Why Is Le Corbusier Flawed Visionary

Everyone knows Leonardo Da Vinci for his Last Supper Painting and the Mona Lisa. Not only was Da Vinci a painter he was also an inventor. He had a fascination for planes and other unique things. He made the designs for things like guns and planes that we use for our military and did not even know he was the first with the ideas of these inventions . He made designs for four flying machines such as the anemometer and the parachute. He made designs for four war machines such has the crossbow and armed car. He made designs for five innovations such the clock and the colossus. And last but not least, he designed two water machines such as the scuba gear.

In A Home Is Not a House, Reyner Banham starts by arguing that the main function of the typic American house is to cover its mechanical structure. In fact, he states that the use of mechanical services in architectural practice varies constantly because mechanical services are considered to be new in the profession, as well as, a cultural threat to the architect’s position in the world. To show his argument, Banham states that American houses are basically large single spaces divided by partitions inside that give a relative importance to the use of internal mechanical services, causing a threat to the need of architectural design. Similarly, American cultural characteristics, like cleanliness and hygiene, also foster the use and need of mechanical

In Li’s commune, the housing was not up to today’s standard. They lived in abject poverty. There was barely any available space in the house to accommodate everyone.

"The pre eminent importance of his statesmanship was due in the first place to his insight in discerning the potentialities of his city and in grasping her situation before any one else had grasped it; and then to his energy in initiating, and his adroitness and perseverance in following, a policy which raised his city, and could alone have raised her, to the position which she attained before his death." (Bury& Meiggs)

In order to fully understand a city or its history, you must also try to understand the people living within it. The Journal of Hélène Berr and the film “Free Men” provide insight for this and have some very strong shared themes. One very important theme of both the journal and the movie is perseverance. Both the journal and the film are set in German-occupied Paris during World War II. They provide insight into the way people of specific religions and backgrounds lived and thought during a dark time in Paris’s history. Many people, including those who were not from France, expressed their loyalty to the city of Paris and their unwillingness to step down through their thoughts and actions. Through this theme in both the journal and the film, one can better understand the mindset and the way of thinking of certain groups of Parisians in occupied Paris.

He wrote that the problem of the age is the proper administration of wealth. To give libraries to help the people that would use them. People thought a captain of industry was a wealthy man who gave to the poor out of his own money. But there were also people who thought otherwise.

After standing for nearly six decades, the two public housing high-rise buildings that once defined Blumberg Apartments and

Chicago’s notorious reputation for crime-ridden, poor quality public housing is a direct result of public policy during the reign of former mayor Richard J. Daley. Instead of using public housing to give lower income families a decent place to live, as was the intent of most public housing at the time, it was used to segregate blacks by concentrating them into certain parts of the city. Cabrini-Green was obviously one of these places. The architecture of Cabrini-Green also played a part in the inevitable doom of the project. City officials realized that the renowned architect LeCorbusier’s “island in the sky” concept of urban community, where giant high-rises grew out of the ground with enormous green space in between them, would be good for public housing. In reality, the green space separated the projects from the rest of the city, concentrating slums into ugly concrete structures that quickly fell into disrepair, resulting in “hulking high-rises in poor black neighborhoods.” Also, 95% of those living in public housing in

Levitt and Sons needed to find building solutions that would suit the taste of their buyers, would be cost efficient thus resulting in an inexpensive price, and could be produced rapidly and in high yield. To solve this challenge Levitt and Sons designed a single level, four-room home based on the traditional American Cape Cod style.7 This simple design was modified to form four basic designs that were to be replicated. To produce the homes as quickly as possible Levitt and Sons based their construction strategy on the automobile assembly line of Henry Ford. Instead of moving the parts down an assembly line, Levitt and Sons move the labor along the product line.8 This method, along with the incorporation of off-the-shelf products, allowed for the rapid production of homes. The money and time saved on production and design allowed homes to sell at a lower price. These small homes

“These are revolutionary times. All over the globe men are revolting against old systems of exploitation and oppression, and out of a frail world new systems of justice and equality are being born. The shirtless and barefoot people of the earth are rising up

In the 1950’s France was recovering from war efforts from WWII. The new world shows how France was rebuilding many structures and factories, and how these things were not in common of what the old world was. Many of the streets had also been in non-contemporary grid styles. As well as people in neighborhoods staying within the bounds of their homes, not communicating much, and trying to have their household become better than

Paris as the City of Light, or the “modern” Paris, emerged in the mid 19th century as the demolition of “Old Paris” by Prefect Haussmann paved the way for the urban renewal program set out by the Emperor Napoleon III. New streets, sewers, and parks, and new town halls, hospitals, and schools were all created at this time. Not all were admired though. In fact, some Parisians grew angry that the historic core of Paris was lost in these bold projects. Lights throughout Paris evolved over the 19th century as well. Candle-lit lanterns that once lit the city became oil-burning lamps. It wasn’t until the year 1900 that Paris was illuminated by electric lighting, and formally became known as “Ville Lumière.” Main monumental spaces such as the Palais de l’Électricité, the Eiffel Tower, and even the new central wide boulevards were illuminated with these lights. Paris displayed the pleasures of the city to visitors who came to experience it, however, it also divided Parisians on the basis that the city’s traditions and memories were destroyed. Despite being called the most cosmopolitan city in the world by Baedeker, its history left out the dark side of it all. Paris was desolated of its historic memories and its traditional morals. However, renovations did bring sunlight and air into the historically beloved unhealthy, cramped streets. Ultimately, this image of Paris is all about its visually appealing aesthetics and does not mention what a true Parisian, in the center-periphery or banlieues, for example, would vision.

“The best that can be said of the conception is that it did afford a chance to experiment with some physical and social planning theories which did not pan out. “ This quote reflects Jane Jacob’s philosophical ideas in an attempt to criticize the social housing’s design approach and its associated urban planning in modern era. “The physical and social theories” outlines the urban planning idea of social housing (Utopian idea) and according to Jane’s statement, such experiment of these theories were deem to be unsuccessful. It is inevitably certain to some extent that a provocative statement towards modern era social housing approaches would hold true due to the minimal success the plans brought to the city, such as solving the working class commendations temporarily. Nevertheless, it is a failure to deliver long-standing social improvements corresponded with the increasing suspicion of modernism, one cannot simply attribute ill fate to its “innovative physical features” (As Jane said, the Utopian and Utopia), but should rather considered a range of other elements in the larger aspect of society: factors such as difficulty of racial integration, problems of financing and management, lack of bridging between architecture and planning, as well as the increasing preference of suburban lifestyle from the rising mid class. These problems reflected evidently in some stereotypes of social housing communities built in the modern era such as Pruitt-Igoe, sunny side Gardens, Paul

The mixture of buildings of different conditions are necessary to public life because it otherwise would be neither interesting nor fascinating. But the main reasons are because they ensure low rent yields, encouraging the growth of small enterprises. Large swatches of new construction would only prevent income since not many would afford it, and the demand for it would not be as large as it would need to be.

Le Corbusier’s manifesto ‘vers un architecture’ (Towards an architecture) seemingly focuses on promoting the excellence of the machine. Corbusier quotes. ‘A house is a machine for living in’ explaining that the main principle for architects should be to create a house as well suited to its purpose as you would a machine. It also reinforced the opinion that it is better for something to be functional (functionalism) than have a good appearance. During the writing, Corbusier promotes the strong idea that there are parallels between architects and engineers and argues that engineers should be praised for their use of geometry and mathematics. The start of the writing focuses purely on this factor and explains how architects should adopt this