Le Corbusier
Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris, better known as Le Corbusier (October 6, 1887 – August 27, 1965), was an architect, designer, painter, urban planner, writer, and one of the pioneers of what is now called modern architecture. He was born in Switzerland and became a French citizen in 1930. His career spanned five decades, with his buildings constructed throughout Europe, India, and America. He was a pioneer in studies of modern high design and was dedicated to providing better living conditions for the residents of crowded cities. He was awarded the Frank P. Brown Medal and AIA Gold Medal in 1961. Le Corbusier adopted his pseudonym in the 1920s, allegedly deriving it in part from the name of an ancestor, Lecorbésier.
IDEAS
Five points of architecture
Main article: (Le Corbusier's Five Points of Architecture)
Villa Savoye
It was Le Corbusier's Villa Savoye (1929–31) that most succinctly summed up the five points of architecture that he had elucidated in L'Esprit Nouveau and the book Vers une architecture, which he had been developing throughout the 1920s. First, Le Corbusier lifted the bulk of the structure off the ground, supporting it by pilotis, reinforced concrete stilts. These pilotis, in providing the structural support for the house, allowed him to elucidate his next two points: a free facade, meaning non-supporting walls that could be designed as the architect wished, and an open floor plan, meaning that the floor space was free to be configured into rooms without concern for supporting walls. The second floor of the Villa Savoye includes long strips of ribbon windows that allow unencumbered views of the large surrounding yard, and which constitute the fourth point of his system. The fifth point was the roof garden to compensate for the green area consumed by the building and replacing it on the roof. A ramp rising from ground level to the third-floor roof terrace allows for an architectural promenade through the structure. The white tubular railing recalls the industrial "ocean-liner" aesthetic that Le Corbusier much admired. As if to put an exclamation mark after Le Corbusier's homage to modern industry, the driveway around the ground floor, with its semicircular path, measures the exact turning radius of a 1927 Citroën automobile.
Furniture
Main article: Le Corbusier's Furniture Corbusier said: "Chairs are architecture, sofas are bourgeois".
Le Corbusier began experimenting with furniture design in 1928 after inviting the architect, Charlotte Perriand, to join his studio. His cousin, Pierre Jeanneret, also collaborated on many of the designs. Before the arrival of Perriand, Le Corbusier relied on ready-made furniture to furnish his projects, such as the simple pieces manufactured by Thonet, the company that manufactured his designs in the 1930s. In 1928, Le Corbusier and Perriand began to put the expectations for furniture Le Corbusier outlined in his 1925 book L'Art Décoratif d'aujourd'hui into practice. In the book he defined three different furniture types: type-needs, type-furniture, and human-limb objects. He defined human-limb objects as: "Extensions of our limbs and adapted to human functions that are type-needs and type-functions, therefore type-objects and type-furniture. The human-limb object is a docile servant. A good servant is discreet and self-effacing in order to leave his master free. Certainly, works of art are tools, beautiful tools. And long live the good taste manifested by choice, subtlety, proportion, and harmony". The first results of the collaboration were three chrome-plated tubular steel chairs designed for two of his projects, The Maison la Roche in Paris and a pavilion for Barbara and Henry Church. The line of furniture was expanded for Le Corbusier's 1929 Salon d'Automne installation, 'Equipment for the Home'. These chairs included the LC-1, LC-2, LC-3, and LC-4, originally titled "Basculant" (LC-1), "Fauteuil grand confort, petit modèle" (LC-2, "great comfort sofa, small model"), "Fauteuil grand confort, grand modèle" (LC-3, "great comfort sofa, large model"), and "Chaise longue" (LC-4, "Long chair").[11] The LC-2 and LC-3 are more colloquially referred to as the petit confort and grand confort (abbreviation of full title, and due to respective sizes). The LC-2 (and similar LC-3) have been featured in a variety of media, notably the Maxell "blown away" advertisement.[12] In the year 1964, while Le Corbusier was still alive, Cassina S.p.A. of Milan acquired the exclusive worldwide rights to manufacture his furniture designs. Today many copies exist, but Cassina is still the only manufacturer authorized by the Fondation Le Corbusier; see US page.
Let's Have a look at some pieces of furniture created by Le Corbusier
LC17 Portemanteau
A coat stand in oak with matte black back and solid oak knobs in matte white, black, red, green and blue.
If you are running chrome the show-button will not work. So, click the copy-code button, then click the GoToPlasm button, paste the code in the code-area and press the play-button to see the 3D rendered Object!
LC17 in PLASM.JS
LC11
Table with grey enamelled steel structure and cast iron base. Natural walnut finish top.
LC11 in PLASM.JS
If you are running chrome the show-button will not work. So, click the copy-code button, then click the GoToPlasm button, paste the code in the code-area and press the play-button to see the 3D rendered Object!
LC7
Revolving small armchair with polished chrome plated or glossy basalt, grey, light blue, green, bordeaux and ochre or mat black enamel steel frame.LC7 in PLASM.JS
If you are running chrome the show-button will not work. So, click the copy-code button, then click the GoToPlasm button, paste the code in the code-area and press the play-button to see the 3D rendered Object!
Le corbusier and the Automobile
Le Corbusier, who famously called a house "a machine for living," was fascinated—even obsessed—by another kind of machine, the automobile. His writings were strewn with references to autos: "If houses were built industrially, mass-produced like chassis, an aesthetic would be formed with surprising precision," he wrote in Toward an Architecture (1923). In his "white phase" of the twenties and thirties, he insisted that his buildings be photographed with a modern automobile in the foreground. Le Corbusier moved beyond the theoretical in 1936, entering (with his cousin Pierre Jeanneret) an automobile design competition, submitting plans for "a minimalist vehicle for maximum functionality," the Voiture Minimum. Despite Le Corbusier’s energetic promotion of his design to several important automakers, the Voiture Minimum was never mass-produced.
Let's have a look at "Voiture Minimum"
Voiture Minimum in PLASM.JS
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And finally, if we would see all in a house...
If you are running chrome the show-button will not work. So, click the copy-code button, then click the GoToPlasm button, paste the code in the code-area and press the play-button to see the 3D rendered Object!
Authors and Contributors
Author: @V1LL0, thanks to Alberto Paoluzzi, Enrico Marino and Federico Spini