-LE CORBUSIER-

ABOUT

Le Corbusier was born in a small town in the mountainous Swiss

Jura region. His life was Marked by the harshness of these
surrounding and the Puritanism of the Protestant environment. At 13
years of age, Le Corbusier left primary school to learn the
enameling and engraving of watch faces, his father's trade, at the
École des Arts Décoratifs at La Chaux-de-Fonds. There, Charles
L'Eplattenier, whom Le Corbusier later called his only teacher,
taught him art history, drawing. and the naturalist aesthetics of Art
Nouveau Charles L'Eplattenier

The end of the 1930s saw such famous projects as the master plans
for Algiers (1 938-42) and Buenos Aires (1 938); the building for the
Ministry of Education and Health in Rio de Janeiro (1 936); and an
infinitely expandable museum for Philippeville (1938).

In 1951 the government of the Punjab named him architectural

advisor for the construction of its new capital, Chandigarh. For the
first time in his life, Le Corbusier was able to apply his principles of
city planning on a metropolitan scale.
City of Chandigarh
LE CORBUSIER’S HOUSE PLANNING PRINCIPLES

● The Pilotis – a grid of columns to replace

load-bearing walls, allowing architects to make
more use of floorspace.
● Free floor plans – flexible living spaces that
could adapt to changing lifestyles, thanks to the
absence of load-bearing walls.
● Roof gardens – a flat roof covered in
vegetation, which keeps moisture consistent and
regulates temperature.
● Horizontal windows – cut through non
load-bearing walls, these strips provide even light
and panoramic views.
● Free facades – open and closed sections that
allow the facade to actively connect or separate
interior and exterior design elements.
LE CORBUSIER’S TOWN PLANNING PRINCIPLES

● The very first of Le Corbusier's design principles was his dictum that "The Plan (always capitalized in his
usage) is a Dictator."
● Le Corbusier's proposed cities could be anywhere: free of context, history, or tradition. He had no patience for
environments that had grown up independently over time. "A city should be treated by its planner as a blank
piece of paper, a clean tablecloth, upon which a single, integrated composition is imposed". His new cities were
supposed to be organized, serene, forceful, airy, ordered.
● Le Corbusier believed that only a dictatorial way of planning and design was equipped to "inaugurate the age
of harmony".
● "The human mind loses itself and becomes fatigued by such a labyrinth of possibilities. Control becomes
impossible," he explained. "I eliminate all those things", he said, stating, among other things, that "I insist on
right-angled intersections."
● No matter how open and green, cities should be frankly urban, urban surroundings are to be definitely
contrasting with rural surroundings.
● Densities are in themselves not a problem. Congestion and slum conditions in the cities are due to excessive
coverage, persistence of old street patterns and unrestricted land speculation
● Slums exist because of the failure to provide the proper surrounding for high density living.
● He protests against strict functionalism. “Human creations that survive are those which produce emotions, and
not those which are only useful”.
 A SELECTION OF
LE CORBUSIER’S URBAN
TYPOLOGIES
La Chaux-de-Fonds (1914)
● .In 1914 he designed a village of 120
freestanding and attached houses just outside
La Chaux-de-Fonds. Since he admired the British
garden suburbs of Hampstead, it was assumed
that he would use them as a precedent,
adhering to the principles of symmetry and the
central park.
● The plan form is fundamentally different, and
resembles an organic vernacular village on a
sloping site more than a planned garden city.
Contemporary City (1922)
● A monocentric city with a symmetrical Baroque
street layout.
● The city itself was planned for 600,000
inhabitants, while two million or more were to be
housed in surrounding garden cities, serviced by
an extensive suburban railway network.
 Ville Contemporaine

● The Ville contemporaine Contemporary City) was an unrealized

utopian planned community intended to house three million
inhabitants .
● The plan is centralised and organised according to a system of land
uses with monumental axes cutting through.A rigid geometrical
distribution of uniform buildings with huge open spaces including a
system of mass transportation.
● The business section is in the heart of the city symbolising the
centrality of the secular power, compromised of 25 glass
skyscrapers, each with 60 storeys in height (5% of the surface area).
● The next two belts contained residential blocks, stacked up with
garden terraces grouped around interior courtyards or arranged in
a linear pattern
● .Beyond the residential blocks, is a vast area of
greenery, placing gardens for workers and industrial
districts, ports, or even sport complexes.
● The main goal of the project was to facilitate traffic,
therefore; fast automobile traffic was completely
separated from pedestrians lanes.
● The highways were elevated, intersecting the city
from all sides and connecting the peripheral to the
centre of the city while Pedestrian traffic was amid
parks and gardens.
● The Contemporary city was meant to achieve
standardised principles of town planning, as the rigid
geometry was a part of the machine aesthetics.Le
Corbusier presented a city solving the urban
problems by separation & order.
CONCENTRIC CITY

A city for 3 million people was proposed by Le Corbusier

in 1922, which was based on four principles.
● Decongestion of the centre of the cities
● Augmentation of the density
● Enlargement of the means of circulation
● Increase in the number of parks and open
spaces

Three Zones in Concentric City

● Central city
● Protected green belt
● Factories and satellite towns
● It consists of rectangle containing two cross axial highways. At its heart was a six-level transport
interchange – centre for motor, rail lines (underground and mainline railways) and roof of which is
airfield.
● 24 skyscrapers - 60 storied office building with density 1200 ppa and covers 5% of the ground.
● Surrounding skyscrapers was apartment district – 8 storey buildings arranged in zigzag rows with broad
open spaces with density of 120 ppa (people per acre).
● The buildings in the central area were raised on stilts (pilotis) so as to leave panoramas of unbroken
greenery at ground level.
● The city espoused space, speed, mass production and efficient organization, but also offered combination
of natural and urban environments.
Criticism
● Class based conception of life – different classes being separately housed.
● Doubts were expressed about the scale and degree of centralization.
● Critics attacked its focus on the central city, where land values were highest
and dislocations most difficult.
● The creation of vast empty spaces in place of close knit streets with their
varied civic life.
Radiant City (1930)
C- Business city
H- Railway station and airport
B- Hotels and Embassies
A- Dwelling units
D- Industrial
E- Heavy Industries
● The Radiant City was to emerge
from a tabula rasa: an absence of
preconceived ideas or predetermined
goals
● The new city would contain
prefabricated and identical
high-density skyscrapers, spread
across a vast green area and
arranged in a Cartesian grid,
allowing the city to function as a
“living machine.”
● The city was segregated into
commercial, business, entertainment
and residential areas.
● The business district contained
monolithic mega-skyscrapers, each
reaching a height of 200 meters and
accommodating five to eight
hundred thousand people.
● The main transportation deck was
located in the center from which a
vast underground system of trains
would transport citizens to and from
the surrounding housing districts.
Venice Hospital (1964)
● He took into consideration the skyline of the city, conceiving
the building as a series of low boxes matted together in a
complex pattern of overlapping walkways, platforms and
spaces, extending over the water on piers.

● The Venice Hospital is an example of Critical Regionalism. It

is a modern interpretation informed by the history of the
place and the fabric. In this case a major inspiration could
have been derived from the Roman garrison town of Timgad
(first century AD). The 60 x 60 metre grid is exactly double
that of Timgad.
REDEVELOPMENT OF BARCELONA

● In 1932 Le Corbusier designed a master plan for

the redevelopment of Barcelona.
● He proposed transforming Ildefons Cerdà, “Spanish
square” as Le Corbusier called, the 113 x 113
streetblock, into a 400 x 400 street grid.
● The housing units reflect Arab custom with a
vertical privacy gradient.
● The courtyard was made to be on the roof, with
small balconies behind the louvers reminiscent of
Site plan and isometric view
the musharabia (screened bay windows) found in Musharabia
North Africa and the Middle East.
● With a huge part of Spain having been occupied
by Muslims from North Africa for centuries,
deriving this idea from traditional Islamic
architecture was appropriate.
● He reworked it until the Arab inspiration is barely
recognisable.
CHANDIGARH PLANNING

Chandigarh is one of the most significant urban planning experiments of

the 20th century. It was the dream city of India's first Prime Minister,
Jawaharlal Nehru.
The city is found at the picturesque junction of foothills of the mountain
range geological formation and therefore the Ganges plains.

● Share borders with the states of ● Mountainous region

Haryana in the east and punjab in ● Central location
the North,west and south. ● Natural drainage
● Population: 808,515(2001) ● Sufficient water supply
● Location: North India ● Moderate climate
● Area: 114 sq km2

Need of town planning

● After the partition of India in 1947, the Indian Punjab required a new capital city to replace
Lahore, which became part of Pakistan during the partition.
● Rehabilitating refugees
● A center for governance
● A rich cultural legacy
American planner and architect Albert Mayer and Matthew Novicki were
tasked to design a new city called "Chandigarh" in 1949. The work was then
assigned to a team of architects led by Le Corbusier in 1951, since Novicki
died and Mayer discontinued.

Initial concept of Albert Mayer and Matthew Novicki

● fan-shaped outline, spreading gently to fill the site between the two
river beds.
● head of the plan was the capitol,
● the city centre was located in the heart of the city.
● Two linear parklands continuously run from the northeast head of
the plain to its southwestern tip.
● A curving network of main roads surrounded the neighborhood
units called Super blocks.

● The city plan was conceived as post war ‘Garden City’ wherein
vertical and high rise buildings were ruled out, keeping in view the
living habits of the people.
The shape of the city plan was modified from one
with a curving road network to rectangular shape
with a grid iron pattern for the fast traffic roads,
besides reducing its area for reason of economy

Le Corbusier identified four basic functions of a

city: Living, Working, Circulation and Care of the
body and spirit.
The master plan of Chandigarh is analogous to
human body, with a defined
● head (the Capitol Complex, Sector 1) in
northeast,
● heart (the City Centre Sector-17) in
north-west,
● lungs (the leisure valley, open spaces),
● the intellect (the cultural and educational
institutions),
● the circulatory system (the network of roads,
the 7Vs)
● the viscera (the Industrial Area) in the
southeast.
 the Capitol Complex the City Centre the leisure valley

the cultural and educational institutions

the Industrial Area

 CITY CENTRE:
● The centraI plaza in Sector 17 was designed by Le Corbusier
as "Pedestrian's Paradise ". No vehicular traffic will be
permitted in the plaza.
● This zone is for the heart in the scheme lecorbusiano
● Located at the conjunction of two major roads V2 is divided
into two areas: the southern area designated for the
administration and the north for civic functions. The
distribution of segregated pedestrian vehicular traffic.

INDUSTRIAL AREA:
Only such industry as is powered by electricity would be
permitted in the Industrial Area, so that atmosphere is saved
from pollution

LANDSCAPING:
● The landscaping of this city is based on careful observation of
the vegetation of India
● Has a green strip oriented longitudinally stretching centrally
along the sector in the direction of the mountains.
● The green strip should stay uninterrupted and accommodate
schools, sports fields, walks and recreational facilities for the
sector.
● Vehicular traffic is completely forbidden in the green strips,
where tranquility shall reign and the curse of noise shall not
penetrate.
● The primary module -
Sector(63no.s, while 30 in city),
size 800mx 1200 m
roads allocated to fast mechanized transport and
sealed to direct access from the houses.
● Each sector is a self-sufficient unit having shops,
school, health centers and places of recreations and
worship.
● The population of a sector varies between 3000
and 20000 relying upon the sizes of plots
● The streets were organized in a diminishing
hierarchy and labeled V1 through V8:
○ V1: connect one city to another,
○ V2: urban, city roads,
○ V3: vehicular road surrounding a sector,
○ V4: shopping street of a sector,
○ V5: distribution road within a sector,
○ V6 residential road,
○ V7: pedestrian path,
V7 FOOTPATH
○ V8: cycle track.
Chandigarh Planning
https://youtu.be/XE1HOI2moyQ
https://youtu.be/jeFF3t41png

Concentric and radiant city

https://youtu.be/DZ9CG2xsAng From 2:30