Le Corbusier > Quotes

“I prefer drawing to talking. Drawing is faster, and leaves less room for lies.”
― Le Corbusier

“Architecture is the learned game; correct and magnificent of forms assembled in the light”
― Le Corbusier

“A hundred times have I thought New York is a catastrophe, and fifty times : It is a beautiful catastrophe.”
― Le Corbusier

“Our world, like a charnel-house, is strewn with the detritus of dead epochs.”
― Le Corbusier, Towards a New Architecture

“The house is a machine for living in.”
― Le Corbusier, Towards a New Architecture

“A house is a machine for living in. Baths, sun, hot-water, cold-water, warmth at will, conservation of food, hygiene, beauty in the sense of good proportion. An armchair is a machine for sitting in and so on. Our”
― Le Corbusier, Towards a New Architecture

“What modern man wants is a monk's cell, well lit and heated, with a corner from which he may look at the stars.
Page 59”
― Le Corbusier

“Things are not revolutionalized by making revolutions, The real revolution lies in the solution of existing problems.”
― Le Corbusier, The City of To-morrow and Its Planning

“When I flew over the Atlas Mountains in a plane, I realized that their formation-through erosion, geological dramas, the action of winds-was completely independent of our moral anxieties; man is in a kind of cyclone; he builds solid houses to protect and shelter his heart. Outside, nature is nothing but indifference, even terror.”
― Le Corbusier, When the Cathedrals Were White

“Truth to tell, the modern man is bored to tears in his home; so he goes to his club. The modern woman is bored outside her boudoir; she goes to tea-parties. The modern man and woman are bored at home; they go to night-clubs.
But lesser folk who have no clubs gather together in the evening under the chandelier and hardly dare to walk through the labyrinth of their furniture which takes up the whole room and is all their fortune and their pride.”
― Le Corbusier, Towards a New Architecture

“A ceux qui, absorbés maintenant dans le problème de "la machine à habiter", déclaraient que "l'architecture c'est servir", nous avons répondu: "L'architecture c'est émouvoir". Et nous avons été taxé de "poète", avec dédain”
― Le Corbusier, Towards a New Architecture

“L'architecture n'a rien à voir avec les «styles». Les Louis XV, XVI, XIV ou le Gothique, sont à l'architecture ce qu'est une plume sur la tête d'une femme; c'est parfois joli, mais pas toujours et rien de plus.”
― Le Corbusier

“Design has killed architecture.
Design is what they teach in the schools.”
― Le Corbusier, When the Cathedrals Were White

“L'architecture arabe, la plus mathématique qui soit. Une maison arabe est mesurée au pas des jambes, à la hauteur des épaules. Les patios et chambrettes sont dimensionnées à la calme mesure des pas, et les hauteurs du tout sont celles qu'estime une tête portée sur des épaules : colonne à la hauteur d'épaule, et avec au dessus, passage de tête. Dans l'architecture arabe, on marche. Marcher là dedans est une fonction digne. La ville européenne peut tirer un enseignement décisif, non qu'il s'agisse d'annoncer un glossaire d'ornements arabes, mais bien de discerner l'essence même d'une architecture et d'un urbanisme.”
― Le Corbusier

“An object placed in the center of a room often spoils the room, for it hinders you from standing in the middle”
― Le Corbusier, Towards a New Architecture

“The problem of the house is a problem of the epoch. The equilibrium of society today depends upon it. Architecture has for its first duty, in this period of renewal, that of bringing about a revision of values, a revision of the constituent elements of the house.”
― Le Corbusier, Towards a New Architecture

“Education will always be torn between two fatalities: apostleship and egoism.”
― Le Corbusier, When the Cathedrals Were White

“A hundred times I have thought: New York is a catastrophe, and fifty times: it is a beautiful catastrophe.”
― Le Corbusier, When the Cathedrals Were White

“A cast-iron stove overflowing with decoration costs less than a plain one; amidst the surging leaf patterns flaws in the casting cannot be seen.”
― Le Corbusier

“ROME AND OURSELVES Rome is a bazaar in full swing, and a picturesque one. There you find every sort of horror (see the four reproductions here given) and the bad taste of the Roman Renaissance. We have to judge this Renaissance by our modern taste, which separates us from it by four great centuries of effort, the 17th, 18th, 19th, and 20th. We reap the benefit of this endeavour; we judge hardly, but with a warrantable severity. These four centuries are lacking at Rome, which fell asleep after Michael Angelo. Setting foot once again in Paris, we recover our ability to judge. The lesson of Rome is for wise men, for those who know and can appreciate, who can resist and can verify. Rome is the damnation of the half-educated. To send architectural students to Rome is to cripple them for life. The Grand Prix de Rome and the Villa Medici are the cancer of French architecture.”
― Le Corbusier, Towards a New Architecture

“Here is a fact which may seem discouraging at first blush, but one which on reflection will encourage and inspire confidence; immense industrial undertakings do not need great men.”
― Le Corbusier, The City of To-morrow and Its Planning

“Now, the plan is the generator, “the plan is the determination of everything; it is an austere abstraction, an algebrization, and cold of aspect.” It is a plan of battle. The battle follows and that is the great moment.”
― Le Corbusier, Towards a New Architecture

“(...)mimarlığın, kendilerini bütünüyle ve ateşli bir biçimde ona adayanlara bir tür mutluluk getireceğini, düşüncenin doğum sancılarından ve ışıltılı dünyaya gelişinden doğan o kendinden geçmeye benzer duyguyu yaşatacağını sezemediler. Buluşun, yaratıcılığın gücüdür bu ve insana içindeki en saf şeyleri verme olanağını sağlar.”
― Le Corbusier, Le Corbusier Talks with Students

“L'architecture arabe nous donne un enseignement précieux. Elle s'apprécie à la marche, avec le pied : c'est en marchant, en se déplaçant que l'on voit se développer les ordonnances de l'architecture. C'est un principe contraire à l'architecture baroque qui est conçue sur le papier, autour d'un point fixe théorique. Je préfère l'enseignement de l'architecture arabe. Dans cette maison ci, il s'agit d'une véritable promenade architecturale, offrant des aspects constamment variés, inattendus, parfois étonnants.”
― Le Corbusier

“…the skyscrapers of God dominated the countryside. They had made them as high as possible, extraordinarily high. It may seem a disproportion in the ensemble. Not at all, it was an act of optimism, a gesture of courage, a sign of pride, a proof of mastery! In addressing themselves to God, men did not sign their own abdication.”
― Le Corbusier, When the Cathedrals Were White

“When the cathedrals were white, spirit was triumphant. But today the cathedrals of France are black and the spirit is bruised. The works of the new civilization are coming together in a symphonic crescendo. The guiding spirit is faltering. The young act, but they do not know. The old cling to their accumulated treasures, but are unable to accomplish anything further.”
― Le Corbusier, When the Cathedrals Were White

“...
Faire une architecture c’est
faire une créature. Etre
rempli se remplir s’être
rempli éclater exulter
froid de glace au sein des
complexités devenir un jeune
chien content.
Devenir l’ordre.
...”
― Le Corbusier, Le Corbusier: Architecture et urbanisme, textes choisis (Architecture "études")

“The primordial instinct of every human being is to assure himself of a shelter. The various classes of workers in society to-day no long have dwellings adapted to their needs; neither the artizan nor the intellectual.

It is a question of building which is at the root of the social unrest of to-day: architecture or revolution.”
― Le Corbusier, Towards a New Architecture

“Una nueva sociedad crea su hogar, ese receptáculo de la vida.”
― Le Corbusier

“Contour and profile ['modinature'] are the touchstone of the architect.
Here he reveals himself as artist or mere engineer.
Contour is free of all restraint.”
― Le Corbusier, Towards a New Architecture