When I had dreams of being an architect I was completely in awe of a French urbanist named Le Corbusier. He was an architect and a writer and a painter and basically just the shit. Le Corbusier used all his experiences and spirituality in his designs. His goal was to make life better for anyone who came in contact with his art.
Le Corbusier is the founder of modern architecture’s clean and somewhat sterile presentations and symmetrical proportions. He envisioned modern cities with towering residential skyscrapers and sprawling green spaces at their bases. Co-Op City would have been a triumph of the Le Corbusier vision if capitalism and poverty hadn’t gotten in the way.
If economics and race weren’t so important to maintaining the class hegemony here and abroad the Le Corbusier designs would have been magnificent. Architectural critics like to sound off on Le Corbusier’s designs as if he meant for them to segregate people from one another but that was never his aim. Le Corbusier wanted the modern city to be an independent, sustainable model that supported all modes of functions and means of transportation, especially the pedestrian.
This apartment complex in Marseilles, France is one of my favorite projects which he completed. You can see his adoption of the Mondrian primary color neoplasticism style in the facade’s design. Corbusier also designed furniture which borrowed from this rigid Dutch artform but Le Corbusier gave his furniture a softer feel with rounded shapes and edges. The poured concrete forms are indicative of the type of architecture America would produce throughout the 1960s.
I’d like to think that I bring a planned aesthetic to the outfit architecture that I compose from time to time. I understand context and revel in history as my method for building my swag. I also respect the architects because they understand the importance of knowing a little bit. About a LOT of things.
