LE CORBUSIER TALKS WITH STUDENTSfrom the schools of architecture

translated from the french by Pierre Chase

NA2>bO.t.",12. 'I? 13,qq,fly!-

Princeton Architectural Press new york

2

Published by Princeton Architectural Press37 East 7th StreetNew York, NY 10003

We must always say uiha: we see,but above all and more difficult, we must

always see what we see.(;l 1999 Princeton Architectural Preo"Originally published in English by The Orion Press, New York, HIli!.030201009954321

PROJt:CT EDITOR, Eugenia Ben

Prine<>tonArchitedural Press acknowledge" Ann Aller, Jan Cigliano, Jane Garvie,Caroline Green, Beth Harrison, Clare Jacobson, Lesli~ Ann Kent, Mark Lamsle"Anne Nitschke, Loltchen Shivers, Sara E. Stemen, and Jennifer Thompson ofPrinceton Architectural Press -Kevin C,Lippert, publisher

Thanks to the Fondat!on I.eCorbusier

LIBRARY Of CONGIlES, C...TALOGlNG-IN.PUBIC ...TION_UAT ....I.e Corbusler; 1881-1965.

[Entretien, English]

Le Corbusier talks with students / with a new forward [i.e. foreword] by Deborah Gans,p. em.

Originally published: New York, Orion Press, 19tH.ISBN: 1568981961 (alk- paper)I.Arehite.:ture. 1. Title

NA2560.L4129713 1999120--<k21

99-36133

C,P

For a fr"" catalog of olher books published by Princeton Architectural Presscall 800-122_6651 or visit us On the web at WWW,papress.eom

DISORDER What is the state of architecture today? Never in thepast has a society been as directionless as ours. We havedestroyed the relationship between material progress andthe natural elements of a spiritual life. Our means areunrelated to our ends. We lack all sense of direction. Inbuilding, this confusion is at its height. A Byzantinementality has deprived of worthy goals a civilization thatpossesses the most unprecedented means of realizing them.At the moment of his greatest material power, man iswithout direction. France, beacon of Western civilization,is at the center of this chaos. Here and abroad, the effortdemanded of our machine society is staggering. Thoughwe must reconstruct whole provinces ravaged by the war,this is really but a fragment of the whole. After so manystagnant years, surely a country must build and rebuildand regenerate as cells in tissues and families in homes,each new generation participating in the eternal gameof life.

Alas, we fell soundly asleep as dust settled over thecountry. I realize that the dust was that of a supremely

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t

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brilliexce ant't P8S

allt.alilt.was the history of a nation that had been

pnon y ve alert te "t " en rpnsing courageous adven-urous, happy timi ti ..' ,and SOn da'?P inus ic, nngmg with the sound of bugle

was a l;d Izzling all with an art that pervaded all. ThisYet this flat~n? respected as an empress among nations.of a . funng halo of dust was no more than the glow

roanng e long ext' t wbuildin' . mc. e were sleeping, instead ofg piece by piece this ivilifirst steam' new Cl zation, born with the

less, here p~~:~ over one hundred years ago. Neverthe-who recognized J:emo.:,e than eIse';here, there were manyearly twentieth tu: . bIems. Dunng the nineteenth andcen unes thwho thought dis ,ere Was no dearth of prophets,

, Covered and k . dWas critic1SIll' dis spo e out ... Their rewar, grace rej ecti Thmakers th '. ' Ion. ey were called trouble-

, OSe SCIentISts think .Abroad as well t h ' ers, soclOlogists and artists.the technical reasvla

tiome, the ravages and conquests of

. ou on during th .It phiiosophicall' . OSecntical years made. Y lIUperative that th .SClOusnessmust file revolution of con-

o ow. Val fsands of years were q f ues 0 hundreds and of thou-14 ues lOned and destroyed. Distributed

with mechanized speeds, new information flooded thecountry. Familiar relationships were disrupted and man,denaturaIized in some way, as he stumbled off the tradi-tional patha, knew in his environment the horror of hisahandonment: his home, his street, his town, his suburb,his countryside. The new constructions, in all their foul,irresponsible ugliness, invaded and polluted landscapes,towns and hearts. It was a total victory carried to thelimits of abuse, a consummate catastrophe.

The men of those hundred frantic years, the noble andthe base, have strewn the earth with the refuse of theiraction. Architecture dies and architecture is born. Youmust think clearly henceforth. Alone, the young, freeenough and still unprejudiced, are capable of creating thenucleus around which this new architecture can grow.Their elders are engrossed in the same old games in whichthey found their interests and formed their habits. Forthem the time and taste for adventure is over. The pageturns; young people of this incomparable age, that turningpage is for you, who will cover its blankness with the

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floweringofTeaching k°,::atness and your feeling.

devote yourselves tocountry has hardly inspired you tostant batt! ith the creative struggle or to the con-you to mo~ew;, ~ourselves. It has never stopped askingthey had wrun a~ wards. Look at the years before 1914:of the g e neck of the "modem style." Yet think

many People who d . th .had put their hearts . urmg e course of a generationtunity, the reconstru ~to the struggle. At the next oppor-war of 1914-1918 th c on olthe regions devastated by thewere all too ap' e consequences of our years of neglect

parent. Upon th 'greatest huildin e conclusIOnof one of theg enterprisesWecould write· th ever undertaken in France,Th m e column f Ie only profit result' 0 our edger, one large zero,financial.The stifle ' mg from that great opportunity wasto the limit under :.: of the academic spirit was carriedon ~e OCcasionof th:r unusual .circumstances in 1927,Nations in Geneva At competItIon for the Palace of~~g of a ne';' a~take was nothing less than thedirection it Wouldtake Thteeture for our era, fixing the16 . e Judges had a choice between

the expression of two ways of life. The interest in thecompetition was enormous, the number of contestantssignificant. The three hundred and seventy-seven pro-jects submitted in Geneva, laid end to end, would havestretched more than eight miles. The Academy was sharp-ening her weapons, watching, pressuring, pouncing, biting,killing ... The decision which should have opened tbe wayto a new age in the life of our society was a travesty ofjustice. In a series of underhanded maneuvers, one of yourteachers,' gifted in this way, made a cynical comedy of thecompetition. He escaped the justice of the penal courts,but not the verdict of time. His ploy was successful, andthe next day, the beneficiary of the ruse, that ambush,declared, "... 1 am happy merely for the sake of art. Whenthe French team entered the lists, its goal was thedestruction of barbarism. We call barbarism that certainarchitecture, or rather anti-architecture, which has beenmaking a lot of noise in the past few years in northern andeastern Europe, a style no less horrible than the curlicuesof Art Nouveau, which we fortunately crushed some

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twenty years I .histo " ago. t denies all the beautiful periods of

ry; It ISan insult bothsense It i d to good taste and to common. IS estroyed All .that entered the lis' .IS well ... " The French teamthe Institute .ts consISted of M. Nenot, Member ofheirner archi assoClated for the occasion with M. Flegen-this "";"gant ~:f Geneva, Switzerland. The author ofand incidentalls moot was the builder of the Sorbonne

, Yoneofth .ment to Victor E~ .ose responsIble for the Monu-01white marble dum ue! inRome, that unspeakable pilea painful, insuffe bl perl in the heart of the Eternal City,"anti.architeetur~' : off~nseto the eye of the visitor. Theeastern Europe t all entioned above is not really fromproduct of the ~o ,but from France herself. It is thenineteenth and t gged research of the builders of the

wentieth cent . .new materials steel . f unes into the calculus, thethe problemof an ,~m ?rced concrete and glass and intogestation during thos ehc reflecting the great currents inde BaUdot, Tony o~ yc:us: Labrouste, Eiffel, Sejourne,lorceful architecture ~:;;; Auguste Perret. It was a18 ' I began to drive its way into

northern and eastern Europe only in the years after theGreat War. You can see that in such competition theproblem of direction was implicit. With a sharp tum ofthe rudder, the premeditated return to the old formulaswas assured. But, fortunately, life is strong. The Palace ofNations was built by the Academy, but in order to fulfilsatisfactorily the physical requirements of the program,the Academicians had to plagiarize and do violence to thesolutions of their own opponents.' In consequence ofthese scandalous proceedings, the C.I.A.M. (InternationalCongress of Modem Architecture) was born at a meetingin June, 1928,' at La Sarraz. From all over the world,leading architects and town planners came in the spirit ofmodem endeavor to establish on conunon foundations thebasic human considerations that govern both the art ofarchitecture and the art of town planning. With the excep-tion of France, the member countries profited inunediatelyfrom the work of the C.I.A.M. Some of them entrustedtheir delegations with considerable responsibility: Holland,Belgium, Sweden, Finland, Spain, Brazil, U.S.A., Switzer-

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land and many more. Repeatedly, particularly on ~eoccasion of the 1937 Exposition, the C.I.A.M. group ~France vainly requested the oPportunity to participate.mthe development of their country. The group clarified Itsposition further with the publication of The AthensGlumer. This was the town'planning charter of th~C.I.A.M. prefaced by Jean Giraudoux. In Full Powers a1939, this great French thinker and poet urged his count~to aspire to high ideals: greatness of spirit and nobility aimagination. For many years, France, that great labora-tory of ideas, had chosen to ignore, discourage, rejectand crush her innovators. Recent events have made ~edangerous consequences of this neglect apparent. Thisland of great builders, home of the great traditions .ofarchitecture, country of the great revolutionary discovenesin the art of building; her energies today have slowed toultimate inaction. Land of the POinted arch, land ofsteel and glass and reinforced concrete its destiny must, .naturally be to unite its young people, to impel you 111confidence and faith to adventure, to the taste for risk,

uisite task of erectingto harness your energies for the exq I would like todwellings worthy of your fe~07 7:~cerned urgently,show you here that we are icti ac throughout France ofinunediately with the constru. IOn ks of his possessions,

f ofhiswor, ithdwellings worthy a m~,. Let us be done then WItof his institutions, of his Ideas.disorder.

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THE CONSTRUCTION The legitimate pursuit of any society aiming at perma-nence must primarily be the housing of man, shelteringhim from the elements and thieves, and above all main-taining around him the peace of his home, sparing noeffort, so that his existence may unfold in harmonywithout dangerously transgressing nature's laws. This aimbears no relationship to the housing tolerated today. It isnothing but a crude compromise, brougbt about by thepowers unleashed by money: profit, rivalry, haste - all themotives which have degraded man's dignity, crushed himinto submission and made him forget his fundamentalright to a decent way of life. Do you know that at theBeaux-Arts, one of the largest architectural schools in theworld, the problem of the home has never been includedin the curriculum?No attention was ever given to theenvironment in which a man lives: day-to-day existence,those moments and those hours spent in the streets, thesquares, in his room, day after day, from infancy till death- all those places potentially inspiring, constituting asthey do the context within which our consciousness

OF DWELLINGS

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...

develops fro thf

m e moment we open our eyes to life WhenWe ounded L' E ' ''•• fun spnt Nouveau' in 1920 I gave to the homeita damental· ,living" th b nnportance, I called it a "machine foransw~r to ere I y de~ding from it a complete, flawlesshurnam'st' a c early artICulated question, This profoundly

IC program topati f ' res res man to the central preoccu-on 0 archlteetu I

expression neith ,re, ,was never forgiven for thstUSA wh' th er in Pans nor in the U.S,A. - in the

, " ere e machin' ,that the word" e 18 king. The dictionary tells usmachin ". d .Greek meanin " . e" IS erived from the Latin andconstructed to g artifice or "device," "an instrumentstates the ProbPIroduce certain results." The word "device"

em well It i to ..'Ousness of the sit tion 18 grasp the increasing peril-ua lOnand t .and adequate fram 0 create out of It a necessarYof art, and with a ::rk .for life. Through the mediumwe then have the po catIon to the welfare of mankind,. wertob'hIt. I persevered and llg ten that life by elevatingthis . grasped e

VItal problem fo very opportunity to pursuedrew plans, gave leet

rmy Own and others' edification. I

26 ures, wrote books. In twenty books

and three periodicals,' I invariably made the dwelling theprimary objective of architectural and town-planningconcerns, This was a most revolutionary attitude. I wasoverwhelmed with criticism from the right and from theleft, as well as castigated by the Academy for my pains.

In 1935 The Radiant City appeared. The word "radiant"was not used fortuitously; it has a meaning that surpassesa merely functional connotation. It has the attribute ofconsciousness, for in these perilous times, consciousnessitself is at stake, more important than economics or tech-nology, In the final analysis (considering the tremendousevents of our time) it is consciousness alone that is ableto determine the program of our work. And its claims arevalid. This theme served as preamble to the works of theFifth Congress of the C,I.A.M. in Paris, 1937: Housingand Leisure. "We feel that it is imperative that in the workof this Congress we give top priority to the dominant,primary fact of our time: after a hundred years of con-quest, dispute and disorder, modern society has come tothe conclusion that the construction of a new home for

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:;r :f the s: that definitively determines the char-a cunuzatum By ere ti fthe second h . a zng a new orm of dwelling,

ani al P ase ~f the Machine Age enters a period ofvers construction TIris . . ...

endeavor that bea; ~ an.act,lve, OpbIDlStIC, humantions of tech rs essential JOy. It transcends ques-the pure ~Olo~ (rationalism and functionalism). It isconscious~ess.;~ is~nlfu~darne~tal expression of a newthat we can h y in the light of a new consciousness

enceforth envi hPlanning and arch'te nVlSllge t e problems of townowo image th h 1 cture. Each new society creates in its

e orne whi h i hman and his shelt ic lS t e framework of its life:. er, towns and th 'ill factions each d e country.?- France lives

, eVoted to .tsfield of architectu . 1 selfish passions. So in the. reo an enthus' t'mitted a great las ic author recently sub-

unexpected dis~ year of disgrace, to a cov~ry, s~mming from 1942,mformed as he him if. professional Journal as naivelyof hens: se . DOmT.8m th hi .ousmg He d ' e arc tectural sCienceth . emonstrated th t

o er well, divided as w a we don't know eachnourished and sustained e are by mistrust, by spectersconfusion. by those who benefit by our

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The Sleeping Beauty in her Slumbering Forest waswaking up. The Ecole des Beaux-Arts was abandoning itsRoman palaces (Roman? why Roman? a question thathas yet to be answered) and directing its footsteps to thehome of man. Housing, or Domism places man on stage,an ordinary man, natural and reasonable, a being of today.In the play, architecture will be his partner. Look at thestage, occupied by the protagonists. Marie Dormoy, in herbook French Architecture has very charmingly, seeminglywithout prejudice, set them up against each other. Oneshould oppose the "academic" to the ''modem'' (thoughI use this last word conditionally), but it is regrettablethat the modem spirit should have to be split into twocamps. One camp proclaims: "Build first." The other says:"Architecture is the mosterly, correct and magnificentplay of forms in light." In the present machine revolution,calculus and technology have been the forerunners, pre-ceding a conclusion which must one day be the instrumentfor reorganizing this disjointed life of ours. This reorgan-ization can become reality only after a constructiverevolution has already actually occurred and brought with

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it its own liberatinof events. It wouIl :ethods. This is a natural sequencechronology a q I e most regrettable to make of thisOn the one han~e . By whom are these two camps led?contractor, desce~le~r~xtraordinarilY talented architect-This determined ch m a line of entrepreneur-builders.of !he century, to d:racter dedicated himself, at the turnValidly to archite t e Problem of concrete, introducing ithristling Professio~~re~l~r a life of struggle against aafter a life of coura (his diplomaed colleagues),to the construct; ge and Professional integrity dedicated,,__,_, ve USeof ate·ua.u:,snedby academic' rna rial rejected, shamed anddurmg his lifetime inlSIn

his'he succeeds. He triumphs. Even

comm ds ' oldag h .~ the respect faIle, e IS honored. His workw.eredirected, and to 0 . To this end all his effortslUzed0 h no other Bur eroes: Au . y now you have reeog-Yours TruIy guste Perret·, and th hI' ,e at erman-

n addition to itsbuildin J man. g requires that Yother demands the art ofmJatreated "b we pay ,rother-man" tha more attention to our30 ' t we prepare for his use the

kind of dwelling we have been discussing. Here we areconfronted by a series of new considerations, which con-cern town planning. This is at the root of our architecturalrevolution. It is a topic which will allow inventive spiritsto discuss aesthetics and practice simultaneously andwithout apprehension. Town planning is a new state ofmind and a singularly engrossing one. In fact, it is part ofthat "science of man" whose aid we will need during oneof the most momentous periods of change in history. Townplanning is profoundly traditional if we accept the truththat tradition is a continuous sequence of all innovations,therefore the most reliable guide to the future. Traditionis like an arrow pointing to the future, never to the past.Transmission _ tradition's real meaning, its reality. Thustown planning emerges once again from the depths oftime; its mission is to give our civilization a home of Itsown.

Never having wanted to oppose Auguste Pe":,,t, but,on the contrary, having benefited greatly from his work,I have applied myself specifically to the problems: the

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home - town planni Igated the problem ng. nseparable concepts. I investi-from the insid accordmg to rules learned in school:

e, work outwards Thi ul I think .equally a law of natur . . IS r e, , 15trate: man (th t e and of architecture. Let me illus-senses, his emo~io~~e~turealways ~eforeme, his size, hison the objects d seated at his table. His eyes restpaintinga, photo~~U::S him: furniture, carpet, curtains,~ him. A lamp orPth and many other objects meaningfulgIves him light Th e. s~ conung through his windowtrasting those e~tre::s 18 light and there is shadow, con-on our bodies and WhIChhave such a powerful effectwalls of the room :;:es: hthe light and the dark. Theman gets up, wanders p un and his belongings. Oursomewhere else n around, leaves the room and goes

dl ,Omatterwh Han eaves his home H' . ere. e opens his front doorI . el8still'e.evator ... Now he is in th m a house: corridor, stairs,

like? Does it repel or d e street. What is this outdoorsdange~us? Our man is :;;,~t attract? Is it safe or is itafter, in short succCSSio h . street of the town and then

0, e IS outs'd32 I e the town and in the

countryside. Not for a moment has he been free of archi-tecture: furniture, room, sunlight, artificial light, air,temperature, the arrangement and function of his dwell-ing, the building the street the urban environment, the, ,town, the throb of the town, the countryside with itspaths, its bridges, its houses, plants and the sky, nature.Architecture and town planning have affected his everymove. Architecture is implicit in every object: his tableand chair, his walls and rooms, his staircase or his elevator,his street, his town. Delightful, commonplace or boring.Even disgust is possible. Beauty or ugliness. Happiness orunhappiness. Town planning concerned him from themoment our man rose from his chair: the location of hishouse, of his neighborhood, the view from his window asdetermined by the town councilors, the life of the street,the pattern of the town. You can clearly see now not fora moment could vigilance or care have been abandoned.You can see the need for this fraternal dedication ofarchitecture and town planning in behalf of our "brother-man." Material needs and spiritual appetites can be

satisfied by a concerned architecture and town planning.You can see the unified purpose, the totality of theresponsibility and the grandeur of the mission of archi-tecture and town planning. Many have yet to realize thatat stake here is brotherly concern for all. Architecture 1S

a mission demanding dedication of its servants, dedicationto the dWelling (for a dwelling shelters work, possessions,institutions, and the thoughts of man, as well). Architec-ture is an act of love, not a stage set.

At this time of transition, as one civilization dies andanother replaces it, devoting yourselves to architecture islike entering a religious order. You must consecrate your-selves, have faith and give. As a just reward, architecturewill bring a special happiness to those who have given hertheir whole being. This happiness is a sort of trance thatcomes with radiant birth after the agonies of labor. It isthe power of invention, of creation which allows man togive the best that is in him to bring joy to others, theeveryday joy found only in the home.