Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris, aka Le Corbusier, was born on October 6, 1887, in Switzerland. One of the representatives of the first generation of the architectural movement known as the "International Style", Le Corbusier was also a polemicist, a revolutionary city planner and a successful painter.
Corbusier, who was the target of harsh criticism as well as admiration in the world of architecture and design with his manifesto-like views and groundbreaking works, played a very important role in the development of modernist architecture, influenced contemporary and next generation architects, and left a mark in almost all cities of the world thanks to his high-level relations.
A Self-Taught Architect
Corbusier, who learned clockwork at the decorative arts school in the city where he lived, later studied art history and architecture with the guidance of his teacher. Working in architectural offices in Berlin and Paris between 1907 and 1911, the architect went on a long journey through Europe and the Balkans to the Ottoman Empire. The notes and sketchbooks he kept along the way later turned into a book. Issues such as the common area / private space contrast, the classical proportions of Renaissance architecture, geometric forms and the integration of landscape with architecture, which attracted his attention during this trip, directed the architect's design approach.
First Generation Modernist
Returning to Paris in 1917, Corbusier met artist-designer Amédée Ozenfant and stepped into the world of contemporary art. Together with the poet Paul Dermée, they launched an avant-garde art magazine called L'Esprit Nouveau. His articles published here were later turned into a book called “Towards a New Architecture”. In 1922, he opened his architectural studio with his cousin Pierre Jeanneret.
Architect Adolf Loos found the eclecticist tendencies still valid in architecture at the beginning of the 20th century, and the Art Nouveau movement that sprouted at that time, contrary to the possibilities and needs of the new age, and said "ornament is a crime". Le Corbusier also found wall decorations, carvings and inlays "immoral" in architecture. According to him, besides the engineers who created miracles with a pragmatist approach, “architect gentlemen” were still conservatively in their places. However, our houses, like automobiles, airplanes and ships, should have been designed in accordance with the technology of the time and in accordance with mass production. Corbusier summed up these thoughts with the phrase “the house is a machine to live in”.
Corbusier identified five main design criteria that he believed brought modernity to architecture:
A raised structure with columns to free the ground beneath the building
Open plan layout
A façade that is free from ornaments and traces of the load bearing system
Band-shaped windows to evenly illuminate the interior
A terrace roof that can be turned into a garden in return for the green area covered by the building
Villa Savoye, one of the most well-known works of the architect, is a manifesto building that carries all of the aforementioned principles.
The great master came up with very radical and innovative ideas for his time, and with his professional love and provocative style, he produced revolutionary designs in the fields of architecture and urbanism, some of which were far from convincing and some that opened the way for his contemporaries and architects of future generations.
An Architect Who Admits His “Mistake”
The people on the street could not always share this excitement of the famous architect. For example, some of the low-cost row houses designed by Corbusier in Pessac Bordeaux, designed with strict modernist principles and built away from traditional methods, were intervened by the users over time, making them close to traditional housing design in terms of both layout and appearance.
 |  |
Towards the end of his life, Corbusier would commemorate the Pessac experience with the words "Life is always right, it is the architect who makes mistakes".
The Creator of the Sunbed
In 1928, Corbusier began designing furniture with the participation of architect Charlotte Perriand in the studio. The resulting products were exhibited at the Salon d'Automne fair in 1929 under the name of LC Furniture Series.
Corbusier's furniture designs are also based on architectural design principles: machine aesthetics, functional approach, clearly legible carrier system and pure geometric forms. These iconic furniture designs are still produced by Cassina company by updating them according to contemporary expectations and possibilities.
Le Modulor
Le Corbusier proposes a standard measurement system for rapid and mass production, which is urgently needed by the age, in parallel with the rebuilding process in European cities after the Second World War and the modern industrialization move. This system, which the architect called "Le Modulor", based on the measurements of the human body and the calculation of the golden ratio, claimed to bring a more humane alternative to the meter and inch-foot systems.
Albert Einstein referred to Le Modulor as "a language of proportions that makes it difficult to do bad and make it easier to do good".
Housing Unit
Unite d'Habitation, which means "Shelter Unit", was built for the 20,000 Marseilles who were left homeless after the war. This building is like a city in itself with its common meeting, resting, sports and cultural activity areas, infirmary, kindergarten and hotel functions. The architect based his design on the Le Modulor system and documented this with the reliefs he had made on the outer wall of the building.
Master Plans for Istanbul and Izmir
Le Corbusier speaks of a letter he wrote to Atatürk on the master plan of Istanbul during an interview in 1948 as “the biggest gaffe and the biggest tactical mistake of my life”. In this letter, I was advising the greatest revolutionary of a nation that had made a revolution to leave Istanbul as it was, with the dust of centuries. Later I realized what a big mistake I had made.” he said.
In the same year, with the initiatives of Izmir Municipality, a plan based on CIAM Urbanism principles was prepared for this city, but this project was found to be impracticable for various reasons and was shelved. Nevertheless, it can be thought that this study has an indirect effect on the modernization of Izmir.
World Heritage
“Architecture is an ingenious, accurate and magnificent play of masses brought together in light.” Ronchamp Chapel, one of Le Corbusier's last works, is the embodiment of this saying of the architect. Although it is far from the stereotypical visuality of modernist architecture, it is a building that contains extremely modernist principles at its core.
Before his death in 1965, Le Corbusier founded the Fondation Le Corbusier in Paris to leave his library and drawings to his successors.
17 of the architect's built works were included in the World Heritage list by UNESCO in 2016.
Sources
Fondation Le Corbusier: http://www.fondationlecorbusier.fr Brittanica: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Le-Corbusier Arch Daily: https://www.archdaily.com/434972/happy-birthday-le-corbusier-2 Cana Birsel, Le Corbusier’nin İzmir Nazım Planı ve “Yeşil Endüstri Sitesi” Önerisi, Ege Mimarlık Şemsa Demiren, Le Corbusier ile Mülâkat, Arkitekt, 1949
コメント