Dinge der Moderne

Architekturgeschichte und -theorie IV

Text 5
Autor/in Daniel Barber
Titel «Le Corbusier, the Brise-Soleil, and the Socio-Climatic Project of Modern
Architecture, 1929–1963»
Erschienen in Thresholds 40 (2012), S. 22-31
www.stalder.arch.ethz.ch/vorlesungen
VORLESUNG ARCHITEKTURGESCHICHTE UND -THEORIE IV FRÜHLINGSSEMESTER 2022, DONNERSTAGS 13.45-15.30
PROFESSUR FÜR ARCHITEKTURTHEORIE PROF. DR. LAURENT STALDER, DR. ANDREAS KALPAKCI, DR. MATTHEW WELLS
 5 EDITORIAL: 67 TUKTOYAKTUK: OFFSHORE OIL
SOCIO-INDEMNITY AND AND A NEW ARCTIC URBANISM
OTHER MOTIVES
- PAMELA RITCHOT
- JONATHAN CRISMAN
75 BOUNDARY LINE INFRASTRUCTURE
11 CONJURING UTOPIA'S GHOST
- RONALD RAEL
- REINHOLD MARTIN
83 DISSOLVING THE GREY PERIPHERY
21 LE CORBUSIER, THE BRISE-SOLEIL,
- NEERAJ BHATIA AND
AND THE SOCIO-CLIMATIC PROJECT
ALEXANDER D'HOOGHE
OF MODERN ARCHITECTURE,
1929-1963
91 PARK AS PHILANTHROPY:
0 - DANIEL A. BARBER BOW-WOW'S REDEVELOPMENT
~
V> AT MIYASHITA KOEN
0
0 33 MOVE ALONG!
I - YOSHIHARU TSUKAMOTO
V> THERE IS NOTHING TO SEE
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"'
,_
I - RANIA GHOSN 99 MUSSELS IN CONCRETE: A SOCIAL
ARCHITECTURAL PRACTICE
39 FLOW'S SOCIO-SPATIAL
- ESEN GOK~E OZDAMAR
FORMATION

- NANA LAST 105 PARTICIPATION AND/OR

CRITICALITY? THOUGHTS ON AN
47 COLLECTIVE EQUIPMENTS OF ARCHITECTURAL PRACTICE FOR
POWER: THE ROAD AND THE CITY URBAN CHANGE

- SIMONE BROTT - KENNY CUPERS AND

MARKUS MIESSEN
55 COLLECTIVE FORM:
THE STATUS OF PUBLIC 113 THE SLUIPWEG AND
ARCHITECTURE THE HISTORY OF DEATH

- DANA CUFF - MARK JARZOMBEK

Ill
 CONTENTS

121 EXTRA ROOM:

WHAT IF WE LIVED IN A
SOCIETY WHERE OUR EVERY
217 EDENS, ISLANDS, ROOMS

- AMRITA MAHINDROO LE CORBUSIER,

THOUGHT WAS PUBLIC?

T E BRISE-SOLEIL
225 THE PRINCE:
- GUNNAR GREEN BJARKE INGELS'S SOCIAL
AND BERNHARD CONSPIRACY
HOPFENGARTNER
- JUSTIN FOWLER
127 SCULPTURE FIELD: FROM THE
SYMBOLIC TO THE TECTONIC

- DAN HANDEL
233 BEYOND DOING GOOD:
CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE AS DESIGN
PEDAGOGY
AND THE
135 ON RADIATION

- STEVE KURTZ
BURN

237
- HANNAH ROSE MENDOZA

AID, CAPITAL, AND THE

HUMANITARIAN TRAP
V>
0
OCIO-CLIMATIC
163 CAIRO DI SOPRA IN GILi:
n

ROJECT0
- JOSEPH M. WATSON 0
PERSPECTIVE, PHOTOGRAPHY, I
AND THE "EVERYDAY"
245 THE END OF CIVILIZATION
- CHRISTIAN A. HEDRICK
- DANIEL DAOU
175 HUSH

- STEVEN BECKLY AND

JONATHAN D. KATZ
255 TOWARD A LAKE ONTARIO

- DEPARTMENT OF
CITY
MODERN
UNUSUAL CERTAINTIES
189 NORCS IN NEW YORK

- INTERBORO PARTNERS
263 SOCIO PATHS

- JIMENEZ LAI
CHITECTU E,
1929-1963
209 UNCOMMON GROUND:
AETHER, BODY, AND COMMONS

- ZISSIS KOTIONIS
 DANIEL A. BARBER
Le Corbusier's "vernacular turn" in the
1930s has been a point of much discussion for
architectural historians. Why the shift away
from purism? Concerns about the climatic
performance of a building, it turns out, were
paramount-not only to Le Corbusier's shift,
but also to the direction modern architecture
would take in subsequent decades. By empha-
sizing the place of climate in the historiogra-
phy of Le Corbusier's turn, we can also indi-
cate that climate-based design methodologies,
addressed to problems of shading, ventilation,
and interior comfort, are an important and
under-recognized aspect of the reception of
modern architecture as a social project.
In order to analyze these developments,
the historical significance of the brise-soleil
will be traced-first, locating it in relationship
to the historiography of Le Corbusier's
vernacular turn, second, connecting this
discourse to interactions between architectural
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of the 1950s. From this perspective, Le
Corbusier's vernacular turn initiated an
important moment both in the interaction
of architectural design with the expanding
technological demands of modern living,
and also in the contribution of design
strategies to the cultural, technological, and
bureaucratic regime of global environmental
management-a socio-climatic project of
modern architecture that has had long-lasting
and multivalent effects.
CONCEPTUAL CONSTANTS
In his essay "The Vernacular, Modernism,
and Le Corbusier," Francesco Passanti argues
that the strength of early architectural
modernism was its potential to integrate
traditional design concepts with the new forms
and materials emerging from the processes
of industrialization. Tracing Le Corbusier's
22
formative years-from the influence of the
regionalist painter Charles L'Eplattenier,
through his 1911 travels in the Balkans and
direct experience of a "pre-modern" culture, to
his engagement with the German Werkbund
in the late teens and twenties-Passanti writes:
HE HAD BEGUN WITHIN A MOVEMENT
SEEKING TO INVENT A REGIONALIST
STYLE, AND HE HAD ENDED BY
ARGUING, WITH LOOS AND MUTHESIUS,
THAT MODERN CULTURE IS BEST
DESCRIBED BY THE WORK OF THOSE
ANONYMOUS PEOPLE, NOTABLY
ENGINEERS, WHO DON'T TRY TO
INVENT A NEW AESTHETIC. 1
The integration of "found," or vernacular,
knowledge and of the practices of anonymous
engineers, Passanti continues, was central to
the modern architectural project:
AS A CONCEPTUAL MODEL THIS
NOTION OF THE VERNACULAR WAS
IMPORTANT, BECAUSE IT COULD OPEN
ARCHITECTURE TO REDEFINITION . ...
THE VERNACULAR MODEL INSISTED
ON CONNECTING ARCHITECTURE TO
SOMETHING EXTERNAL TO IT, THE
IDENTITY OF SOCIETY; AND IT FURTHER
INSISTED THAT SUCH A CONNECTION
BE NOT INVENTED BUT FOUND . ...
IN THE CASE OF LE CORBUSIER, THE
VERNACULAR MODEL PROVIDED
A CONCEPTUAL STRUCTURE FOR
INTEGRATING THE NEW INPUTS INTO
THE DISCIPLINE OF ARCHITECTURE AND
FOR BROADENING ITS VOCABULARY
AND RESPONSIBILITIES.2
Passanti proposes that the "conceptual model"
of the vernacular was "a constant, articulating
the persistent hope for a natural and organic
modern society, and for a natural relationship
of modern society and architecture;" a
constant, Passanti insists, because it persisted
through his turn from purism. 3
LE CORBUSIER, THE BRISE-SOLEIL, AND THE SOCIO-CLIMATIC
The structure of this vernacular model
is also significant to our understanding of the
conceptual and methodological importance
of the brise-soleil. The emergence of modern
architectural shading techniques can be
mapped onto Passanti's model in three ways.
First, the brise-soleil was a "vernacular"
object insofar that it followed on the use of
overhangs and other methods of shading in
folk or so-called primitive architectures-
including, significantly, the pre-modern
architecture of Brazil. Second, it was "found"
by Le Corbusier in Brazil and in other regions
peripheral to the western European discourse
as a "native" response to the twentieth-century
problem of building multi-story concrete
structures with glazed facades. Third, the
quasi-scientific architectural and sociological
discourse generated by the proliferation of
the brise-soleil after World War II operated on
Passanti's terms-as a form of architectural
integration of "new inputs." Such inputs
developed in concert with other concerns over
climate, providing a mechanism for both the
dynamic expansion of architectural vocabulary
and for the delicate insertion of architectural
methods into the new responsibilities of the
economic, industrial, and environmental
management of the post-colonial global South.
If the vernacular model is a constant
in the development of modern architecture
chez Le Corbusier, so is a general concern for
interior climatic comfort. The development of
the brise-soleil and the broader dissemination
of shading techniques can be seen as part
of a general concern with ventilation, light
and air, and other health-related issues that
framed the theories and practices of the
early modern movement. 4 Colin Porteous
has recently emphasized that at least three
of Le Corbusier's "Five Points" of 1926 relate
directly to producing a salutary relationship
between internal and external climatic
conditions. 5 Porteous reads the Villa Savoye
(1928) as central to Le Corbusier's inter-war
production because it realized his climatic
as much as his formal and constructive
23
PROJECT
ambitions. At the same time, Porteous sees the
contemporaneous Immeuble Wanner (1928-
1929), an unbuilt project for Geneva, as even
more innovative and transformative in this
regard, organizing the five points in creative
combination to productively address climatic
impacts. The Wanner project led to a different
design for the same client in the Immeuble
Clarte (1932-1933), to which I will return.
CLIMATE AND THE
VERNACULAR TURN
Amidst these conceptual constants-
of climate and the vernacular-there is
nonetheless a significant shift in the treatment
of form, materials, and building processes
evident in Le Corbusier's work of the 1929-
1936 period. Kenneth Frampton proposes
that the turn away from purism and the
crystallization of a new direction was first
evident in the unbuilt Maisons Loucher V,
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(1929). The Loucher project had a combined n
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structural system of pilotis, a steel frame, and
I
a local rubble-stone party wall, intended to
be built by local masons. The trend continued
in the Maison Errazuris (1930), a project for
a coastal site in Argentina, which is cited by
Francesco Passanti, "The Modern, the Vernacular, Le
Corbusier" in Vernacular Modernism: Heimat, Globalization,
and the Built Environment, ed. Maiken Umbach and Bernd
Huppauf (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2005), 153.
Ibid., 156.
Passanti continued: "As Mary McLeod has shown, what
changed was the sense of where to seek the fulfillment of
such a hope. During the 1920s, Le Corbusier sought it in
the rationalist and abstract organization of industry and its
products; later, disillusioned by them, he sought it in a more
direct and holistic connection of people with people, and
people and techniques." Ibid., 155.
See Paul Overy, Light, Air and Openness: Modern Architecture
Between the Wars (London: Thames and Hudson, 2008), which
discusses the importance of these concerns to the Central
European developments of modernism
Colin Porteous, The New Eco-Architecture: Alternatives from
the Modern Movement (London: Taylor and Francis, 2002),
51-55. For Porteous, the plan libre and fayade libre enable
spatial configurations that "promote routes for natural thermo-
circulation"; the fenetre en longeurand
the related pan de
verre allow for deep light penetration. The fourth point, the
jardins suspendu, further amplified the salubrious effects of
these various elements.
 DANIEL A. BARBER
Frampton as the point "in which Le Corbusier
made a total break with the Purist machine
aesthetic in that the double-height volume of
the house was to be covered by monopitched
roofs sloping inwards toward a central gutter." 6
As Frampton describes it, through these and
other examples, Le Corbusier's "turn" was
conditioned by the possibility of integrating
traditional practices and materials with
modern methods and designs FIG. 1. 7
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FTG. I - Le Corbusicr, Maison Errazuriz, Argentina, 1930 (unbuilt)
and Maison de 1-Veekend, Paris, 1934."
Historians have also looked to the
parallel emergence of the brise-soleil to
understand the origins and significance of Le
Corbusier's turn. At issue is the purported
climatic efficiency of the sealed glass curtain
wall. The Immeuble Clarte in particular, as
Frampton notes, was designed right after Le
Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret-accustomed,
as Frampton puts it, to "over-reaching
themselves technically"-had come closest to
realizing their "technocratic vision." At both
the Cite des Refuge (1929-1933) in Paris and
the Centrosoyuz (1928-1936) in Moscow, that
vision relied on the power of public agencies
24
FTG. 2 - Le Corbusicr, Citl? des Refuges, Paris, 1933 (model)."
to harness the materials, resources, and sites
necessary to further the project of the modern
office building as a climatic management
object FIG. 2. 8 In both of these projects, Le
Corbusier's vision was focused on an active
climatic strategy he called respiration exacte,
one of the more prominent early proposals for
a complete system of heating, ventilation, and
air conditioning. As Frampton described it:
A BUILDING WAS SUPPOSED TO BE HEATED
DISTRIBUTED THROUGHOUT VIA AN ALL-
ENVELOPING PLENUM, INTEGRAL WITH
ITS OUTER SKIN. THESE "NEUTRALIZING
WALLS," AS [LE CORBUSIER] CALLED THEM,
WERE TO BE MADE UP OF AN INNER AND
OUTER GLASS MEMBRANE, WITH AN AIR-
SPACE IN BETWEEN, CONSTITUTING A
JACKET THROUGH WHICH EITHER WARMED
OR COOLED AIR WOULD BE PASSED
THROUGH ACCORDING TO THE SEASON
OF THE YEAR. 9
Such a system was proposed in both Paris and
Moscow, though bureaucratic budget cutting
frustrated both attempts. The insulating
curtain walls were built, hermetically sealing
the buildings, but little or no mechanical
ventilation or air conditioning was employed.
The result was in both cases a greenhouse box,
cold in the winter and unbearably hot in
the summer.
Frampton proposes that the technological
and bureaucratic barriers that prevented Le
LE CORBUSIER, THE BRISE-SOLEIL, AND THE SOCIO-CLIMATIC PROJECT
FIG 3 - Le Corbusicr, Tmmeuble Clarte, Geneva, 1930-32. From Le Corbusicr, Oeu11re Complete, 19 l 0-69.
Corbusier from successfully implementing
the respiration exacte system led to a life-
changing "loss of faith in the manifest destiny
of the machine age," and thus to a new
approach to climate that would first develop
at Immeuble Clarte. 10 Reyner Banham is
somewhat more ambivalent in summarizing
these events, indicating that "Le Corbusier's
obstinate environmental misapprehensions"
at the Cite des Refuges led to "the invention of
the brise-soleil," while conceding that "there
can be no doubt that, however desperate
its motivations, the brise-soleil is one of [Le
Corbusier's] most masterly inventions, and one
of the last structural innovations in the field of
environmental management." 11
At the Immeuble Clarte, Le Corbusier
did not attempt a mechanically sophisticated
system. The building deployed a collection
oflow cost, user intensive, and formally
dynamic sun-shading devices-balconies,
external blinds, retractable awnings, and
interior shutters blocked and modulated solar
incidence FIG. ,. 12 Though much more than a
brise-soleil, the basic principle was established:
as part of the turn away from his faith in
the machine age, Le Corbusier proposed
architectural elements to manage those interior
climatic conditions that the mechanical systems
approach had proven unable to engage.
25
THE BRISE-SOLEIL IN BRAZIL
As Banham also pointed out, Le Corbusier
had an explicit internationalist program for
the respiration exacte, intending to produce
"one single building for all nations and
climates." 13 From the '30s to the 'SOs, before V,
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the widespread use of mechanical HVAC n
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systems, the brise-soleil operated on these
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terms-as a techno-cultural object able to
mediate a variety of climatic conditions.
Following the Clarte experiment, the brise-
soleil was proposed for the Maison Locative
(1933) at Algiers. This project, a 12-story
hillside tower, also called for the misconceived
respiration exacte, but included a concrete
Kenneth Frampton, "Le Corbusier and Oscar Niemeyer:
Influence and Counterinfluence, 1929-1965," in Latin American
Architecture, 1929-1960: Contemporary Reflections, ed. Carlos
Brillembourg (New York: Monacelli Press, 2004), 37.
Other relevant examples include the Maison de Weekend
(1935), the first Maison Jaou/ project (1937), the projected
Roq et Rob vacation houses (1949), and the second Maison
Jaou/ (1952-54). See Kenneth Frampton, Modern Architecture:
A Critical History (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1986), 224;
and Kenneth Frampton, Le Corbusier (New York: Thames and
Hudson, 2001), 130-149
Frampton, Le Corbusier, 101
Frampton, "Le Corbusier and Oscar Niemeyer," 101 See also
Porteous, The New £co-Architecture, 67
10 Frampton, Le Corbusier, 101
11 Reyner Banham, Architecture of the We/I-Tempered Environ-
ment (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969), 158.
12 Porteous, The New Eco-Architecture, 62.
13 Banham, Architecture of the We/I-Tempered Environment,
quoting Le Corbusier in Precisions (1930).
 DANIEL A. BARBER LE CORBUSIER, THE BRISE-SOLEIL, AND THE SOCIO-CLIMATIC PROJECT

Designed by a team sustained production of modern buildings up make it possible to calculate accurately and
of Brazilian architects to that point. The brise-soleil was a necessary solve any sunlight problem." 17
including Lucio Costa, component of the work of Niemeyer, MMM Mindlin's second factor was "the
Oscar Niemeyer, Alfonso Roberto, Luiz Nunes, Paulo Antunes Ribeiro, development of an advanced technique for
Reidy, and others-and with and many others working in Brazil and gaining the use of reinforced concrete." The industrial
extensive consultation by international attention FIG. s. Brazilian architect infrastructure of Brazil, he noted, already
Le Corbusier-it established and historian Henrique E. Mindlin, in his allowed for widespread use of concrete;
the international model for a Modern Architecture in Brazil (1955), is matter additional concrete for the brise-soleil was
climatically sensitive modern of fact about the centrality of both the brise- thus an exceptionally efficient means to
office building FIG. s. The soleil and of Le Corbusier to the proliferation manage internal climate. Mindlin's third factor
north (sun-facing) facade has of modern architecture in Brazil from the touches on Passanti's "conceptual constant":
three-fin modules of operable mid-'30s. "The brise-soleil," Mindlin wrote, "Reminiscences of and variations on the
louvers in egg-crate frames, "(in Portuguese quebra-sol or 'sun-breaker,' traditional colonial screens and shutters are
suspended from a balcony for but that the French expression is commonly frequently found in the details of the brise-
heat dispersion. The south used indicates its direct derivation from Le soleil, [leading to] expressions of the past
facade is unshaded glass, and Corbusier) has been applied in Brazil in the re-occurring in the vernacular now being
the blind walls at each end greatest variety of ways." 16 Mindlin argued for formed." This integration of the vernacular
are sheathed in pink marble. the importance of the brise-soleil according with contemporary demands of climatic
In plan, the design proposed to three main factors. First, he described the management suggest how a formal approach
a simple rectangle for the importance of "research into the functions of could connect design methodology to
tower, offset by a more sunlight" in Sao Paulo engineering schools at economic and political concerns. 18
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UJ FIG 4 - Oscar Neimeyer, Obra do llerqo, Rio de Janeiro, 1937
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from Heinrich Mindlin, Modem Architecture in Brazil, 1955. what was likely the largest of buildings" in architecture
schools by the mid-' 20s. As
grid of protruding shading elements on the sun Mindlin summarized, "easily
exposed facades. 14 handled sunlight graphs
This basic formula was reproduced by and tables, in general use by
a number of Corbusier-influenced architects architects for decades now,
in Brazil: by early 1936, MMM Roberto's
Associaqiio Brasileira de Imprensa (ABI) and
Oscar Niemeyer's Obra do Berqo, both in Rio
de Janeiro, established the use of varied brise- 14 The Greek-Brazilian architect Stamo
Papadaki is seen by Jeffrey Aronin, 2
soleil facades to manage internal climate. 15 Porteous, and others as the first to
Whereas the ABI, like the Maison Locative, use the brise-soleil in his proposed
Christopher Columbus Memorial
had uniform fixed diagonal slabs on the north Lighthouse of 1928. See Jeffrey
and west facades, the more sophisticated Obra Aronin, Climate and Architecture
(New York: Reinhold, 1953).
do Berqo had independent, operable brise-soleil 15 Costa was appointed director of the
on each floor. This operability, as well as the Esque/a Nacional de Bellas Artes in
1930, right after Le Corbusier's first
capacity for different treatments for different trip to Brazil, largely as a result of his 3
orientation or programmatic conditions, allegiance to Corbusian modernism
16 Mindlin, Modern Architecture in
established the model for sun-shading FIG. 4. Brazil, 11. Mindlin initially wrote the
The Ministerio da Educaqiio e da Sa{ide book-with an introduction by Sigfried
Giedeon-to accompany the 1943
(MES) building (1936-1943), also in Rio, .FlG. 5 - Oscar Neimeyer, Ludo Costa, Alfonso Reidy, et al., Ministry of
Brazil Builds exhibition at MoMA. FlG. 6 - MMM Roberto, Seguradoras Building, Rio <le Janeiro, 1949. From Victor and
Education and Health, Rio de Janeiro, 1936-1943. Prom Victor and
was the culmination of this early period. 17 Ibid., 11. Aladar Olgyay, Solar Control and Shading Dellices, 195 7.
Aladar Olgyay, Solar Control and Shading Dellices, 1957.

26 27
 DANIEL A. BARBER
Beyond Mindlin's mid-century analysis,
the MES has been regarded recently as
central to another "conceptual constant" that
weathered the vernacular turn: Le Corbusier's
investment in the bureaucratic elite as the
ideal client for modern architecture. In
the post-war period, this tendency allows
for connections to be drawn to the then-
emergent bureaucracy of global environmental
management. Le Corbusier had always been
interested in engaging figures of authority-
politicians, technocrats and bureaucrats,
engineers, and civic leaders-on his travels.
Yonnis Tsiomis has recently proposed that this
was especially the case during the 1936 visit
to Brazil, due in large part to Le Corbusier's
frustration with the conditions in Europe. 19
Such interest was no doubt encouraged by the
near-direct invitation to Brazil extended by the
client of the MES, the Minister of Education
and Health Gustavo Campanema. Much like
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(1952), among other buildings, Capanema
was a high-ranking official devoted to modern
architecture on cultural terms, and supportive
of it as a public representation of his own
modernization initiatives and strategies. If
Le Corbusier had lost faith in the manifest
destiny of the machine age, he had not lost
his interest in architecture as a techno-
bureaucratic device for managing industrial
growth and shaping social conditions. In
this context, the brise-soleil came to be a
provocative formal and technological response
to the climatic, political, and economic
pressures encountered by architects working
in tropical regions.
POST-WAR PROLIFERATIONS
After the war, the brise-soleil was
central to two innovations of the modern
architectural discourse: the "bio-climactic
28
regionalism" codified by Victor and Aladar
Olgyay, and the "tropical architecture"
approach summarized by Maxwell Fry and
Jane Drew. Both developments were modeled
on the Corbusian use of the brise-soleil. The
Olgyays summarized their method through
a comparative analysis of Mies's 1951
Lake Shore Apartments (reliant on a large
mechanical ventilation system); Harrison &
Abramowitz's 1954 Republic Bank in Dallas
(an aluminum "breathing wall"); Skidmore,
Owings, and Merrill's 1952 Lever House (with
custom tinted glass effective for deflecting
summer radiation but not for keeping winter
heat in); and finally, Le Corbusier's 1953 Unite
d'Habitation. As the Olgyays explained, "The
last example illustrates a radiation control
solution with shading devices. The method
is fundamentally sound. Interception of the
energy happens at the right place-before it
attacks the building. ... Here, by shaping the
devices according to the changing seasonal
sun-path, both summer shading and utilization
of winter energies can be performed."'" Noting
that Le Corbusier-at least at the Unite-did
not carefully consider all of these climatic
elements, especially as regards the building's
orientation, they nonetheless saw themselves
following Le Corbusier by using the brise-soleil as
an architectural solution to climatic challenges.
The Olgyays' method was based on using
diverse shading devices on different facades in
combination with operable louvers to provide
heating, cooling, and ventilation amidst
numerous climatic conditions. A "bioclimatic"
building, they proposed, organized an
"interlocking field of balance" between regional
climate, technological possibility, biological
knowledge, and architectural technique. 21
Their method involved analyzing sun-
charts to identify potential "overheated" and
18 Ibid.
19 Yonnis Tsiomis, "Introduction," in Le Corbusier,
Conferences de Rio: Le Corbusier au Bresil, 1936 (Paris·
Flammarion, 2006), 67
20 Victor Olgyay and Aladar Olgyay, Solar Control & Shading
Devices (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1957), 7.
LE CORBUSIER, THE BRISE-SOLEIL, AND THE SOCIO-CLIMATIC
"underheated" periods; testing site-orientation
against sunlight modeling systems; determining
the contextual "sky-vault" conditions of
existing shading elements; and calibrating it
all to determine an appropriate "sun-mask"
shape which correlated to a specific shading
device strategy FIG. 7. 22 Through this complex
system, the Olgyays participated in a dramatic
re-conception of the internal environment
of a building, directing their efforts towards
producing an optimum zone for human activity.
Somewhat ironically, their careful method
to determine "thermal comfort" would be
rescripted to fit the specification parameters
for mechanical HVAC systems as the '50s
progressed FIG. B.
Maxwell Fry and Jane Drew's Tropical
Architecture in the Dry and Humid Zones (1956),
the 1953 conference it summarized, their
194 7 Village Housing in the Tropics, and their
involvement with the planning of Chandigarh
in the 1950s also reflected the influence of Le
Corbusier and of the brise-soleil on the post-
war discourse of climate and architecture. Their
work is also explicit about how the climatic
facility of modern architecture led to a regional
approach of managing industrialdevelopment
after the collapse of colonial regimes.
The argument in Tropical Architecture
in the Dry and Humid Zones is tied to narratives
of economic development. Following the
dissolution of direct British control of former
West African colonies, Fry and Drew advocated
for design principles that facilitate economic
and infrastructural management FIG. 9. "The act
of building," Fry and Drew wrote, "must probe
deeply into the productive possibilities of a
country ... leading to a more complete and more
secure mastery over circumstances." 23 Passive
climate mitigation, they argued, provided
better conditions for economic growth in
areas removed from infrastructure: it both
improved the living conditions of the worker
and provided comfortable accommodations for
western agents of industry and government.
Tropical architecture's innovations can
be seen as attempts to use architecture to
29
PROJECT
mediate betweenpolitical, social, and climatic
complications.
In conclusion, it is important to note
that the globalization of the environmental
discourse, occurring in this same period,
also depended heavily on the conceptual
formulation of "the tropics" on the part of
Western European and American industrial-
ists and bureaucrats. 24 The Olgyays interest
in climate converges with a broader inter-
disciplinary effort, involving the natural and
social sciences, to articulate a socio-political
concept of the environment. The tropical
architecture discourse further suggests an
intertwining of formal, technological, and bureau-
cratic histories in managing the ecological and
economic conditions of industrial development.
The point here is not to invest architectural
strategies with explicit political import, but
rather to indicate the continuing impact
of the architectural discourse on tropes of
modernity and modernizaton. At the limit, an
expanded history of modern architecture can <J)
0
engage the socio-climatic legacy of inter-war n
0
innovations for their implications-intentional
I
or otherwise-in the production of cultural,
technological, and bureaucratic regimes of
global environmental management. This brief
history of the brise-soleil suggests a vital
connection between the formal implications
of Le Corbusier's vernacular turn, and the
geopolitical and geoeconomic significance
of climatic management-one that is inflected
anew amid the current concern over a
warming climate.
21 Victor Olgyay and Aladar Olgyay, Design with Climate:
Bioc/imatic Approach to Architectural Regionalism (Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press, 1963), 12.
22 The contemporary building performance modeling software
Autodesk Ecotect appears to be based directly on the
Olgyays' method
23 Ibid., 25
24 Although tropical rainforest deforestation is only a small piece
of the environmental crisis, the "rainforest connection" has
since the 1950s "been central in the scientific and popular
construction of global-change knowledge." See Peter J.
Taylor and Frederick H. Buttel, "How Do We Know We Have
Environmental Problems? Science and the Globalization of the
Environmental Discourse," Geoforum 23, no. 3 (1992): 410.
 DANIEL A. BARBER

LARYOF SHAOIN(j,OEVICES

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0
'SI"
V)

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0
I Vocabulary of Shading Devices .From Victor and Aladar Olgyay,
Victor an dAladar Olgyay, Devices, 1957.
V)
LJ.J FIG. 7 - I and Shading
Solar Contra
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I
>-

-:..:=-------~=;•,ntic Index.From Victor and

Schematic Bioclimatic lnd~xi7
FIG. 8 - ~::::: d Aladar
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Olgyay,
Solar .

30