Cuando las catedrales eran blancas. Viaje al país de los tímidos.

by Le Corbusier

In his brilliant and incisive style, Le Corbusier examines the architecture and people of New York. He loves the people but finds the architecture haphazard and in need of planning. Through provocative prose and revealing drawings, he proposes a new, beautiful, vertical New York.

Genres: Architecture, Nonfiction, Travel, Art Design, Design, Art

First published January 1, 1937

About the author

Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris, better known as Le Corbusier; was an architect, designer, painter, urban planner, writer, and one of the pioneers of what is now called modern architecture. He was born in Switzerland and became a French citizen in 1930. His career spanned five decades, with his buildings constructed throughout Europe, India, and America. He was a pioneer in studies of modern high design and was dedicated to providing better living conditions for the residents of crowded cities. He was awarded the Frank P. Brown Medal and AIA Gold Medal in 1961.
Le Corbusier adopted his pseudonym in the 1920s, allegedly deriving it in part from the name of an ancestor, Lecorbésier.

Reviews

[Lada Moskalets · Rating 5 out of 5]

Розповідь Ле Корбюзьє про його подорож до Нью-Йорка в 30-х роках. Зіткнення бабусі-Європи, з її статусом культурної колиски з новим світом хмарочосів, бізнесу і супер-швидкого темпу життя. Надзвичайно емоційна книжка, як на архітектурний трактат - Ле Корбюзьє лає Францію, з її тісними і брудними вуличками, зітхає за часом романської архітектури, розпачає, що хмарочоси недостатньо високі і над ідеєю передмість, як крахом ідей урбаністики і захоплено пропонує свої ідеї порятунку світу - величезні будинки в центрах міст, які не будуть забирати людей з бетонних джунглів, а гарантувати їм там комфортне життя. Дуже цікава критика університетської освіти та дипломів, як символів її девальвації, а загалом, живий настрій книжки з ескізами на полях.

[olenius · Rating 5 out of 5]

посеред ліберального світу наповненого ввічливими і добродушними людьми, прочитати книгу пихтячого французького діда-архітектора і сноба було ковтком свіжого повітря для мого скукоженого і травмованого пострадянським суспільством, внутрішнього голєма
(потреба в осужденії інших і кастовому поділу на тих в кого «є ДАР» і «ДАР нема»)

[Linda · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book reads like a European Abroad travelogue, being a series of lectures, essays and notes in which Le Corbusier outlines his opinions. The introduction sets up the tone of disquiet that runs throughout the book. He notes how the Americans arrived to liberate France at the end of WWII and expresses his frustration that the troops called his countrymen 'beggars' and the women 'whores'; "Europe-the great country of your fathers-seemed dirty, cut to pieces. Mad with joy, Europe welcomed you; you thought her indecent!" Later, when he reviews New York, he calls it "a beautiful and worthy catastrophe."

The central thesis of Le Corbusier's book is that his generation was at the dawn of a new era "the machine age" what he calls the "splendid and imminent adventure of a new Middle Ages." He recognises that with all births, there is both high risk and great potential. To understand the present-future, he looks back in time to what he identified as a similar moment in time; the cathedral builders. In his opinion, however, the race to the sky was won by our predecessors rather than his contemporaries. Following visits to the USA he felt convinced that they were 'anxious' and 'timid', their dreams not visionary enough, their towers nowhere near tall enough. France, he seems to say had been winning the architectural importance game. Still, he was sure, given the bruised post-war spirit of France, that America could streak onwards and upwards if only it lifted its game, literally and metaphorically. The 'agony' however, as he sees it, is that a metabolic change was required in a newly mechanised cardiac system.

Le Corbusier was shocked to find a city, not of steel and glass, but a city of stone; "quarries suspended in empty space," where humans were suspended between heaven and earth in a new scene of 'purgatory'. He challenges the 'infinity' of 'cottage windows' set into the stone facades, which to him mean "your eyries seem to be in cellars!" Repeatedly, he seeks to remind us that there seems to be a 'degeneration of spirit' associated with these high-rises, that the American's push for height is less impressive because it is less communal than 'when the cathedrals were white.' Perhaps ironically, given that his designs rarely seemed to celebrate the landscapes they sat in, Le Corbusier laments the lack of trees in American cities. These trees to him are "an image of a complete construction" and the bearers of 'essential joy.' Without trees, he claims the city is 'brutal, naked and impoverished.'

Yet, in other essays he refers more affectionately to the towers, referring to them as a "proclamation won" – "here the skyscraper is not an element in city planning, but a banner in the sky, a fireworks rocket." He accepts that these towers are 'plumes' and that plumes by their nature are 'charming and luxurious.' He marvels at the doors that 'open of their own accord' and is amazed when the infra-red mechanism which his approach triggers, is revealed to him.

Le Corbusier's alternative was the Radiant City, immense towers in sweeping parks, block upon block. He deemed this design the most sensible and 'human' approach. Anyone who has seen his sketches cannot help but be awed, and, horrified when it becomes known that Paris would have been flattened (perhaps cathedrals and all) to achieve such a city.

He disdains the congested cities, reviles the migratory escape to the suburbs, and is bemused by the wax manikins of Fifth Avenue. To him, they simultaneously remind him of 'movie-blond-vamps' and Grecian Caryatids (whom Vitruvius has forever ruined for me by revealing their metaphorical purpose of eternal humiliating and subjugation of enslaved races). On the other hand, Le Corbusier is openly conflicted about the difference between American and European university students. The students of his home were integrated into the heart of city life, "ill-fed, living in the promiscuity of alleys and dark stairways," struggling artists tortured for their art, yet continuously stimulated. The US students, on the other hand, were placed on remote campuses (often Gothic in design - "that's the way it is!") encamped in greenery, "a world in itself, a temporary paradise," where students live in virile and suntanned 'flocks'. Athletes versus aesthetes as it were. He feels that whilst the Parisian students' life was impoverished, 'flawed' and 'miserable,' the American students were 'spoilt' and worse off, detached in their 'provisional' Elysium, where "reality is lacking" and students were "deprived of a powerful food: difficulty."

Less ambiguous is his feeling towards the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Le Corbusier believed it was killing architecture by teaching 'styles' and conservative 'truth' rules. To him, it created a paradoxical situation, whereby diligence and hard work in the wrong direction like cancer around a healthy heart. Towards the end of the book, he states, "schools perpetuate specialists in dead things."

At the opposite end is his high affection for Jazz. Le Corbusier says that it is the 'foundation of a cathedral of sound already rising' which, if architecture could be as advanced as, would generate an "incredible spectacle." Also on his love-list is Surrealist Art which was born out of the 'unchained' 'uncertainty' of post-war Europe. Le Corbusier discusses the way painting, literature, and Freudian dreams were removing the 'bones' of things, making everything 'disjointed' 'de-substantiated' and 'dematerialised.' As a result, everything can be made afresh, new creatures formed "into stupefying and promiscuous combinations." He seems amused at the puritan angst they cause, while for him their "symbols, abbreviations, evocations" are "an excellent thing." When I look now at his Modulor Man and tapestry designs, I better understand the motivation behind their dreamy and disjointed shapes.

Overall, this book reads like a diary, providing us with an insight into Le Corbusier's ideas and opinions. Throughout, Le Corbusier seems to see that life and architecture inhabits a confounding arena, where the act of building "is nothing but contradictions, hostilities, dispersion, divergence of views, affirmation of opposed purposes, pawing the ground." Although there are bleak moments, and his thesis does not overly assist my PhD, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book.

[Chelsea · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wrote down so many notes while reading this that will not fit here lol, but it was especially interesting to read alongside Jane Jacobs as a counterbalance.

That being said - despite all the poetic diary-type entries (which I enjoyed) and being able to view the US through the specific lens of a French architect in NYC after WW1, I found the most salient thread running throughout the book to be Corbusier’s observation that the US, its architecture and people, are materially boisterous and individually/socially timid.

When he says that America’s grandiosity comes “not yet from elegant, supple, complex mathematics” but from immense wealth and “exaggerated dimensions” I think it lends itself nicely to the idea that excess, in both life and design, is at odds with true sophistication. It also brings to mind John Berger’s arguments about capitalism overtaking political action in American society.

For the most part an enriching read I think, though rambling at times and with the troubling inclusion of some archaic and racist passages.

[Tatiana Kim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ле Корбюзьер настоящий визионер. Он рассмотрел все проблемы Нью Йорка своего времени с точки зрения архитектора, но показал куда больше. Он видел решение этих проблем, руководствуясь главной заповедью архитектуры - полезностью. Потрясающая книга.

[Jena · Rating 4 out of 5]

absolutely charming.

[Leandro Llorente · Rating 3 out of 5]

Corbu's wonderful thoughts on skyscrapers.

[Aggrey Odera · Rating 3 out of 5]

Arguably the first key YIMBY text. Corbusier's Ville Radieuse is a direct response to the Georgist-influenced Garden City concept first proposed by Ebenezer Howard. Instead of the weird country-urban mixture sprawl of multiple garden cities containing industries and homes surrounded by greenbelts - with each garden city housing around 30,000 people- Corbusier conceptualizes Ville Radieuse as urban planning for the machine age. Thus he wants tall massive buildings that can each house up to 3,000 people, different levels for cars and pedestrians, and green space all over. Corbusier's often misinterpreted assertion that the skyscrapers in New York [are] not tall enough is not a claim that skyscrapers qua skyscrapers as we know them now (i.e. the iconic midtown skyscrapers) were not tall enough. Rather, as he notes, in 1964, when he was writing this book, the average height of a building in Manhattan was 4.5 stories - tall enough for the time to be considered 'skyscrapers', but short enough that they were themselves part of the congestion problem. The fact that tall skyscrapers existed, some going up to 1000 feet high - the most prominent of which was the Rockefeller Center - was proof that tall buildings could exist in Manhattan to solve the crisis of urbanism that Corbusier saw there. Hence, too many 'skyscrapers', but most not tall enough.

But this book is not just an exposition on Ville Radieuse. It is also a love letter to America - or, in some sense, an admiring letter that nevertheless contains some scorn. Corbusier sees America - and especially Manhattan- as the country of the future. Thus the book also provides refreshing observations on Americans, their ways of being (as perceived by a somewhat ironic Frenchman), and how these differ from those of Europeans (whose cathedrals were formerly white). In a certain sense, it presents the model that other European architects came to adopt when writing about America: equal parts approval, even admiration for America's forwardness/ boundary-pushing behavior, and distaste for its somewhat vulgarity. The most notable of these Corbusieran heirs is Rem Koolhaas in his "Delirious New York."

Corbusier refuses to engage with questions of politics and economics, insisting at every turn that he's merely an architect and urban planner - if pushed, an artist. This assertion is disingenuous, especially keeping in mind recently discovered evidence of the extent of Corbusier's collaboration with the Vichy regime. It is a sham to have lived through the second world war, witnessed the holocaust, even worked with its perpetrators, and yet claim to be agnostic to politics.

[Andreas Schmidt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sommario del quotidiano:
1."Il Reich ha festeggiato il suo nuovo esercito, mentre Londra, Parigi e Roma si consultano."... Scritto in un periodo in cui il fascismo stava arrivando al suo apice, questo libro sembra più un discorso scritto da Beppe Grillo. Nel complesso comunque, è un'analisi della società americana abbastanza interessante. L'unico cruccio è che non sopporto Le Corbusier. Trovo comunque l'idea di Ville Radieuse una sega mentale urbanistica, del resto non era praticabile nel suo periodo storico, dubito che lo sarà in futuro. Va ricordato comunque che in questo viaggio Le Corbusier fu respinto da Frank Lloyd Wright. E al suo ritorno si ritrovò a confrontarsi con una realtà totalmente differente da quella europea: la società americana è differente; grandi distanze, che devono essere coperte in fretta, da automobili in orizzontale, e da ascensori in verticale (in effetti è molto emblematico l'esempio che L.C. fa delle scale nei grattacieli: nascoste da porte che devono essere aperte solo nei momenti di crisi), eccetera eccetera. Non è un caso se l'esperienza per lui sia stata a suo modo "traumatica". Certo fa ridere che ritenga miglior esempio di urbanistica Buenos Aires o comunque le città del Sud America, piuttosto che le città americane.

[Stephanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

RIYL: Frenchmen opining on American culture/New York, the marvelous mrs. Maisel, urban theory - lite

[Inyas · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Above all, let us build for ourselves a new consciousness" Le Corbusier.

[Nancy Louise Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

A worthy read considering the time, 2024, in relation to Corbusier's 20th Century.

[Vanlilith]

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