Pdf10_lecorbusier_helsinki11en - Le Corbusier’s Equipement as Part of the Design Language

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Nordic Design Research Conference 2011, Helsinki www.nordes.org 1

Nordes 2011 Doctoral Consortium, 4th Nordic Design Research Conference: Making Design Matter!

School of Art and Design, Aalto University, Helsinki, Finland.

May 29th - 31st, 2011.

http://designresearch.fi/nordes2011/index.php?p=home

LE CORBUSIERS QUIPEMENT ASPATTERN FOR DESIGN LANGUAGELILIANA SOARES

FOUNDATION FOR SCIENCE ANDTECHNOLOGY, PORTUGAL AND POLYTECHNICINSTITUTE OF VIANA DO CASTELO, PORTUGAL

[email protected]

ERMANNO APARO

POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE OF VIANA DOCASTELO, PORTUGAL AND CIAUD RESEARCHCENTRE FOR ARCHITECTURE, URBANPLANNING AND DESIGN, PORTUGAL

[email protected]

FTIMA POMBO

AVEIRO UNIVERSITY, PORTUGAL ANDFAKULTEIT ARCHITECTUUR EN KUNSTENSINT-LUKAS BRUSSELS BELGIUM

[email protected]

DANTE DONEGANI

DOMUS ACADEMY, ITALY

[email protected]

ABSTRACT

This paper highlights the autonomy of designlanguage to appropriate concepts such as

quipement (essential elements for space

equipment) by Le Corbusier (1920,LEsprit

Nouveau), interpreted as pattern (subsystems) by

Alexander (1963,A Pattern Language). This

discussion is involved in a current PhD Research

Project in Design, proposing new configurational

possibilities for building surfaces in the 21st

century. The rationale for interpreting the logic of

quipement presentsthe pattern system as

designs response to decline the industrialized city

proposal in favour of liquid modernity (Bauman).

As interpretation model we present an analogy

between the project 'The Philips Pavilion' (1958)

by Le Corbusier, and the project 'Gazebi' (1967) by

Archizoom Associati. Two cases responding to

specific realities, favouring constant mutation

typologies in building surfaces and respective

mutation in the interaction with the user. This

research aims to contribute towards the argument

that the project of configurational proposals

advocates design participation as key

methodological tool in the development of the

matter of city surface. The user is the interlocutor

interpreting the city, living it and transforming itwhile construing the own existence.

INTRODUCTIONThis texts aims to demonstrate the competence of designlanguage to appropriate old concepts and to interpretthem according to a new reality. The first section of thetext analyses and relates the concept of quipement byLe Corbusier and the concept of pattern by


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Christopher Alexander as pattern connotations (order)oriented towards the project of buildings surface. In thesecond section we analyse two different case studies inbuildings surface, namely from Le Corbusier (1958) andfrom Archizoom Associati (1967). Both of themestablish the grounds for our initial argument regardingdesign. Through these projects we intend to ponder on

the interpretative proposal of the respective creators,regarding the surface nature as model for renewal. Weconclude that both quipementandpatternareultimately interpretations concerning a constructiveorder, manifestations of a system of thought. In liquidmodernity (Bauman), the construction issue isinterpreted by design language as undefined pattern andwithout a form of its own to allow the project of thebuilding surface matter, assuring that the individualsimagine the city as a place to live instead of a transientspace. We henceforth clarify.

THE CONCEPT OF QUIPEMENT AND THECONCEPT OF PATTERN AS

CONSTRUCTIVE ORDER CONNOTATIONSIN THE PROJECT OF BUILDINGS SURFACEAs concept applied to the Project of buildings surface,the quipement concept relates to designs language.Historically, the phenomenological origin of the termrefers to the manifest of theLEsprit Nouveau (1920) byLe Corbusier. The proposal by Le Corbusier constitutesan action demanding the amendment of constructivevalues and project makers modus operandi, taking intoconsideration Western Europes characterization, inneed for rebuilding after World War I. As advocated byLe Corbusier: an era creates its own architecture,which is the clear image of a system of thought). (LeCorbusier, 2008: 147). Therefore, when in 1925 Le

Corbusier designs the pavilion for LEsprit NouveaufortheExposition International des Arts Dcoratifs etIndustriels Modernesin Paris, he intentionally refusessome of the traditional instruments for households, suchas wooden furniture (which for Le Corbusier wasunnecessary, costly, spacious and needed maintenance).As stated by Le Corbusier: We must work against theold house that misused space. We must (presentnecessity: low net cost) look upon the house as amachine for living in or as a tool. When you create anindustry, you buy the equipment; when you set uphouse, at present you rent a stupid apartment. (LeCorbusier, 2008: 266). The pavilion LEsprit Nouveauwas designed as a system of equipments, using

standard-elements to be assembled as office cabinets. Amachine for inhabiting that employed new materials asglass or iron, new technological achievements andindustrial production from that age. Applied to theproject of the surface of buildings, the notion ofquipementas standard-element to equip a spaceassumes the connotation of pattern, or of new order, asanswer to the problem of building. As Le Corbusierreferred: The standard for the house is of a practicalorder, a structural order. (Le Corbusier, 2008: 185),

therefore, as proposed by Le Corbusier, furniture isreplaced by wall compartments, revealing a newreasoning. With Le Corbusier, the introduction of thehorizontal window as one of the five parameters for anew architecture reflects his interest on the project ofthe buildings surface. The architectural surface resultedautonomous to the interior, connecting housing and

external scenario. From these reflections, we mayconclude that the notion of quipementis connoted tothe architectonical order Le Corbusier uses in the designof the building surface. Such as thepattern languagebyChristopher Alexandre (1963) connotes the pattern tothe building order, but for what was reality in the 60s.

The phenomenological origin of the termpatternlanguagetook place as a contribution to the history ofdesign method. In the early 1960s, the urge forprojectual change is reported in England as the need foran increasingly sophisticated scientific approach todesign method, through authors as Jones & Thornley(1963) or Alexander (1963). It was a proposition for asociety characterized by transience and new patterns of

consumption, fitting a younger population. ForChristopher Alexander, pattern language consisted insplitting projectual problems into patterns, enabling thesolution of some of the projects subsystems.Alexanders proposition consisted of identifying andsolving subsystems that constituted the projectscomplexity and also in connecting every subsystemspatterns among themselves and the user; This meansyou must treat the pattern as an entity; and try toconceive of this entity, entire and whole, before youstart creating any other patterns. (Alexander, 1977).Such as we analyzed Le Corbusiers projectual standingin the case of the pavilion LEsprit Nouveau(1925) andconfirmed in the definition of other projects, as the

Philips Pavilion (1958), the case of the projectual actionfrom Italian groups in the 60s will hold as reference thepattern language by Christopher Alexander. Asadvocated by Alessandro Mendini (1969,Metaprogetto,si e no) in the editorial of the magazine Casabella, themoment for projectual pondering was understood as anindirect formalization projectual behaviour. This meantthe main problem in the project was the idea of makingsomething reproducible, so that in a second stage itwould become form. To consider the constructive orderof the building surface as a pattern-system meantconsidering the body-surface as open and infiniteprefabrication elements. In methodological terms it wasa reference to the logic of numericalpatternsby

Cristopher Alexander whereas surface of the city.DATA EVALUATION

LE CORBUSIER AND THE PHILIPS PAVILION, 1958

With the advent of rationalist architecture in the earlyyears of the twenties and mainly with Le Corbusier, theproject of the surface of buildings, such as faades,presents itself as an extremely modular element inwhich the use of concrete allows opening newpanoramas to define inhabiting. But the use of the


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create a universal system through a hybrid languagebetween music, image and pattern, to create electronicpoetry, stemming from interdisciplinary and orientedtowards an audience/viewer. The Archizooms Gazebimay be envisaged as a projectual reflection startingfrom the idea of Le Corbusier's Maison Domino,offering new configurational possibilities for spatial

enclosure. The disconnection between internal andexternal found in the Gazebi may be designs answer torelate and simultaneously open the project of a space tonew experiential contributions. The designer thatprojects the object surface of building previews answersthat overlap in coatings, cyclic solutions easilyrenewable, replacing perennial solutions for disposablehypothesis. An understanding that assumes the culturalvalue as competence able to supply knowledge andaesthetical experience to the user lost in his consumablesociety.

REFERENCES

Alexander, C. (1977). A pattern language: towns,

buildings, constructions. Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press.

Bauman, Z. (2005). Modernit liquida. Bari: Laterza.

Brtolo, J. (2009). A Revoluo: um projectoinacabado. In Milano, M. (Ed.) Paolo Deganello: asrazes do meu projecto radical. Matosinhos:ESAD, pp. 547557.

Capanna, A. (2000). Le Corbusier: Il Padiglioni Philipsa Bruxelles. Torino: Testo & Immagine.

Deganello, P. (2009). Projectar para quem? In Milano,M. (Ed.) Paolo Deganello: as razes do meuprojecto radical. Matosinhos. ESAD, pp. 181196.

Jones, J. & Thornley, D. (ed.). (1963). Conference onDesign methods. Oxford: Pergamon.

Lampariello, B. (2008). Destruction de larchitecture :

archizoom, 19661974. In Lucan, J. Marchand, B.Gargiani, R. & Steinmann, M. (ed.). CollectionLaboratoire de thorie et dhistoire. Lausanne.Matires : lespace architectural, N 9, pp. 110115.

Le Corbusier (2008). Toward an Architecture. London:Frances Lincoln.

Le Corbusier (1920). LEsprit Nouveau. Revueinternationale d'esthtique. Numro 3 au numro28. Paris: ditions de l'Esprit Nouveau, Novembre1920 - Janvier 1925.

Mendini, A. (1969). Metaprogetto, si e no. Editorial.

Casabella, N 333, pp. 4-15.Restagno, E. (1988). Xenakis. Torino: Edizioni di

Torino.

Sadler, S. (2005). Archigram: architecture withoutarchitecture, Cambridge. Massachusetts: The MITPress.

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Pdf10_lecorbusier_helsinki11en - Le Corbusier’s Equipement as Part of the Design Language