:

The ratio of what each number is to the next one, is approximately φ (13/8, 34/21, etc).

They appear everywhere in Nature, from the leaf arrangement in plants, to the pattern of the florets of a flower, the bracts of a pinecone, or the scales of a pineapple; from the geometry of the DNA molecule (and the human body) to the physiology of animals.

Le Corbusier in his "Vers une Architecture" (1923) discusses the Golden Section as natural rhythm, inborn to every human organism . However, he does not yet recommend concrete proportions, but only to use tracés regulateurs, measure-rulers, to control the geometrical organisation of design, always façades in his examples.

Later, Le Corbusier developed a scale of proportions which he called Le Modulor, based on a human body whose height is divided in golden section commencing at the navel. From Golden Section of the total height (considered to be 1829mm) and height of the navel results a sequence of measures from 27 cm to 226 cm (and then much more) in steps of 27 and 16.

Explanation of Le Corbusier's Modulor here: http://archididac.com/

Le Corbusier's use of the Golden Section begins by 1927 at the Villa Stein in Garches, whose rectangular proportion in ground plan and elevation, as also the inner structure of the ground plan, approximately show the Golden Section. 

Le Corbusier himself called his Unité d'Habitation in Marseille (1945-52) a demonstration of his Modulor system.

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