“The home should be the treasure chest of living”

INTRODUCTION
REAL NAME : Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris
BORN : October 6, 1887 - La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland
DIED : August 27, 1965 - Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, France
NATIONALITY : Swiss, French [1930]
OCCUPATION : Architect, Designer, Painter, Urban Planner, Writer, Pioneer
ACCOMPLISHMENT : Honorary degree by University of Cambridge - 1959
AIA gold medal - 1961
Frank P. Brown Medal – 1961
Founding member of Congrès international d'architecture modern
17 of his buildings are inscribed in UNESCO World Heritage Sites
FAMILY : Georges Edouard Jeanneret (Father)
Marie Charlotte Amélie Jeanneret-Perret (Mother)
Yvonne Gallis (Spouse)
EARLY LIFE & CAREER
• Attended a kindergarten that used Fröbelian methods
• Attracted to the visual arts and studied at the La-Chaux-de-Fonds Art School under Charles L'Eplattenier
• Architect René Chapallaz – Architecture teacher in school – large influence on Charles’ early works
• In his early years, he travelled around Europe
• Travelled to Paris – worked in the office of Auguste Perret – 1908
• Berlin – worked in the office of Peter Behrens – met Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Walter Gropius – 1910 ~ 1911
• Visit to the Charterhouse of the Valley of Ema - influenced his architectural philosophy profoundly for the rest of his
life
• Journeyed to the Balkans and visited Serbia, Bulgaria, Turkey, and Greece, filling nearly 80 sketchbooks with
renderings of what he saw – 1911
• During World War I, Charles taught at his old school in La-Chaux-de-Fonds
• These four years in Switzerland, he worked on theoretical architectural studies using modern techniques
• Charles met the Cubist painter Amédée Ozenfant, in whom he recognised a kindred spirit – 1918
• Charles-Edouard Jeanneret adopted Pseudonym - Le Corbusier - 1920
IDEAS
• FIVE POINTS OF ARCHITECTURE
1. Pilotis – Replacement of supporting walls by a grid of reinforced concrete columns that bears the structural load is the basis of the new
aesthetic
2. The free designing of the ground plan—the absence of supporting walls—means the house is unrestrained in its internal use
3. The free design of the façade—separating the exterior of the building from its structural function—sets the façade free from structural
constraints.
4. The horizontal window, which cuts the façade along its entire length, lights rooms equally.
5. Roof gardens on a flat roof can serve a domestic purpose while providing essential protection to the concrete roof.
• Most succinctly summed up the five points of architecture – VILLA SAVOYE
IDEAS
• MODULOR
• The graphic representation of the Modulor, a stylised human figure with one arm
raised, stands next to two vertical measurements
• Attempts to discover mathematical proportions in the human body and then to
use that knowledge to improve both the appearance and function of architecture
• The system is based on human measurements, the double unit, the Fibonacci
numbers, and the golden ratio
• Le Corbusier described it as a “range of harmonious measurements to suit the
human scale, universally applicable to architecture and to mechanical things”
• Intrigued by ancient civilisations who used measuring systems linked to the
human body: elbow (cubit), finger (digit), thumb (inch) etc.
• A red series based on the figure's navel height (1.08 m in the original version,
1.13 m in the revised version) then segmented according to Phi
• A blue series based on the figure's entire height, double the navel height (2.16 m
in the original version, 2.26 m in the revised), segmented similarly
• A spiral, graphically developed between the red and blue segments, seems to
mimic the volume of the human figure
IDEAS
• OPEN HAND
• The Open Hand (La Main Ouverte) is a recurring motif in
Le Corbusier's architecture - a sign for him of "peace
and reconciliation. It is open to give and open to
receive”
• The largest of the many Open Hand sculptures that Le
Corbusier created is a 26 meter high version in
Chandigarh, India – known as OPEN HAND MONUMENT

• FURNITURE
• “Chairs are architecture, sofas are bourgeois”
• Le Corbusier and Perriand began to put the expectations
for furniture Le Corbusier outlined in his 1925 book L'Art
Décoratif d'aujourd'hui into practice
• three different furniture types: type-needs, type-
furniture, and human-limb objects
• Le Corbusier began experimenting with furniture design
in 1928 after inviting the architect, Charlotte Perriand
IDEAS
FAMOUS WORKS
1. 2. 3. 4.

5. 6. 7. 8.

1. Unité d'habitation 3. Mill Owner’s Association 5. Sanskar Kendra 7. Villa Schwob

2. Maisons Jaoul 4. Palace of Justice 6. Villa Shodhan 8. Maison Guiette/Les Peupliers
DOM – INO HOUSE 1914

• A prototype as the physical

platform for the mass
production of housing Concrete slabs
• Design idea to manufacture
in series, that combines the
order he discovered in Giving freedom to design the
classical architecture interior configuration
• The units could be aligned
in a series like dominoes, to Stairway providing access to
make row house of different each level on one side of the
patterns floor plan
• This design became the
Thin, reinforced concrete columns
foundation for most of his
- Pilotis
architecture for the next ten
years
Free facade
CHANDIGARH CITY PLANNING 1950-1970

• Located at the picturesque junction of foothills of the Himalayas Mountain range and the Ganges plains
• Total area 114 sqkm & population of 1,054,600 inhabitants
• Sector of size 800 x 1200 meters
• Each SECTOR is a self-sufficient unit having shops, school, health centres and places of recreations and worship
800

Typical sector plan

Sector

1200
Main axis

Green Areas

Road Network
CHANDIGARH CITY PLANNING 1950-1970

• Analogous to human body

• Head (the Capitol Complex,
Sector 1),
• Heart (the City Centre Sector-
17),
• Lungs (the leisure valley,
innumerable open spaces and
sector greens),
• Intellect (the cultural and
educational institutions),
• Circulatory system (the network
of roads, the 7Vs)
• Viscera (the Industrial Area).
CHANDIGARH CITY PLANNING 1950-1970

• Basic Building
Typology - extremely
Rectilinear with
similar proportions

1. City Level Public Green • Sector 17- main public

Space with Artificial congregation area
Water Body • Houses all major • smaller individual
2. Free- Flowing Green shopping complexes, Residential Units are
Space, connecting the sports facilities and arranged around
entire site congregation spaces central common
3. Semi-Private Green Green Spaces
Areas for nearest
pockets
4. Private Green Areas for
Residential Units
CAPITOL COMPLEX 1950-1970

1. 3. 6.

7.
2.
4. 5.

1. Palace of Justice 3. Palace of Assembly 5. Open Hand Monument 7. Tower of Shadows

2. Secretariat Building 4. Geometric Hill 6. Martyr’s Memorial
CAPITOL COMPLEX 1950-1970

• All the masterpieces stand together,

representing the democratic India
• Also contains Piazzas, Water Pools and Gardens Palace of Assembly
• Separated by large piazzas
• The open hand stands in centre-emblem of
Chandigarh
• The pools are being constructed in front of the
High Court and the Assembly
• A concrete structure that represents the
monumental character authority of the
government
• Earlier it was designed to be in the centre of
the city as a dominant element, but later on it
was placed from the city as the head – “City
must never be seen”

Tower of Piazza
Secretariat Building Shadows &
Geometry
Hills
CAPITOL COMPLEX 1950-1970

1. Palace of Justice (1951-1957):

1. The structure has a double roof projecting over the office
block - like a parasol or an inverted umbrella
2. Three vertical piers rising 60 feet from the floor and
painted in bright colors – entrance
3. Gigantic egg-crate screen covers the building façade
4. Woollen tapestries on the rear walls of the courtrooms
4.

3.
1. 2.
CAPITOL COMPLEX 1950-1970

2. Palace of Assembly (1955):

1. A large box with the entrance portico on one side
2. Concrete piers on the other, and a repetitive pattern on the façade
3. Sculptural forms on the roof, a dramatic ‘funnel’ top light over the
Assembly, and a tilted pyramid over the Senate chambers
completed the composition
4.
4. The Assembly chamber, in the form of a hyperbolic shell, is
surrounded by ceremonial space
2.

3.

1.
CAPITOL COMPLEX 1950-1970

3. Secretariat (1953-1959):
1. Shaped in the form of an eight-storied concrete slab
2. Sculptured two-storey porticos in the centre
3. The cafeteria - giving a spectacular view of the city
4. The façade - kind of wall of images due to the wall of glass that covers compartmentalized and composed as a
page
5. Roof space - garden terrace - closer to nature as far these huge concrete blocks
6. Exposed concrete ramps - perforated with small square windows dominating the front and rear views

1.
6. 4.

2.
CAPITOL COMPLEX 1950-1970

3. 5.
VILLA SAVOYE 1929-1931

• LOCATION : Poissy, France

• MATERIAL : Reinforced Concrete
• Planned the entire composition as a sequence of spatial
effects
• Arriving by automobile, the visitor drives underneath
the house, circling around to the main entrance
• Stairs and Ramp for circulation - Sheltered by brightly
colored wind screens
• Celebrates Le Corbusier's belief that ideal, universal
forms, although rooted in the classical tradition, were
appropriate to architecture for the machine age
• Houses to be "machines for living in."
VILLA SAVOYE 1929-1931

• Modulor design : The result of Le Corbusier's researches into mathematics, architecture (the
golden section), and human proportion
• No historical ornament - Abstract sculptural design
• Pure color : White on the outside - newness, purity, simplicity, and health
• Spiral staircases and ramps : Dynamic , non-traditional transitions between floors
VILLA SAVOYE 1929-1931

• Five points of architecture

Long horizontal windows

Freely-designed facades
Support of ground-level pilotis

Functional roof Free floor plan

CHAPEL OF RONCHAMP 1953-1955

• LOCATION : Ronchamp, France

• MATERIAL : Reinforced Concrete, Stone
• Singular in Corbusier's work, in that it departs from his principles of standardization and the machine aesthetic
• Giving a site-specific response

• Upturned roof • A wall starts out as • The openings slant towards their
• Appears to float above the walls a point on the east centres at varying degrees, thus
• The different-sized windows are end, and expands to letting in light at different angles
scattered in an irregular pattern up to 10 feet thick • Derived from a proportional system
across the wall its west side based on the Golden Section
QUOTES
• The home should be the treasure chest of living.
• A house is a machine for living in.
• I prefer drawing to talking. Drawing is faster, and leaves less room for lies.
• Architecture is the learned game, correct and magnificent, of forms assembled in the light.
• Space and light and order. Those are the things that men need just as much as they need bread or a place
to sleep.
• A hundred times have I thought New York is a catastrophe, and fifty times : It is a beautiful catastrophe.
• To create architecture is to put in order. Put what in order? Function and objects.
• The "styles" are a lie.
• You employ stone, wood and concrete, and with these materials you build houses and palaces. That is
construction. Ingenuity is at work. But suddenly you touch my heart, you do me good, I am happy and I say:
"This is beautiful." That is Architecture. Art enters in.
• It is a question of building which is at the root of the social unrest of today: architecture or revolution.
• Modern life demands, and is waiting for, a new kind of plan, both for the house and the city.
• The age of personal statues is gone.