Tracing The Development Of Le Corbusier s Ville Radieuse

Final Research Project Nick Wurm Arch A46 Tracing the Development of Le Corbusier’s Ville Radieuse Introduction It is no understatement that the modern era was and continues to be one of the most destructive, progressive, and enlightening periods that mankind has come to know. One begins to understand what this pre-World War II era of modern design history must have been like through the specific lens of artist and architect Le Corbusier in his 1931 publication entitled â€Å"Towards a New Architecture†: A man of to-day, reading this book, may have the impression of something akin to a nightmare. Many of our most cherished ideas in regard to the â€Å"Englishman’s castle† – the lichened tiled roof, the gabled house, patina – are treated as toys to be discarded, and we are offered instead human warrens of sixty stories, the concrete house hard and clean, fittings as coldly efficient as those of a ship’s cabin or of a motor-car, and the standardized products of mass production throughout. Immediately, one recognizes the contradictory and artistically pessimistic viewpoint that Le Corbusier adopts at the beginning of his book. Influenced by the war-torn European landscape, it is no wonder that Le Corbusier choose to expose himself to the idea that the pre-World War I condition involving craftsmanship and traditional societal constructs was of replicable importance. As with most post-war reflections, persons writing about their wartime experiences tend to incorporate some idea of