Architecture or revolution

Towards a New Architecture (Architecture or Revolution )

Contents

• Introduction • Argument • The engineer’s aesthetic and architecture• Three reminders to architecture

- Mass

- Surface

- Plan

• Regulating line

• Eyes which do not see:

- Liners

- Airplanes

- Automobiles

• Architecture:

- The lesson of Rome

- The illusion of plan

- Pure creation of the mind

• Mass-production houses

• Architecture or revolution

“In every field of industry, new problems have presented themselves and new tools have been created capable of resolving them. If this new fact be set against the past, then you have revolution.”-Le Corbusier (Towards a New Architecture)

Introduction

• At the start of the last chapter, Corbusier states what he means by “revolution” and the ground that paved the way for the modern revolution to take place.

• He explains that, after industrialization and introduction of new materials; such as steel and concrete in the construction industry, the “old codes” of architecture have been “overturned”. In the past centuries architecture have followed a “style” of mere modification of form and ornamentation. In the last half a century, initiation of new materials, have broadened the horizons of architecture beyond the stylistic approach. If we “challenge the past” then we will find that the time has come for us to start a new style that is uniquely our own and that we have gone through a revolution.

• We are already aware of the changes that have taken place in our society either consciously or unconsciously, and now in new need. The human nature, when faced with an adverse situation, is to look for a shelter. At present the various castes of the social norm can no longer afford dwellings that meet their requirements.

• The question arises what is the root of the current social unrest, architecture or revolution?

Architecture or Revolution

• According to Corbusier, we do not completely understand the deep gap left between the current development with the one that happened in earlier times in the history of human civilization.

• If we look back and compare carefully it will be evident to us that, the body of tools that dealt with the problems of the society back then were all “in mans hand”. But now these tools have transformed with such amazing rapidity, that for the time being they are out of our grasp. It is as if we stand breathless in front of the tools that we created and now cannot take back control. Progress seems both hateful and praiseworthy at the same time, making us bewilder and confuse.

• Where we stand in time, is a very critical period and that of a moral crisis. To pass this crisis we must understand what is going on and learn to harness our tools. When we will realize the effort that is expected from us, then and only then we will see that things are no longer the same and have changed for the better.

• Corbusier explains how our own time, that is for the last fifty years, opposes the time that have gone before.


•In the previous times, man ordered his life according to the “natural” system. He took tasks in his own hands and faced the consequences of his actions. He rose with the sun and went to bed at dusk. He laid down his tools preoccupied with the task in hand and what he would do the next day. He lived like a snail in a lodging made exactly to meet his needs having his family around him. The family life unfolded itself in the normal way. In this case, the society is stable likely to endure.

•At present, industry has brought us to the mass produced article where machinery is at work in close collaboration with man. An absolute precision is necessary since the article passed on to the next man cannot be snatched back to be corrected. It must be exact, so that it may play its part as a detailed unit after the assembly of the whole. The father can no longer teach his son the various secrets of his trade, instead a strange foreman directs severely and precisely the restrained tasks. The spirit of the workers booth no longer exists but rather a more collective spirit. The lodging is there only to receive a man who knows how to use his extra time when he is back.

•But its is not exactly the case. The lodging is hideous and the mans mind not sufficiently educated to use all the hours of liberty after a days work.


•There is no link between the daily activities of the man at the factory, the office or the bank and the activities in the bosom of the family. The family is everywhere being killed and men's minds demoralized in servitude to anachronisms.

•Every mans mind has been molded by his participation in modern events and has formed certain desires. He feels he must have intellectual diversions and relaxation for his body after the tension his hard labor brings. This mass of desires constitutes a mass of demands. But our social organization has nothing ready to cater to these needs.

•The advent of a new period only occurs after long and quiet preparatory work.

•Industries have created its tools. Business has modified its habits and customs. Construction has found new means. Such tools are capable of adding to human welfare and of lightening human toil. If these new conditions are set against the past, then we have Revolution.

•Morality of industry is transformed, to-day big business is considered a healthy and moral organism.


•At one hand the man of today is conscious of a new world which is forming itself regularly, logically and clearly that produces a straightforward result that are useful and usable. On the other hand he finds himself living in an old and hostile environment.

•This framework is his lodging , his town and the street he lives in. He sees his house or his flat rise up against him useless, that hinders him from following the same path in his leisure that he persuades in his work. All these inhibits him from following in his leisure the natural development of his existence, which is to create a family and to live.

•In this way the society is helping forward the destruction of the family that will inevitably lead to its own destruction.

•There reigns a great disagreement between the modern state of mind and the stuffy accumulation of age-long rubbish.


•The problem is to adapt and the realities of the mans life depends on it. The society is filled with desires for something that it may or may not obtain.

•Everything depends on the effort made and the attention paid to these alarming symptoms.

•Architecture or Revolution.

•Revolution can be avoided.

Thank You!

Education

Architecture or revolution