Le Corbusier – The Art of Architecture
Barbican Art Gallery, London
“A HOUSE is a machine for living in” has become the key, defining remark of the Swiss-born architect Le Corbusier (1887-1965). Born Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, he later adopted the more memorable Le Corbusier as his name. Although gifted as an artist, urban planner, sculptor, painter and writer, he is best known for his architectural designs, which have had a profound influence on architectural modernism.
Presenting the work of someone such as Le Corbusier requires hard choices. Should such an exhibition focus on his architecture and urban planning or on his painting and sculpture? To attempt both may be too diffuse a focus, while to concentrate on one could be seen to mislead. In the event, Le Corbusier – The Art of Architecture, despite the title, looks at the whole of his creative career. As a result, it is neither fish nor fowl.
As a painter and sculptor, he was heavily influenced by such friends as Fernand Léger and Amédée Ozenfant – their semi-abstract still life compositions shown alongside those of Le Corbusier, who suffers in comparison. While responding to current artistic movement, his work does little to further our understanding. By contrast, his architectural designs fizz with energy. In 1915, in a utopian masterplan, he suggested that the centre of Paris be pulled down and replaced by a series of huge, machine-like skyscrapers surrounded by lawns. The scale of the project – and the ambition – is breathtaking. Fortunately, for all concerned, the project was never taken seriously.
Other vast urban schemes explored the idea of the house as a machine, with geometrical, hard-edged buildings contrasting with sensitive landscaping. Again, few of these were ever fully realised, except in Chandigarh in India, where not only were many of his proposals followed through, but also his designs for buildings realised. One, Palais de l’Assemblé, combines geometrical order with a sense of the organic.
In 1911, on a formative journey through southern, central and eastern Europe, Le Corbusier was particularly impressed with such vernacular architecture as the mosque complexes, the Acropolis and the Parthenon. These were structures that preoccupied him for the rest of his life. Although the idea of the house as machine meant economy of means, Le Corbusier devised inventive schemes for making such structures attractive and “human” – whether through the judicious use of colour or irregularity.
For me, some of his most absorbing buildings are the chapels, where again the feeling is one of controlled organic growth placed in some sort of order. In one, shown in this exhibition as a model but badly lit, two windows in the roof let in shafts of sunlight, literally and metaphorically lighting the darkness within.
While Le Corbusier – The Art of Architecture presents a three-dimensional picture of the artist, I was left wanting to know more about his architecture, such as the development and use of new materials and the inventiveness of structures we may take for granted, but which were then revolutionary.
Much of Le Corbusier’s designs are informed by socialistic beliefs in ensuring flats in vast apartment blocks were not too small, that they admitted sunlight, were ergonomically designed and good to look at. I wanted more of this.
Interestingly, Chamberlin, Powell and Bon, the architects of the Barbican, with its walkways and vertical gardens, were heavily influenced by Le Corbusier – although quite what he would have made of the labyrinthine structure will remain a mystery.
Emmanuel Cooper
Le Corbusier – The Art of Architecture continues until May 24
