The Cultural Politics of Aerial Vision: Le Corbusier in Brazil (1929)

Abstract

The early twentieth-century invention of the airplane brought on a cultural euphoria that influenced the works and writings of urbanists, architects, artists, and science-fiction writers during the 1920s and 1930s. Le Corbusier's urban design for Rio de Janeiro—which he sketched, so he claimed, from an airplane—offers a visual basis to study how the aesthetic experience of flight was translated spatially, visually, and politically into his design of the future city. The polemics informing Le Corbusier's aerial “discovery” of South American geography revealed that there was a new empowerment in the act of looking from above, and that the spatial characteristics of his subsequent design interventions evoked that empowerment.     

勒·柯布西埃的摩天楼

勒·柯布西埃在20世纪初对摩天楼进行过诸多探索,但与这方面有关的专门研究并不多见。文章试图介绍柯布西埃在上世纪20年代到50年代的三个不同阶段里,对摩天楼的理论和实践方面的探索和贡献。     

1955：勒·柯布西耶不在美国

1955年,现代建筑处于新旧交替之时。本文以勒·柯布西耶为中心,以德州游侠和他们的《透明性》为线索,叙述他们如何研究并推广远在大洋彼岸的勒·柯布西耶的设计方法和思想,并服务于特定的历史目的。在此基础上,讨论不同类型的建筑思想的交流与冲突。以及建筑理论革新事业的动机和意义。     

勒·柯布西耶的神圣空间结构形态研究

勒·柯布西耶生平设计过四项宗教建筑,其中三件建成作品不仅是大师作品的经典,也成为现代建筑的经典,并对当代教堂建筑有着深刻的影响,本文试图透过迥异的形态表象,窥探其中既沿袭相应教义要求又具有时代特征的天才般创造性,借以生成空间形态以满足宗教活动与精神需要的复杂规律性所在及其延续与变化。     

勒·柯布西耶住宅研究寻踪

从勒·柯布西耶的住宅研究入手，阐述了其住宅研究的设计路线、技术路线、人文路线，并通过其住宅作品分析来反映其住宅研究的丰富内容，最后进行小结和评价。     

勒·柯布西耶建筑设计中色彩的运用

对勒.柯布西耶及其设计思想、设计风格进行了介绍,以法国巴黎的建筑为例,对色彩与建筑本体的关系进行了阐述,并以萨伏伊别墅为例,论述了色彩与建筑周边环境的协调性,从对勒.柯布西耶建筑设计中色彩运用的剖析,得出的一些设计结论给后来设计者的建筑创作提供了参考和启发。     

理解勒·柯布西耶——《明日之城市》译后

结合<明日之城市>的翻译工作体会,介绍了该书的创作背景和主要内容,并对勒·柯布西耶的现代城市规划思想进行了分析和讨论.     

柯布西耶对苏联人民人会堂公共集会空间的演绎

对柯布西耶在20世纪30年代苏联人民大会堂设计方案过程演化的分析。阐述了柯布对现代集会公共空间的创新和定义。     

柯布西耶模度体系在建筑中的应用

简述了模度的生成背景与内容,分析了传统美学、数学、人文在模度中的体现,并在此基础上以马赛公寓为例,对模度在建筑设计中的应用方法进行了探讨,为模度的使用积累了经验。     

Le Corbusier,Teilhard de Chardin and The Planetisation of Mankind'

The modern world has made all things interrelated, the relations are continuous and contiguous around the globe, affected by nuances and diversity... The question is man and his environment, an event of local as well as of global order. 1 Le Corbusier was very interested in the ideas of the Jesuit priest and distinguished palaeontologist Pere Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. 'Do you know this man and his research (Palaeontology, the human condition, the future)?' wrote the architect to his friend and collaborator Andreas Speiser on 22 December, 1954.2 In this letter (Fig. 1) he relates that he spent the whole journey back from India reading the priest's works. 'I was very favourably impressed by him' he wrote, 'I must get in touch with him before long.' Le Corbusier includes in the letter a list of papers by Teilhard, which he must have believed to be of particular interest. The 'etc' at the end of this list is of interest, indicating the extent of the architect's reading of this profoundly religious man. Le Corbusier asterisked the first essay, linking it with the word ' avenir ' or future and also the word ' definitives ,' definitive answers, a word which he then crossed out with one line, leaving it clearly legible. It is as though he believed that Teilhard had the answers that he was so desperately looking for, but years of disappointment, secrecy and disillusionment had made him wary. Being first on the list, the essay La Planetisation Humaine , 'The Planetisation of Mankind' is probably the most important in terms of Le Corbusier's reading of Teilhard.3 In this paper I will focus on the essay in an attempt to deduce just why Le Corbusier was so impressed by the works of this radical priest. In doing so, I hope to shed some light on Le Corbusier's spiritual agenda for architecture, an aspect of his work which still remains remarkably obscure. In particular I will focus on the concept of community expressed in the Unite block in Marseilles (1952). It should be mentioned that Le Corbusier does make other references to Teilhard, for example in an interesting stream of consciousness in one of his sketchbooks of 1960.4 Incidents such as this indicate that the priest's ideas were a continuing source of inspiration for the architect.     

Le Corbusier, Teilhard de Chardin and The Planetisation of Mankind'

The modern world has made all things interrelated, the relations are continuous and contiguous around the globe, affected by nuances and diversity... The question is man and his environment, an event of local as well as of global order. 1 Le Corbusier was very interested in the ideas of the Jesuit priest and distinguished palaeontologist Pere Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. 'Do you know this man and his research (Palaeontology, the human condition, the future)?' wrote the architect to his friend and collaborator Andreas Speiser on 22 December, 1954.2 In this letter (Fig. 1) he relates that he spent the whole journey back from India reading the priest's works. 'I was very favourably impressed by him' he wrote, 'I must get in touch with him before long.' Le Corbusier includes in the letter a list of papers by Teilhard, which he must have believed to be of particular interest. The 'etc' at the end of this list is of interest, indicating the extent of the architect's reading of this profoundly religious man. Le Corbusier asterisked the first essay, linking it with the word ' avenir ' or future and also the word ' definitives ,' definitive answers, a word which he then crossed out with one line, leaving it clearly legible. It is as though he believed that Teilhard had the answers that he was so desperately looking for, but years of disappointment, secrecy and disillusionment had made him wary. Being first on the list, the essay La Planetisation Humaine , 'The Planetisation of Mankind' is probably the most important in terms of Le Corbusier's reading of Teilhard.3 In this paper I will focus on the essay in an attempt to deduce just why Le Corbusier was so impressed by the works of this radical priest. In doing so, I hope to shed some light on Le Corbusier's spiritual agenda for architecture, an aspect of his work which still remains remarkably obscure. In particular I will focus on the concept of community expressed in the Unite block in Marseilles (1952). It should be mentioned that Le Corbusier does make other references to Teilhard, for example in an interesting stream of consciousness in one of his sketchbooks of 1960.4 Incidents such as this indicate that the priest's ideas were a continuing source of inspiration for the architect.     

纸上谈兵：勒·柯布西耶与书籍设计

书籍是呈现思想之物,书籍设计与艺术思想有着特殊的关联。勒·柯布西耶一生完成了约 50 本建筑书籍的创作, 书籍既是展现其建筑思想的自传性媒介,也是投射其建筑观念的隐喻性物品。本文回顾了柯布西耶的出版生涯,通过 他对书籍设计与制作的参与,分析由“书籍——建筑”的交互构成的文字与图像、视觉与物理、物品与构筑特征,研究 书籍在柯布西耶的艺术创作中的地位,探究书籍与建筑之间的关系。     

柯氏"居住机器"理论的重新解读--浅谈生态启蒙思想在湖边小宅设计中的应用

湖边小宅是勒·柯布西耶在瑞士完成的第一栋现代主义住宅,文章从使用功能、对自然环境的利用、通风采光以及结构和材料等方面对其进行了详细的介绍,进而指出应该从自然和生态的全新的视角来理解柯氏的"居住机器"理论的深刻含义,重申了现代主义的某些可持续的设计理念对我们今天的设计实践仍然具有借鉴意义.     

解读柯布西耶遗作——费尔米尼的圣皮埃尔教堂

文章叙述了柯布西耶遗作费尔米尼的圣皮埃尔教堂的设计与建造历程。作者通过分析揭示了柯布在宗教建筑中对用光手法的不断演进与突破;此外通过对柯布一系列草图的分析,试图理清建筑师设计思路的发展,并阐述其建筑设计体系的开放性。     

Learning from Le Corbusier and Lubetkin: the work of Ryder and Yates

In 1953, two young committed modernists, Gordon Ryder and Peter Yates, set up in architectural practice in Newcastle upon Tyne. The time was not propitious; provincial architecture was still dominated by an outworn pre-war classical model, and the North East region was no exception. But Ryder and Yates' modernist credentials were impeccable; Yates had been a pupil of Peter Moro and had worked in Paris for Clive Entwhistle, who introduced him to Le Corbusier. Ryder, fresh from a studio assistantship at Durham University, met Yates at Peterlee New Town in 1948. From 1953, when their practice was launched, until the late 1970s, Ryder and Yates produced a series of buildings of astonishing maturity within the Corbusian idiom, their zenith being major commissions in the 1960s for Northern Gas at Killingworth New Town, Northumberland. A diverse output of buildings for social housing, health and welfare, commerce, industry and entertainment, ensured their position as the region's premier architects, and brought them national acclaim; this study assesses the prevailing influence of their mentors, Le Corbusier and Berthold Lubetkin, throughout a quarter of a century of exemplary architectural practice.     

Learning from Le Corbusier and Lubetkin: the work of Ryder and Yates

In 1953, two young committed modernists, Gordon Ryder and Peter Yates, set up in architectural practice in Newcastle upon Tyne. The time was not propitious; provincial architecture was still dominated by an outworn pre-war classical model, and the North East region was no exception. But Ryder and Yates' modernist credentials were impeccable; Yates had been a pupil of Peter Moro and had worked in Paris for Clive Entwhistle, who introduced him to Le Corbusier. Ryder, fresh from a studio assistantship at Durham University, met Yates at Peterlee New Town in 1948. From 1953, when their practice was launched, until the late 1970s, Ryder and Yates produced a series of buildings of astonishing maturity within the Corbusian idiom, their zenith being major commissions in the 1960s for Northern Gas at Killingworth New Town, Northumberland. A diverse output of buildings for social housing, health and welfare, commerce, industry and entertainment, ensured their position as the region's premier architects, and brought them national acclaim; this study assesses the prevailing influence of their mentors, Le Corbusier and Berthold Lubetkin, throughout a quarter of a century of exemplary architectural practice.     

Thermal comfort in twentieth-century architectural heritage: Two houses of Le Corbusier and André Wogenscky

The study of the relationship of climate and indoor thermal environments in architecture is essential to understand the inhabitants' sensory perception. This is even more relevant when working in the existing housing stock in view of the new challenges posed by the conservation of the 20th century architectural heritage and the adaption of these buildings to our current comfort and environmental criteria. This article aims to develop a balanced understanding of the approach of Modernist architecture to climate, indoor atmospheres and inhabitants' thermal comfort. To do so, we complement the quantitative approach of environmental assessment methods with the qualitative angle of the history of sensory and architecture. The goal is to understand the environmental performance of architecture for dealing nowadays with thermal comfort issues while respecting its cultural and historical values. Two modernist houses have been selected as case studies: the Villa Curutchet of the master Le Corbusier and the Villa Chupin of his disciple André Wogenscky. As a result, the article reveals potentialities and constraints in terms of thermal comfort when working with Modern Architecture.