So look, there was this Swiss dude who had a title that he used instead of his given name (way before Prince had a symbol instead of a name) and that title was Le Corbusier. He was brilliant, but a little bit unrealistic(easily capable of "thinking outside the box") as all brilliant people are. He looked at the Right Bank of Paris and asked himself, "What is wrong with this picture?" He decided that the problem was overcrowding, congestion and a loss of the natural within the man-made. Then it struck him, EUREEKA! Why do we continue to build out in this messy, irrational, unnattractive manner? We have all that space above the ground to use too, and there are those wonderful foundries that can pour huge steel beams. Let's make the most of our vertical space, which is practically endless. Lets take the city away from the river, leave it's arteries unclogged and build it up with forested and grassy areas to give it some lungs to breath. Lets build streets that make sense and try to work with the flow of traffic rather than impeding it. He thought it best to stack everyone on top of one another in their housing and clear away the old, organic, unplanned East Bank and replace it with a new fully planned, cerebrally formatted city on a level plane. The trouble was that everyone thought he was a little bonkers and he had trouble at first convincing folks of the merit of his ideas. Maybe they thought he was trying to build a new "Tower of Babel", or maybe they were just partial to their old, sloppy East Bank and all it's irrational glories. Who can say? Eventually people started to see what he was saying and embrace his version of beauty in the hearts of the cities that he described as "wild beast' s. Now there are even a few buildings in the vein of his power towers here in the Minne Apol. I wish I knew their names. Anyway, good thinking Swiss dude. It's too bad that some of of us get weirded out at the thought of living with a bird's eye view out of our windows.
Le Corbusier had some really intense ideas about how buildings should relate their occupants to their natural environments, but a lot of his buildings are too stark and efficient for the masses. I'd say most folks need a littlle bit of asymmetry to feel balanced.
I'm wondering where people hang out in "a contemporary city." In a place that's built for speed where does one lollygag or chat with Kathy? Where does the "sidewalk ballet" happen? Also, if the gas lines are above ground, what happens when a car crashes into one? Can a city with so many gardens and seemingly few indoor gathering spaces exist in a climate like that of Minnesota? Why no trams? What does a city without crossroads look like? Why do I think I see crossroads in his drawing?(Seriously, am I interpreting it incorrectly?) Hmmm. Still, hanging gardens, fresh city air, and lots of green spaces sound nice.
Aero-taxis actually sound pretty cool too. It's just that I can only imagine the accidents that would happen once drivers could go up, down and sideways as well as forward, backward, left and right.
Le Corbs was a smart dude. He wasn't crazy, he was just idealistic.(If we need to label him.)
Nearly a century after I first unraveled my “Contemporary City” to Paris I find the same panic and stupefaction. I have long since added notes to accompany my original plan, so I can no longer attribute this troublingly unenthusiastic reception to the negligible plan reading ability of my critics. I have now come to terms with the fact that my readership is illiterate. To make my brilliance palatable to the ever excitable masses, I will break my sections down even further in a forthcoming revision to my plan. “Density of population” will be separated into three parts instead of two, and a new section on the ever-popular aero-taxies shall be created to dispel some of the trivial objections ignorant critics have posed to this absolutely crucial innovation of the modern city. As the only one who sees the truth, and therefore the only one who can slay the beasts that our cities have become, I offer you, O citizens of the worlds most tangled jungles, the only antidote that can tame these confused spaces and motley formations. I come holding my plan under my arm as Napoleon once came armed with his sword, and wherever I point, whole cities become level for us to start anew, in a fashion more suitable to rational beings.
Le Corbusier, your disdain for the plebicite masses is intolerable. For what use does a city exist but to provide for the people? Who then should dictate the design and implementation of such an institute, the proletariat who will dwell within or those who esteem themselves of the highest mental fibre? I find it alarming that you wish to transpose your residence within the ivory tower of your mind's eye to a physical reality for the masses who would no doubt become imprisoned by such a socially engineered device. Nyet, the bourguoisie shall not make demands of the organic growth of the city. I know the masses well, and they will undoubtedly soil your grand design in ways unimaginable to even a great mind such as yours. You will end up sipping your coffee with other urban planning deviants such as Louis XIV... in hell.
I found LeCorbusier fascinating and very interesting. I enjoyed the way he related a city to a system of organs. I agree with this analogy, because there are some many parts to a city that contribute to the proper operation to keep a city functioning. I also like they way he described Suburbs as Garden Cities. In a sense he is saying that the people who live in the suburbs think they are too good for the city. Does garden mean that they have many small little parks, instead of a few larger parks in the city? Just wondering....
Le Corbusier may have been considered ahead of his time during the period he was writing within, but I found a fair amount of ignorance in his lofty plans for the city in the sky. Le Corbusier’s presentation of the ‘vertical city’ attempts to address the problems of both densely populated urban centers and the need for open spaces of recreation and nature. In his proposal to create an ideal city for three million people, building literally from the ground up seems to neglect the anticipated social segregation that occurs within neighborhood and residential settings. Corbusier’s plans seem to write the script for horizontal suffocation of the poorer lower class and vertical mobility for those more affluent urban dwellers as opposed to providing the opportunity for upward expansion and horizontal freedom for all. Positioning people’s homes and workplaces in a vertical fashion does not eliminate the economic, social and cultural divisions that permeate nearly every aspect of our lives. In fact, if nothing else, I feel that Le Corbusier’s design for ‘the city of three million’ encourages the unhealthy and unmanageable densities of cities that Engels discussed and creates an environment of strictly utilitarian and secondary relationships as addressed by Wirth. The motives behind his plan, while seemingly seeking to pursue a new definition of ‘urban,’ reek of capitalist interests. Compacting residential, commercial and occupational in singular vertical ‘neighborhoods’ allows capitalist interests to permeate all aspects of people’s lives without social or physical distance. Engels and Wirth would certainly feel that such an environment lends a hand to dangerous density and the deterioration of primary connections in favor of secondary interactions.
An additional point of ignorance comes in the statement ‘city of three million.’ What Le Corbusier apparently fails to realize is the city of three million will not, unfortunately, remain a city of three million for eternity. Here, Le Corbusier’s suggestions begin to prelude a social collision. With the natural phenomenon that is reproduction, this vertical city will experience conflicts on how to appropriately address accommodations for the increasing numbers of people. While there are limits horizontally, the limits for building vertically are certainly more significant and will present the necessity for some sort of densification of housing. Social implications within the vertical neighborhood structure have the potential to subject those of lower status and income to a much less spacious portion of the vertical high-rise and eventually create overcrowding, just as it occurs in horizontal development. As vertical crowding increases, the ‘unused’ horizontal space that these lower class citizens were originally moved out of will become one of the few arenas in which new homes can be built. Because of the desire to reserve open space for those higher class residents, however, the accommodations for the less prominent citizens will be sub-standard and foster the vices of dense urban life that Corbusier is attempting to combat with his vertical plan, except on a much more significant scale. Le Corbusier’s idea for the city in the sky is clearly unrealistic in the logistical sense for his time, but the notion that building up will allow for societies to transcend the racial, social, economic and cultural issues that have prohibited equality for so long is a notion that is simply ignorant.
Le Corbusier fights the normal curve of organic urban growth. In a perfect world, or one inhabited by robots, this attempt at urban planning may actually work. It helps to take his ideas in context: cities were foul places experiencing a huge transformation in the modes of construction and transportation during his era. He did not have to look far into the future to see the results of steel reinforced, poured concrete construction or internal combustion engines and apply this foresight to urban planning. From a theoretical perspective he makes valid points on efficiency and open spaces. However, this piece fails to integrate any realistic ideas on the implementation of such a design: if those who will use it (business/residential occupants) are not included in the design process the likelihood of such a plan being utilized to the utmost is lessened. I would argue that one person can not design a suitable habitat for 3 million people on the premise that all those people are unique individuals. The abrogation of the individual at such a basic level as habitation would leave large portions of the planned environment either under or over utilized. The only result of this situation is the necessary expansion/contraction of infrastructure, most likely contradicting the original impetus of creating a planned environment.
In relation to Le Corbusier, Jacobs would no doubt take issue with the conscious development of segregated commercial/residential districts. The lack of eyes on the street in addition to massive green spaces with no secondary mode of pedestrian support would create a huge safety risk. She has numerous examples of planned environment failures at which to point. Wirth may very well chuckle with glee at the density figures Le Corbusier uses: 1200/acre commercial, 120/acre residential. With this many people milling about, Wirth would have a field day with an ethnographic study proving just how socially distant people can get. Then, under the assumption of sky high crime levels, Foucault could make a diagnosis of the resulting prison population as a leper colony and the city under quarantine, locked in their towers. Marx would blast Le Corbusier for saying that brick layers might be lazy and that there could be a clear delineation of wages among laborers in the construction process. Whitman would write a poem like this:
How does water bear the weight
Of so much iron, so much use,
Without the gaze of those who
Who would share the burden
The beauty of the river
Le Corbusier is a poo-head
One thing that Le Corbusier does not share with us is hindsight. It is easy for us to see the path that he wanted to walk and the path that everyone else did walk. I think that because he was unable to understand that organic urban growth is the norm and will continue to be, not because of some socialist conspiracy, but out of the natural democracy and immediacy of human life, he was then unable to put his designs into practice by those with the power to do so. He was around for the rebuilding after WWI and I think this sparked his imagination, but he lacked some of the information from which we benefit now. We can point out that strictly planned environments are eventually forced into organic growth without alleviating the normal problems associated with growth. His ideas on transportation seem fairly revolutionary however, describing the highway to local street transition 20-30 years before its implementation in Germany.
I also think Le Corbusier would be saddened to know he spent so much time trying to do something people would now call Sim City ™. He could have spent a few hours playing a video game. Doh!
your poem and picture are extremely thoughtful additions to your post. i especially enjoyed the use of "poo-head" in your poem and the firey lava burst flying into the pool on the roof of one of the buildings in the picture.
OBE-3 Le Corbusier's Traffic for Minneapolis, please.
Le Corbusier hits on every aspect of design of modern cities that would either improve them or already exist and work wonderfully. Though his designs definitely come from an artistic mind, which he had, I think that the particular aspects of traffic he presents, if feasible, would be delightful. I find traffic to be a major problem with excruciating consequences in modern cities, such as Minneapolis, which would have been solved had the Swissman had his say in the development of our system.
After nearly being killed while riding my bike back from night class, I was glad to hear someone agreeing that “crossroads are an enemy to traffic” (p321). They are far too frequent, causing congestion, constant stopping, and to me, another chance for any of four people to make a mistake and hit me. The distance of 400 yards that he suggests for an urban grid-system, separating each block, is good in that even though it may be a relatively long ways to get to those buildings in the middle of each block compared with our cities, it really is not a very long way and people need to be able to walk that and perhaps we’ll become a bit fitter society. This layout would be much simpler and decongested, take more advantage of space, and be appropriate for the physical capabilities of humans.
It was quite clear to me why Jane Jacobs was in complete opposition to Le Corbusier's ideas for the creation of "A Contemporary City." Under the subdivision entitled "Lungs" it is made clear that Le Corbusier wants to basically take away "the eyes from the street." Le Corbusier writes, "We must increase the open spaces and diminish the distances to be covered...build urban dwellings away from the streets, without internal courtyards and with the windows looking on to large parks." By taking people away from the heart of the city, there are no eyes on the streets, no use for sidewalks.
Interesting to point out the contrast between Jacobs and Le Corbusier! Looking at where Le Corbusier and Jacobs stands as far as traffic, streets, and sidewalks, the pros and cons to the elimination of (or decrease)/having streets and sidewalks are definitely pointed out. If I designed a city, I wouldn't know whether to diminish existing streets or to have more of them! (?!?!?!?!?!)
Le Corbusier was revolutionary in the sense that he really wanted to minimize horizontal space. Ecologically speaking this idea is wonderful. I grew up in Portland, Oregon and although the city did not Le Corbusier’s approach, they work hard to minimize urban sprawl and I appreciate this!
So, Le Corbusier was a little radical, but his overall idea was to house 3 million people. How else could you go about housing that many people and not be so radical? His idea of open spaces was great except for the fact that most of the open spaces were spaces that couldn’t be used by pedestrians. The Central Station was a prime example of this because although this large open area existed, helicopters and airplanes were expected to land there and prevented people from walking. The fact that there would be little interaction between the skyscraper inhabitants would be problematic. Le Corbusier wanted to get away from the “slums of the city” idea but the fact that he allowed for no communication or sidewalk interaction (as Jane Jacobs would point out) would be detrimental to community. To segregate the dominant class by placing them in big hotel type residences and the proletariats in the periphery would cause too much direct segregation.
The sixty story buildings would be built of glass and steel. I don’t know why it would be appealing to have 24 huge skyscrapers all glass and steel!
In addition, he claims that “through the gridiron arrangement of the streets every 400 yards (sometimes only 200) is uniform (with a consequent ease in finding ones’ way about) no two streets are in any way alike” (323). I don’t see how this is possible. I was looking at some pictures and the only way that streets, in my opinion, could be different was if there were different flowers in the garden or something because each street would carry a similar (if not the same) function.
Le Corbusier was revolutionary in the sense that he really wanted to minimize horizontal space. Ecologically speaking this idea is wonderful. I grew up in Portland, Oregon and although the city did not Le Corbusier’s approach, they work hard to minimize urban sprawl and I appreciate this!
So, Le Corbusier was a little radical, but his overall idea was to house 3 million people. How else could you go about housing that many people and not be so radical? His idea of open spaces was great except for the fact that most of the open spaces were spaces that couldn’t be used by pedestrians. The Central Station was a prime example of this because although this large open area existed, helicopters and airplanes were expected to land there and prevented people from walking. The fact that there would be little interaction between the skyscraper inhabitants would be problematic. Le Corbusier wanted to get away from the “slums of the city” idea but the fact that he allowed for no communication or sidewalk interaction (as Jane Jacobs would point out) would be detrimental to community. To segregate the dominant class by placing them in big hotel type residences and the proletariats in the periphery would cause too much direct segregation.
The sixty story buildings would be built of glass and steel. I don’t know why it would be appealing to have 24 huge skyscrapers all glass and steel!
In addition, he claims that “through the gridiron arrangement of the streets every 400 yards (sometimes only 200) is uniform (with a consequent ease in finding ones’ way about) no two streets are in any way alike” (323). I don’t see how this is possible. I was looking at some pictures and the only way that streets, in my opinion, could be different was if there were different flowers in the garden or something because each street would carry a similar (if not the same) function.
The Le Corbusier reading was an intriguing one. After reading it and giving myself some time to think about it, I’m still not sure if I feel his ideas are revolutionary or insane. Either way, I can’t even imagine how this must have been received at the time it was published (aero-taxis? What?).
I found his basic idea, that people could try to squeeze a city into such a small area, to be a strong one. It seems as though this would really take away certain people’s fears about the sheer size of larger cities. After all, who hasn’t been awestruck by the massive size of a city they have never been to before? This idea, of course, also has an increased emphasis on the importance of parks and open spaces for people to enjoy and, really, just have a little room to breath in. This was also a strong point to his argument. Even in a city like Minneapolis, you go downtown, open spaces – and parks, especially – are not something you will really find in abundance. This increased emphasis is definitely something that is lacking from many cities today. His ideas about city streets, namely diminishing them by two-thirds, is another good idea as spreading them out more would definitely be something that would increase space for people and make driving in those cities much more tolerable. Anybody who has gone downtown in Minneapolis on a busy evening can relate to this idea.
Those are the parts that make me think his idea is revolutionary, but there were also some things that made me think he was out of his mind. First, the idea that you can use this plan, based on geometry, that would make every city essentially the same was something that didn’t make much sense. Well, it does in terms of how he laid it out, but I just don’t get why you would want every city to be the same. Wouldn’t that take out the flavor that every individual city has? There is certainly something to be said about efficiency – and the fact that city designers lacked it both then and now – but there is also something to be said about individuality. Le Corbusier himself compares the process to that of building a motor car (“a motor car which is achieved by mass production is a masterpiece of comfort, precision, balance and good taste,” he writes) which is funny, because that’s what this whole process sounded like to me before I even got to that part of the reading. Also, there are some problems regarding the very idea of “A contemporary city of three million inhabitants.” Mainly, what happens when the city grows beyond three million people? Are we just going to place all those extra people in the garden cities? What happens if those people don’t want to live in the garden cities but yet the allotted space in the other areas is filled? I just didn’t sense much flexibility in Le Corbusier’s plan as far as this is concerned. In fact, flexibility didn’t seem like the man’s strong suit.
So, I guess after I’ve typed this all out, my true opinion on Le Corbusier’s plan comes out into the open more. My opinion is that, while he makes some very good points about how to make cities better, his plan is ultimately too rigid and ignorant to be one that could truly succeed in reality. “A city made for speed is made for success” – that might be true, but it is not one that I would like to live in.
OBE #2: Le Corbusier – Homogeneous Cities and the Heart of the City and Its Arteries
Dang… I missed the 6am deadline, but I’ll post anyway. I never really liked rules anyway. :-P
I thought this was an interesting read and easy to envision. Le Corbusier takes on city planning and design with interesting insight on traffic efficiency, augmenting density, and increasing green space, but he fails to consider the social functions that architecture has on the city such as how Jacobs views city sidewalks. Without considering the people, why make a city when people may not even want to inhabit it? I suppose that’s why a lot of people didn’t buy into his ideas. Anyway, after reading Le Corbusier, I wasn’t clear on some of the points he made as far as making the garden city homogeneous and “to introduce uniformity into the building of the city” by industrializing the building. And secondly, what purpose does the station really serve as being in the centre of the city (the heart of the city)? What’s so natural about placing it in the heart of the city? Does he say it’s natural if you view the city like a human body? I suppose my overarching question is how are these aspects of city design socially significant? I’ll pose some of my thoughts as follows:
Homogeneous Cities
“The result of a true geometrical lay-out is repetition. The result of repetition is a standard, the perfect form (i.e. the creation of standard types). A geometrical lay-out means that mathematics play their part. There is no first-rate human production but has geometry at its base. It is of the very essence of Architecture. To introduce uniformity into the building of the city we must industrialize building. Building is the one economic activity which has so far resisted industrialization. It has thus escaped the march of progress, with the result that the cost of building is still abnormally high.
Le Corbusier understood class segregation within cities and wanted to homogenize the city at each 400 yards with “the gridiron arrangement of streets” because other architect’s desire for asymmetric cities and city building designs were inhabited and only afforded by the rich. If you remember Engels’ Manchester, irregular sites or buildings serve to segregate the class and provide inequalities in housing. Le Corbusier wanted to standardize the city and mass produce it to “have gangs of workmen as keen and intelligent as mechanics.” Marx may just be happy with this whole idea, eh?
The Heart of the City and Its Arteries
There is only one station. The only place for the station is in the centre of the city. It is the natural place for it, and there is no reason for putting it anywhere else. The railway station is the hub of the wheel… This aerodome (linked up with the main aerodome in the protected zone) must be in close contact with the tubs, the suburban lines, the main lines, the main arteries and the administrative services connected with all these…
The street is significant to the city when Le Corbusier envisions the city is a whole body, with the station as the heart and the suburban and city lines (streets) as the veins. The heart in the human body serves an important part in our bodies (of course!) and is the means upon our survival and our living and the station and its veins serve that similar purpose to a city. Le Corbusier emphasizes the importance of the streets to the city with this metaphor, but fails to neglect who may be watching the streets with all of the green space and diminishing streets.
All I can say about Le Corbusier can be summed up in one sentence: psycho visionary with delusions of utopia. Le Corbusier designed a city for three million inhabitants, but his city has the logical layout of an ant colony. While ants are undoubtedly a model species, they lack the one thing that makes humans so special: individuality. In the same way Le Corbusier’s city is a hub of activity in which citizens are put in living spaces for efficiency and speed. Is this city really a place where I would want to live? I would say no, even though Le Corbusier did have some interesting ideas for decongesting traffic, building upwards rather than outwards, and building both under and above ground.
The one major question I have is this: what the heck is an aero-taxi? Does he seriously think that a flying car is the way to go, or does aero-taxi mean something else (like a car that runs on air or something)? Also, why does he seem to relate different parts of the city to biological organs when a city seems to be a place to live and commune rather than just performing a function? It is possible that I have simply way too much faith in the importance of individualism and defining one’s own path in life. Then again, this article was written in 1922, so expectations and general assumptions almost certainly may have been different during that time.
Le Corbusier also wrote that his city would be divided into three areas: a business and residential center, an industrial zone, and (my favorite) the Garden Cities which are basically suburbs. The people who live in the Garden Cities work in the industrial zone and never have contact with the inner city dwellers. In the same way, the people living in the city center work in the area where they live and never have contact with the suburban inhabitants. This deliberate separation of people seems like a slippery slope to venture down, as differences in income and living styles will obviously occur which will create social boundaries which are reinforced by the isolation imposed by the layout of the city. I believe deliberate separation of people is wrong in the first place, but this “model” city seems to have separate isolated population zones intrinsically placed within the city layout. I wonder how that would work out if this layout was put into practice.
As far as traffic goes, I think Le Corbusier did a wonderful job of solving congestion problems with his model. Often when I am driving on an interstate or a busy road I wonder how traffic would be if all the large Mack trucks carrying heavy goods had their own route, as they are often annoying when merging or changing lanes. It is true that Le Corbusier had the advantage of designing a city from scratch so that no pre-existing roads or terrestrial formations affected his road layout, which almost never happens in real life. In this way, Le Corbusier had an advantage over modern city designers who work with real problems.
Overall, I believe Le Corbusier was a basket case who should have invented a time machine so that he could see how impractical some of his ideas are. Maybe someday when I invent the time machine I will go back to show him.
When Le Corbusier talks about certain parts of the cities as organs and its functions, the general idea I got from his thoughts is that each part of the city plays an integral role to make up the entire city. I can see how a city is a place to live and commune, but I also think certain aspects of a city (green space, the layout of the streets, etc.) and how they're put together determine the living spaces and the communities within them. Or else it would be better to say they all have a mutual and yin-yan like relationship with each other.
I think it is brash to label Le Corbusier as insane. I mean some of his ideas seem far out, but one must look to our future to see how important city organization and efficiency really is. The human race tends to consume, especially natural resources, at a very fast rate. As the population continues to grow and the shift to urban living intensifies, the need for well thought out efficient designs will be needed even more. Population trends show that growth will continue and that there are more people living in urban cities now than ever before. As we are already facing problems of global warming, one must step back and analyze the situation, it becomes obvious that our current style of living is causing too much harm and if we cannot exist with the planet, we will probably turn it into something unlivable. I am not saying that I totally agree with all of his ideas, but I feel that some of the things Le Corbusier suggest are innovative and should have already been implemented.
Although I agree that, at times, Le Corbusier seems a bit eradic, I think he definitely presents a new model of what city life can be like. I would like to see a better picture of his ideas... I had a hard time grasping all of his concepts, maybe because numbers confuse me :) for the most part, however, I really enjoyed his plee for more open spaces and parks. I too think that the city lacks the greenery that everyone should enjoy. Additionally, his ideas for traffic decongestion are intersting, although I'm not sure how plausible they would be now. Maybe I'm too pesimistic... I think that Wirth would even enjoy some of his concepts about density control, maybe it would be a solution to some of the impersonal day-to-day interactions. He is really smart when thinking about future city planning and the necessity of the state to continually be prepared for the expansion of the city. This certainly would solve some of the high density issues and space problmes we encounter today.
Le Corbusier’s “A Contemporary City” is a very enjoyable read about the creation of an efficient general foundation of city planning and more. It’s as if he picked up a piece of canvas and painted his well thought up ideas without holding back. From an idealistic standpoint, his ideas are very innovative and the man can be admired for his bravery. If it weren’t for pioneers like him, would we ever come up with the idea of wearing a blazer with jeans, jump into lakes of freezing temperatures and create a sport out of it, or come up with a car shaped like the Volkswagen Beetle? However, like many ideas, Le Corbusier’s city that resides 3 million people can be heavily criticized in many different angles. Some issues regarding the environment, segregation, and safety hazards come to mind occasionally.
Le Corbusier created a system to decongest the traffic in the cities by creating three different levels of city roads along with classifying the three general types of traffic. The idea of having three levels of roads on top of one another sounds very unsafe. To have cars driving at high speeds up above is frightening and sounds very dangerous for the pedestrians below especially if this city is occupied by an average of three million people. A city with three levels of roads sounds like a health hazard regarding the air quality. Furthermore, Le Corbusier does not think the public transportation system belongs in the heart of the city. Because of this, I’m guessing there would be car-pooling on a far smaller scale, and thousands and thousands of individual vehicles occupying the roads. On a social level, according to the Wirth’s reading, this would probably cause the people to be more distant from one another. Jane Jacobs would criticize this because humans are very social and require communication and interactions between one another.
To further maintain a steady flow of traffic, aero-domes harboring aero-taxis are available for passengers to take them from point A to B. Le Corbusier doesn’t mention how these aero-taxis will operate as far as whether if they will be affordable or not. Like many luxurious things, they are only available to the affluent class further creating a class difference which Marx and Engels would frown upon knowing that the two wish to eliminate class altogether because of it’s negative consequences on society. Aero-taxis sound like they would be very difficult to build and maintain along with gas prices thus creating a high price to use, therefore segregating those who can afford it and those who cannot.
Towards the end of the reading, Le Corbusier mentions the placement of different buildings for things like art and history museums, schools, malls, and restaurants and how he would have different quarters for them. This would conflict with Jane Jacobs’ idea of the “eyes on the streets”. Some quarters would promote liveliness and crowds while others will be quieter and have potential for criminal activities.
Although Le Corbusier’s contemporary city has its flaws, I wonder whether if he was aware of them and just worked with them anyway. The idea of the perfect utopia of a city seems almost impossible. Every city has its flaws and similar to what has been previously stated earlier, innovation is necessary for us to play with in order to reach a better tomorrow.
The views and opinions expressed in this page are strictly those of the page author. The contents of this page have not been reviewed or approved by the University of Minnesota.
February 26, 2007
Beauty in the Heart of the Beast?
So look, there was this Swiss dude who had a title that he used instead of his given name (way before Prince had a symbol instead of a name) and that title was Le Corbusier. He was brilliant, but a little bit unrealistic(easily capable of "thinking outside the box") as all brilliant people are. He looked at the Right Bank of Paris and asked himself, "What is wrong with this picture?" He decided that the problem was overcrowding, congestion and a loss of the natural within the man-made. Then it struck him, EUREEKA! Why do we continue to build out in this messy, irrational, unnattractive manner? We have all that space above the ground to use too, and there are those wonderful foundries that can pour huge steel beams. Let's make the most of our vertical space, which is practically endless. Lets take the city away from the river, leave it's arteries unclogged and build it up with forested and grassy areas to give it some lungs to breath. Lets build streets that make sense and try to work with the flow of traffic rather than impeding it. He thought it best to stack everyone on top of one another in their housing and clear away the old, organic, unplanned East Bank and replace it with a new fully planned, cerebrally formatted city on a level plane. The trouble was that everyone thought he was a little bonkers and he had trouble at first convincing folks of the merit of his ideas. Maybe they thought he was trying to build a new "Tower of Babel", or maybe they were just partial to their old, sloppy East Bank and all it's irrational glories. Who can say? Eventually people started to see what he was saying and embrace his version of beauty in the hearts of the cities that he described as "wild beast' s. Now there are even a few buildings in the vein of his power towers here in the Minne Apol. I wish I knew their names. Anyway, good thinking Swiss dude. It's too bad that some of of us get weirded out at the thought of living with a bird's eye view out of our windows.
Le Corbusier had some really intense ideas about how buildings should relate their occupants to their natural environments, but a lot of his buildings are too stark and efficient for the masses. I'd say most folks need a littlle bit of asymmetry to feel balanced.
I'm wondering where people hang out in "a contemporary city." In a place that's built for speed where does one lollygag or chat with Kathy? Where does the "sidewalk ballet" happen? Also, if the gas lines are above ground, what happens when a car crashes into one? Can a city with so many gardens and seemingly few indoor gathering spaces exist in a climate like that of Minnesota? Why no trams? What does a city without crossroads look like? Why do I think I see crossroads in his drawing?(Seriously, am I interpreting it incorrectly?) Hmmm. Still, hanging gardens, fresh city air, and lots of green spaces sound nice.
Aero-taxis actually sound pretty cool too. It's just that I can only imagine the accidents that would happen once drivers could go up, down and sideways as well as forward, backward, left and right.
Le Corbs was a smart dude. He wasn't crazy, he was just idealistic.(If we need to label him.)
Posted by Tav at 08:59 PM | Permalink | Add a Comment (4)
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aero-taxis? is this guy serious?
Posted by: chrissi | February 26, 2007 11:00 PM
If he was crazy enough to think of towers during his time and 'stacking everyone ontop of one another', why not an aero-taxi? haha.
Posted by: kat | February 27, 2007 07:37 PM
Nearly a century after I first unraveled my “Contemporary City” to Paris I find the same panic and stupefaction. I have long since added notes to accompany my original plan, so I can no longer attribute this troublingly unenthusiastic reception to the negligible plan reading ability of my critics. I have now come to terms with the fact that my readership is illiterate. To make my brilliance palatable to the ever excitable masses, I will break my sections down even further in a forthcoming revision to my plan. “Density of population” will be separated into three parts instead of two, and a new section on the ever-popular aero-taxies shall be created to dispel some of the trivial objections ignorant critics have posed to this absolutely crucial innovation of the modern city. As the only one who sees the truth, and therefore the only one who can slay the beasts that our cities have become, I offer you, O citizens of the worlds most tangled jungles, the only antidote that can tame these confused spaces and motley formations. I come holding my plan under my arm as Napoleon once came armed with his sword, and wherever I point, whole cities become level for us to start anew, in a fashion more suitable to rational beings.
Posted by: Le Corbusier | March 1, 2007 12:55 AM
Le Corbusier, your disdain for the plebicite masses is intolerable. For what use does a city exist but to provide for the people? Who then should dictate the design and implementation of such an institute, the proletariat who will dwell within or those who esteem themselves of the highest mental fibre? I find it alarming that you wish to transpose your residence within the ivory tower of your mind's eye to a physical reality for the masses who would no doubt become imprisoned by such a socially engineered device. Nyet, the bourguoisie shall not make demands of the organic growth of the city. I know the masses well, and they will undoubtedly soil your grand design in ways unimaginable to even a great mind such as yours. You will end up sipping your coffee with other urban planning deviants such as Louis XIV... in hell.
Posted by: Karl Marx | March 1, 2007 02:38 AM
February 28, 2007
New Insight?
I found LeCorbusier fascinating and very interesting. I enjoyed the way he related a city to a system of organs. I agree with this analogy, because there are some many parts to a city that contribute to the proper operation to keep a city functioning. I also like they way he described Suburbs as Garden Cities. In a sense he is saying that the people who live in the suburbs think they are too good for the city. Does garden mean that they have many small little parks, instead of a few larger parks in the city? Just wondering....
Posted By: Kari
Posted by Kari Johnson at 09:23 PM | Permalink | Add a Comment (0)
o.b.e. 4: city in the sky
Le Corbusier may have been considered ahead of his time during the period he was writing within, but I found a fair amount of ignorance in his lofty plans for the city in the sky. Le Corbusier’s presentation of the ‘vertical city’ attempts to address the problems of both densely populated urban centers and the need for open spaces of recreation and nature. In his proposal to create an ideal city for three million people, building literally from the ground up seems to neglect the anticipated social segregation that occurs within neighborhood and residential settings. Corbusier’s plans seem to write the script for horizontal suffocation of the poorer lower class and vertical mobility for those more affluent urban dwellers as opposed to providing the opportunity for upward expansion and horizontal freedom for all. Positioning people’s homes and workplaces in a vertical fashion does not eliminate the economic, social and cultural divisions that permeate nearly every aspect of our lives. In fact, if nothing else, I feel that Le Corbusier’s design for ‘the city of three million’ encourages the unhealthy and unmanageable densities of cities that Engels discussed and creates an environment of strictly utilitarian and secondary relationships as addressed by Wirth. The motives behind his plan, while seemingly seeking to pursue a new definition of ‘urban,’ reek of capitalist interests. Compacting residential, commercial and occupational in singular vertical ‘neighborhoods’ allows capitalist interests to permeate all aspects of people’s lives without social or physical distance. Engels and Wirth would certainly feel that such an environment lends a hand to dangerous density and the deterioration of primary connections in favor of secondary interactions.
An additional point of ignorance comes in the statement ‘city of three million.’ What Le Corbusier apparently fails to realize is the city of three million will not, unfortunately, remain a city of three million for eternity. Here, Le Corbusier’s suggestions begin to prelude a social collision. With the natural phenomenon that is reproduction, this vertical city will experience conflicts on how to appropriately address accommodations for the increasing numbers of people. While there are limits horizontally, the limits for building vertically are certainly more significant and will present the necessity for some sort of densification of housing. Social implications within the vertical neighborhood structure have the potential to subject those of lower status and income to a much less spacious portion of the vertical high-rise and eventually create overcrowding, just as it occurs in horizontal development. As vertical crowding increases, the ‘unused’ horizontal space that these lower class citizens were originally moved out of will become one of the few arenas in which new homes can be built. Because of the desire to reserve open space for those higher class residents, however, the accommodations for the less prominent citizens will be sub-standard and foster the vices of dense urban life that Corbusier is attempting to combat with his vertical plan, except on a much more significant scale. Le Corbusier’s idea for the city in the sky is clearly unrealistic in the logistical sense for his time, but the notion that building up will allow for societies to transcend the racial, social, economic and cultural issues that have prohibited equality for so long is a notion that is simply ignorant.
Posted by Amber Melaney at 10:29 PM | Permalink | Add a Comment (0)
OBE #2 - Le Corbusier needed Sim City
Le Corbusier fights the normal curve of organic urban growth. In a perfect world, or one inhabited by robots, this attempt at urban planning may actually work. It helps to take his ideas in context: cities were foul places experiencing a huge transformation in the modes of construction and transportation during his era. He did not have to look far into the future to see the results of steel reinforced, poured concrete construction or internal combustion engines and apply this foresight to urban planning. From a theoretical perspective he makes valid points on efficiency and open spaces. However, this piece fails to integrate any realistic ideas on the implementation of such a design: if those who will use it (business/residential occupants) are not included in the design process the likelihood of such a plan being utilized to the utmost is lessened. I would argue that one person can not design a suitable habitat for 3 million people on the premise that all those people are unique individuals. The abrogation of the individual at such a basic level as habitation would leave large portions of the planned environment either under or over utilized. The only result of this situation is the necessary expansion/contraction of infrastructure, most likely contradicting the original impetus of creating a planned environment.
In relation to Le Corbusier, Jacobs would no doubt take issue with the conscious development of segregated commercial/residential districts. The lack of eyes on the street in addition to massive green spaces with no secondary mode of pedestrian support would create a huge safety risk. She has numerous examples of planned environment failures at which to point. Wirth may very well chuckle with glee at the density figures Le Corbusier uses: 1200/acre commercial, 120/acre residential. With this many people milling about, Wirth would have a field day with an ethnographic study proving just how socially distant people can get. Then, under the assumption of sky high crime levels, Foucault could make a diagnosis of the resulting prison population as a leper colony and the city under quarantine, locked in their towers. Marx would blast Le Corbusier for saying that brick layers might be lazy and that there could be a clear delineation of wages among laborers in the construction process. Whitman would write a poem like this:
How does water bear the weight
Of so much iron, so much use,
Without the gaze of those who
Who would share the burden
The beauty of the river
Le Corbusier is a poo-head
One thing that Le Corbusier does not share with us is hindsight. It is easy for us to see the path that he wanted to walk and the path that everyone else did walk. I think that because he was unable to understand that organic urban growth is the norm and will continue to be, not because of some socialist conspiracy, but out of the natural democracy and immediacy of human life, he was then unable to put his designs into practice by those with the power to do so. He was around for the rebuilding after WWI and I think this sparked his imagination, but he lacked some of the information from which we benefit now. We can point out that strictly planned environments are eventually forced into organic growth without alleviating the normal problems associated with growth. His ideas on transportation seem fairly revolutionary however, describing the highway to local street transition 20-30 years before its implementation in Germany.
I also think Le Corbusier would be saddened to know he spent so much time trying to do something people would now call Sim City ™. He could have spent a few hours playing a video game. Doh!
David Hauser
Posted by David Hauser at 11:21 PM | Permalink | Add a Comment (5)
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nice picture dave. is that in honolulu?
Posted by: kat | March 1, 2007 01:13 PM
you are mean, making me think of honolulu right now. grrrr. i mean brrrrr.
Posted by: dave | March 1, 2007 05:56 PM
your poem and picture are extremely thoughtful additions to your post. i especially enjoyed the use of "poo-head" in your poem and the firey lava burst flying into the pool on the roof of one of the buildings in the picture.
Posted by: amber | March 2, 2007 09:01 AM
I saw the picture and knew it was you who wrote it. Plus the theme of the OBE sounded like something you would write, you zany person, you.
Posted by: dave c. | March 4, 2007 08:17 PM
sweet pic--
Posted by: Kate Cichy | March 6, 2007 11:00 AM
OBE-3 Le Corbusier's Traffic for Minneapolis, please.
Le Corbusier hits on every aspect of design of modern cities that would either improve them or already exist and work wonderfully. Though his designs definitely come from an artistic mind, which he had, I think that the particular aspects of traffic he presents, if feasible, would be delightful. I find traffic to be a major problem with excruciating consequences in modern cities, such as Minneapolis, which would have been solved had the Swissman had his say in the development of our system.
After nearly being killed while riding my bike back from night class, I was glad to hear someone agreeing that “crossroads are an enemy to traffic” (p321). They are far too frequent, causing congestion, constant stopping, and to me, another chance for any of four people to make a mistake and hit me. The distance of 400 yards that he suggests for an urban grid-system, separating each block, is good in that even though it may be a relatively long ways to get to those buildings in the middle of each block compared with our cities, it really is not a very long way and people need to be able to walk that and perhaps we’ll become a bit fitter society. This layout would be much simpler and decongested, take more advantage of space, and be appropriate for the physical capabilities of humans.
Continue reading "OBE-3 Le Corbusier's Traffic for Minneapolis, please." »
Posted by Nich at 11:23 PM | Permalink | Add a Comment (1)
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Nice points Nick. It's nice to have a Le Corbusiean in our midst. If we never dare to dream, we are just perpetuating the status quo.
Posted by: Greg | March 1, 2007 06:06 PM
Jane Jacobs Opposition to Le Corbusier
It was quite clear to me why Jane Jacobs was in complete opposition to Le Corbusier's ideas for the creation of "A Contemporary City." Under the subdivision entitled "Lungs" it is made clear that Le Corbusier wants to basically take away "the eyes from the street." Le Corbusier writes, "We must increase the open spaces and diminish the distances to be covered...build urban dwellings away from the streets, without internal courtyards and with the windows looking on to large parks." By taking people away from the heart of the city, there are no eyes on the streets, no use for sidewalks.
Posted by Jesse Kortuem at 11:32 PM | Permalink | Add a Comment (1)
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Interesting to point out the contrast between Jacobs and Le Corbusier! Looking at where Le Corbusier and Jacobs stands as far as traffic, streets, and sidewalks, the pros and cons to the elimination of (or decrease)/having streets and sidewalks are definitely pointed out. If I designed a city, I wouldn't know whether to diminish existing streets or to have more of them! (?!?!?!?!?!)
Posted by: Kathy | March 1, 2007 12:35 AM
March 01, 2007
3 million person city
Le Corbusier was revolutionary in the sense that he really wanted to minimize horizontal space. Ecologically speaking this idea is wonderful. I grew up in Portland, Oregon and although the city did not Le Corbusier’s approach, they work hard to minimize urban sprawl and I appreciate this!
So, Le Corbusier was a little radical, but his overall idea was to house 3 million people. How else could you go about housing that many people and not be so radical? His idea of open spaces was great except for the fact that most of the open spaces were spaces that couldn’t be used by pedestrians. The Central Station was a prime example of this because although this large open area existed, helicopters and airplanes were expected to land there and prevented people from walking. The fact that there would be little interaction between the skyscraper inhabitants would be problematic. Le Corbusier wanted to get away from the “slums of the city” idea but the fact that he allowed for no communication or sidewalk interaction (as Jane Jacobs would point out) would be detrimental to community. To segregate the dominant class by placing them in big hotel type residences and the proletariats in the periphery would cause too much direct segregation.
The sixty story buildings would be built of glass and steel. I don’t know why it would be appealing to have 24 huge skyscrapers all glass and steel!
In addition, he claims that “through the gridiron arrangement of the streets every 400 yards (sometimes only 200) is uniform (with a consequent ease in finding ones’ way about) no two streets are in any way alike” (323). I don’t see how this is possible. I was looking at some pictures and the only way that streets, in my opinion, could be different was if there were different flowers in the garden or something because each street would carry a similar (if not the same) function.
Posted by Kait at 01:12 AM | Permalink | Add a Comment (0)
3 million person city
Le Corbusier was revolutionary in the sense that he really wanted to minimize horizontal space. Ecologically speaking this idea is wonderful. I grew up in Portland, Oregon and although the city did not Le Corbusier’s approach, they work hard to minimize urban sprawl and I appreciate this!
So, Le Corbusier was a little radical, but his overall idea was to house 3 million people. How else could you go about housing that many people and not be so radical? His idea of open spaces was great except for the fact that most of the open spaces were spaces that couldn’t be used by pedestrians. The Central Station was a prime example of this because although this large open area existed, helicopters and airplanes were expected to land there and prevented people from walking. The fact that there would be little interaction between the skyscraper inhabitants would be problematic. Le Corbusier wanted to get away from the “slums of the city” idea but the fact that he allowed for no communication or sidewalk interaction (as Jane Jacobs would point out) would be detrimental to community. To segregate the dominant class by placing them in big hotel type residences and the proletariats in the periphery would cause too much direct segregation.
The sixty story buildings would be built of glass and steel. I don’t know why it would be appealing to have 24 huge skyscrapers all glass and steel!
In addition, he claims that “through the gridiron arrangement of the streets every 400 yards (sometimes only 200) is uniform (with a consequent ease in finding ones’ way about) no two streets are in any way alike” (323). I don’t see how this is possible. I was looking at some pictures and the only way that streets, in my opinion, could be different was if there were different flowers in the garden or something because each street would carry a similar (if not the same) function.
Posted by Kait at 01:12 AM | Permalink | Add a Comment (0)
OBE #2 - Le Corbusier Fails
The Le Corbusier reading was an intriguing one. After reading it and giving myself some time to think about it, I’m still not sure if I feel his ideas are revolutionary or insane. Either way, I can’t even imagine how this must have been received at the time it was published (aero-taxis? What?).
I found his basic idea, that people could try to squeeze a city into such a small area, to be a strong one. It seems as though this would really take away certain people’s fears about the sheer size of larger cities. After all, who hasn’t been awestruck by the massive size of a city they have never been to before? This idea, of course, also has an increased emphasis on the importance of parks and open spaces for people to enjoy and, really, just have a little room to breath in. This was also a strong point to his argument. Even in a city like Minneapolis, you go downtown, open spaces – and parks, especially – are not something you will really find in abundance. This increased emphasis is definitely something that is lacking from many cities today. His ideas about city streets, namely diminishing them by two-thirds, is another good idea as spreading them out more would definitely be something that would increase space for people and make driving in those cities much more tolerable. Anybody who has gone downtown in Minneapolis on a busy evening can relate to this idea.
Those are the parts that make me think his idea is revolutionary, but there were also some things that made me think he was out of his mind. First, the idea that you can use this plan, based on geometry, that would make every city essentially the same was something that didn’t make much sense. Well, it does in terms of how he laid it out, but I just don’t get why you would want every city to be the same. Wouldn’t that take out the flavor that every individual city has? There is certainly something to be said about efficiency – and the fact that city designers lacked it both then and now – but there is also something to be said about individuality. Le Corbusier himself compares the process to that of building a motor car (“a motor car which is achieved by mass production is a masterpiece of comfort, precision, balance and good taste,” he writes) which is funny, because that’s what this whole process sounded like to me before I even got to that part of the reading. Also, there are some problems regarding the very idea of “A contemporary city of three million inhabitants.” Mainly, what happens when the city grows beyond three million people? Are we just going to place all those extra people in the garden cities? What happens if those people don’t want to live in the garden cities but yet the allotted space in the other areas is filled? I just didn’t sense much flexibility in Le Corbusier’s plan as far as this is concerned. In fact, flexibility didn’t seem like the man’s strong suit.
So, I guess after I’ve typed this all out, my true opinion on Le Corbusier’s plan comes out into the open more. My opinion is that, while he makes some very good points about how to make cities better, his plan is ultimately too rigid and ignorant to be one that could truly succeed in reality. “A city made for speed is made for success” – that might be true, but it is not one that I would like to live in.
Posted by Chris L. at 01:55 AM | Permalink | Add a Comment (0)
OBE #2: Le Corbusier – Homogeneous Cities and the Heart of the City and Its Arteries
Dang… I missed the 6am deadline, but I’ll post anyway. I never really liked rules anyway. :-P
I thought this was an interesting read and easy to envision. Le Corbusier takes on city planning and design with interesting insight on traffic efficiency, augmenting density, and increasing green space, but he fails to consider the social functions that architecture has on the city such as how Jacobs views city sidewalks. Without considering the people, why make a city when people may not even want to inhabit it? I suppose that’s why a lot of people didn’t buy into his ideas. Anyway, after reading Le Corbusier, I wasn’t clear on some of the points he made as far as making the garden city homogeneous and “to introduce uniformity into the building of the city” by industrializing the building. And secondly, what purpose does the station really serve as being in the centre of the city (the heart of the city)? What’s so natural about placing it in the heart of the city? Does he say it’s natural if you view the city like a human body? I suppose my overarching question is how are these aspects of city design socially significant? I’ll pose some of my thoughts as follows:
Homogeneous Cities
“The result of a true geometrical lay-out is repetition. The result of repetition is a standard, the perfect form (i.e. the creation of standard types). A geometrical lay-out means that mathematics play their part. There is no first-rate human production but has geometry at its base. It is of the very essence of Architecture. To introduce uniformity into the building of the city we must industrialize building. Building is the one economic activity which has so far resisted industrialization. It has thus escaped the march of progress, with the result that the cost of building is still abnormally high.
Le Corbusier understood class segregation within cities and wanted to homogenize the city at each 400 yards with “the gridiron arrangement of streets” because other architect’s desire for asymmetric cities and city building designs were inhabited and only afforded by the rich. If you remember Engels’ Manchester, irregular sites or buildings serve to segregate the class and provide inequalities in housing. Le Corbusier wanted to standardize the city and mass produce it to “have gangs of workmen as keen and intelligent as mechanics.” Marx may just be happy with this whole idea, eh?
The Heart of the City and Its Arteries
There is only one station. The only place for the station is in the centre of the city. It is the natural place for it, and there is no reason for putting it anywhere else. The railway station is the hub of the wheel… This aerodome (linked up with the main aerodome in the protected zone) must be in close contact with the tubs, the suburban lines, the main lines, the main arteries and the administrative services connected with all these…
The street is significant to the city when Le Corbusier envisions the city is a whole body, with the station as the heart and the suburban and city lines (streets) as the veins. The heart in the human body serves an important part in our bodies (of course!) and is the means upon our survival and our living and the station and its veins serve that similar purpose to a city. Le Corbusier emphasizes the importance of the streets to the city with this metaphor, but fails to neglect who may be watching the streets with all of the green space and diminishing streets.
Posted by Kathy Xiong at 07:54 AM | Permalink | Add a Comment (2)
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I don't like this blog server. The html doesn't work in my favor and it works differently for IE and Mozilla. Or else I'm just html illiterate.
Here's the Engel's Manchester link: http://blog.lib.umn.edu/tgowan/tgowan/2007/03/engels_manchester_excerpt.html
Posted by: Kathy | March 1, 2007 08:34 AM
yay! it works now!
Posted by: kathy | March 1, 2007 08:35 AM
OBE #2 Le Corbusier the Psycho
All I can say about Le Corbusier can be summed up in one sentence: psycho visionary with delusions of utopia. Le Corbusier designed a city for three million inhabitants, but his city has the logical layout of an ant colony. While ants are undoubtedly a model species, they lack the one thing that makes humans so special: individuality. In the same way Le Corbusier’s city is a hub of activity in which citizens are put in living spaces for efficiency and speed. Is this city really a place where I would want to live? I would say no, even though Le Corbusier did have some interesting ideas for decongesting traffic, building upwards rather than outwards, and building both under and above ground.
The one major question I have is this: what the heck is an aero-taxi? Does he seriously think that a flying car is the way to go, or does aero-taxi mean something else (like a car that runs on air or something)? Also, why does he seem to relate different parts of the city to biological organs when a city seems to be a place to live and commune rather than just performing a function? It is possible that I have simply way too much faith in the importance of individualism and defining one’s own path in life. Then again, this article was written in 1922, so expectations and general assumptions almost certainly may have been different during that time.
Le Corbusier also wrote that his city would be divided into three areas: a business and residential center, an industrial zone, and (my favorite) the Garden Cities which are basically suburbs. The people who live in the Garden Cities work in the industrial zone and never have contact with the inner city dwellers. In the same way, the people living in the city center work in the area where they live and never have contact with the suburban inhabitants. This deliberate separation of people seems like a slippery slope to venture down, as differences in income and living styles will obviously occur which will create social boundaries which are reinforced by the isolation imposed by the layout of the city. I believe deliberate separation of people is wrong in the first place, but this “model” city seems to have separate isolated population zones intrinsically placed within the city layout. I wonder how that would work out if this layout was put into practice.
As far as traffic goes, I think Le Corbusier did a wonderful job of solving congestion problems with his model. Often when I am driving on an interstate or a busy road I wonder how traffic would be if all the large Mack trucks carrying heavy goods had their own route, as they are often annoying when merging or changing lanes. It is true that Le Corbusier had the advantage of designing a city from scratch so that no pre-existing roads or terrestrial formations affected his road layout, which almost never happens in real life. In this way, Le Corbusier had an advantage over modern city designers who work with real problems.
Overall, I believe Le Corbusier was a basket case who should have invented a time machine so that he could see how impractical some of his ideas are. Maybe someday when I invent the time machine I will go back to show him.
Posted by Eric Tissot at 11:18 AM | Permalink | Add a Comment (2)
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When Le Corbusier talks about certain parts of the cities as organs and its functions, the general idea I got from his thoughts is that each part of the city plays an integral role to make up the entire city. I can see how a city is a place to live and commune, but I also think certain aspects of a city (green space, the layout of the streets, etc.) and how they're put together determine the living spaces and the communities within them. Or else it would be better to say they all have a mutual and yin-yan like relationship with each other.
Posted by: kat | March 1, 2007 01:06 PM
I think it is brash to label Le Corbusier as insane. I mean some of his ideas seem far out, but one must look to our future to see how important city organization and efficiency really is. The human race tends to consume, especially natural resources, at a very fast rate. As the population continues to grow and the shift to urban living intensifies, the need for well thought out efficient designs will be needed even more. Population trends show that growth will continue and that there are more people living in urban cities now than ever before. As we are already facing problems of global warming, one must step back and analyze the situation, it becomes obvious that our current style of living is causing too much harm and if we cannot exist with the planet, we will probably turn it into something unlivable. I am not saying that I totally agree with all of his ideas, but I feel that some of the things Le Corbusier suggest are innovative and should have already been implemented.
Posted by: tyler | March 1, 2007 01:48 PM
Although I agree that, at times, Le Corbusier seems a bit eradic, I think he definitely presents a new model of what city life can be like. I would like to see a better picture of his ideas... I had a hard time grasping all of his concepts, maybe because numbers confuse me :) for the most part, however, I really enjoyed his plee for more open spaces and parks. I too think that the city lacks the greenery that everyone should enjoy. Additionally, his ideas for traffic decongestion are intersting, although I'm not sure how plausible they would be now. Maybe I'm too pesimistic... I think that Wirth would even enjoy some of his concepts about density control, maybe it would be a solution to some of the impersonal day-to-day interactions. He is really smart when thinking about future city planning and the necessity of the state to continually be prepared for the expansion of the city. This certainly would solve some of the high density issues and space problmes we encounter today.
Posted by Corrie Halladay at 01:58 PM | Permalink | Add a Comment (0)
March 06, 2007
OBE 2: Le Corbusier's Magical City
Le Corbusier’s “A Contemporary City” is a very enjoyable read about the creation of an efficient general foundation of city planning and more. It’s as if he picked up a piece of canvas and painted his well thought up ideas without holding back. From an idealistic standpoint, his ideas are very innovative and the man can be admired for his bravery. If it weren’t for pioneers like him, would we ever come up with the idea of wearing a blazer with jeans, jump into lakes of freezing temperatures and create a sport out of it, or come up with a car shaped like the Volkswagen Beetle? However, like many ideas, Le Corbusier’s city that resides 3 million people can be heavily criticized in many different angles. Some issues regarding the environment, segregation, and safety hazards come to mind occasionally.
Le Corbusier created a system to decongest the traffic in the cities by creating three different levels of city roads along with classifying the three general types of traffic. The idea of having three levels of roads on top of one another sounds very unsafe. To have cars driving at high speeds up above is frightening and sounds very dangerous for the pedestrians below especially if this city is occupied by an average of three million people. A city with three levels of roads sounds like a health hazard regarding the air quality. Furthermore, Le Corbusier does not think the public transportation system belongs in the heart of the city. Because of this, I’m guessing there would be car-pooling on a far smaller scale, and thousands and thousands of individual vehicles occupying the roads. On a social level, according to the Wirth’s reading, this would probably cause the people to be more distant from one another. Jane Jacobs would criticize this because humans are very social and require communication and interactions between one another.
To further maintain a steady flow of traffic, aero-domes harboring aero-taxis are available for passengers to take them from point A to B. Le Corbusier doesn’t mention how these aero-taxis will operate as far as whether if they will be affordable or not. Like many luxurious things, they are only available to the affluent class further creating a class difference which Marx and Engels would frown upon knowing that the two wish to eliminate class altogether because of it’s negative consequences on society. Aero-taxis sound like they would be very difficult to build and maintain along with gas prices thus creating a high price to use, therefore segregating those who can afford it and those who cannot.
Towards the end of the reading, Le Corbusier mentions the placement of different buildings for things like art and history museums, schools, malls, and restaurants and how he would have different quarters for them. This would conflict with Jane Jacobs’ idea of the “eyes on the streets”. Some quarters would promote liveliness and crowds while others will be quieter and have potential for criminal activities.
Although Le Corbusier’s contemporary city has its flaws, I wonder whether if he was aware of them and just worked with them anyway. The idea of the perfect utopia of a city seems almost impossible. Every city has its flaws and similar to what has been previously stated earlier, innovation is necessary for us to play with in order to reach a better tomorrow.
Posted by David Cho at 12:44 AM | Permalink | Add a Comment (1)
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v. well written--i like
Posted by: Kate Cichy | March 6, 2007 10:58 AM
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