Le Corbusier: And the Continual Revolution in Architecture

by Charles Jencks

Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier dominated twentieth-century architecture much the way Picasso dominated painting. His outstanding achievements, his vision of a harmonious machine civilization, his paintings, drawings, sculpture, architecture, city planning, and writing together compose a portrait of the architect as "protean creator." Le Corbusier and the Continual Revolution in Architecture is a fascinating study of this genius. Taking into account recent scholarship and new theories of architectural change, noted architectural historian Charles Jencks traces the personal and professional development of Le Corbusier. In association with the Purist painter Amédée Ozenfant, he gained fame in the 1920s, publishing the journal L'Esprit Nouveau and four seminal modernist tracts: Towards a New Architecture, The City of Tomorrow, The Decorative Art of Today, and La Peinture Moderne (Modern Painting). Jencks demonstrates the influence of these classic texts by way of the architect's major projects of the period: Villa La Roche, Workers' Housing at Pessac, the Plan Voisin for Paris, Villa Stein, Villa Savoye, and the steel furniture, including the famed grand confort and chaise longue. Through the 1930s and into the 1940s Le Corbusier embraced a new worldliness that included not only hand-built masonry but also an awakened sensuality and a shift in politics; after World War II, he embarked on yet another transformation, this time towards a new brutalist mode that saw the realization of the controversial Unité d'Habitation and the truly revolutionary chapel at Ronchamp. Le Corbusier and the Continual Revolution in Architecture presents over two hundred illustrations including architectural drawings, plans, and photographs, as well as paintings, sketches, and publication facsimiles. With this illuminating collection of images and his revealing and provocative text, Charles Jencks has produced a compelling and comprehensive analysis of the twentieth-century master who stayed well ahead of his followers to reinvent the art of architecture over and over again. Architectural writer and designer

304 pages, Hardcover

First published December 18, 2000

About the author

Charles Alexander Jencks (born 21 June 1939) is an American architecture theorist and critic, landscape architect and designer. His books on the history and criticism of modernism and postmodernism are widely read in architectural circles. He studied under the influential architectural historians Sigfried Giedion and Reyner Banham. Jencks now lives in Scotland where he designs landscape sculpture.

Reviews

[Tom M (London) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Charles Jencks' proposition here is that the young Charles-Edouard Jeanneret, influenced by brilliant masters like Charles L'Eplattenier, became convinced early on that architecture is not just practical building but a powerful symbolic language whose function is to address the highest aspirations of the spirit. Of all the contributions LC made to architecture, that one has proved the most enduring; Jencks is right to put it at the centre of his discourse. Wandering around Europe, the youthful Jeanneret realised that to become an architect is to become a kind of priest. He invented a new persona for himself as a symbol - a crow - and (deeply inspired by the Greek monks on Mount Athos) made himself into a mythical figure set somewhat apart. ‚It seems to me (though not to Jencks) that to a significant degree this self-transformation was a consequence of Futurism. Although LC denied any such influence, his discovery of the manifesto as a propaganda tool, his decision to assert himself as leader and ideologue of a movement, and his espousal of an aesthetic of the machine, would never have happened had the Futurists not done it first. Jencks' hazy explanation is that LC was caught up in an obscure Nietzschian conflict but the proposition remains undeveloped and is eventually forgotten about - a consequence, I suspect, of the failure to consider Futurism.

What interests Jencks is not so much the technicalities of architecture as the iconography - not how things are made but what they mean when the work is done. That's why this biography adds so much to previous studies of Le Corbusier. Jencks addresses a cultured readership not all that interested in plans and sections but which does respond to symbols, forms, colours. For those who accept his approach, this long and quite detailed account will be wholly convincing; it gives us the overview that is lacking in many other analyses. The biography format gives Jencks an opportunity to paint a wide-ranging but coherent picture of Le Corbusier the painter, architect, sculptor, thinker, glassmaker; the designer of the beautiful stove-enamelled doors at Ronchamp, covered in magic signs; the tireless elaborator of completely new symbols like the "open hand" of Chandigarh.

Every event in a man's life is significant. Jencks carefully documents the most important of these in LC's career and describes what they mean in terms of the general picture. He divides it into four phases: the early years in La Chaux-de-Fonds; the "heroic period" in Paris, a%n interesting "back to Nature" phase from 1928-1945 and a mature period after 1946, culminating in what he sees as LC's flawed masterpiece: the city of Chandigarh. It was during the "heroic period" of the famous houses (Villa Savoye, Villa Stein ) that LC attained international dominance, creating his vast following and becoming (as he planned) the personification of Modern Architecture. His radical change of approach after 1945, abandoning the Machine Aesthetic and embarking on a completely new phase at the Maisons Jaoul, Marseilles, Ronchamp and La Tourette, did not create the crisis of Modernism - which was happening anyway - but his followers saw it that way (notably, James Stirling in his two famous essays of the 1950s) as they tried anxiously to understand what they were supposed to do now. For Jencks, rightly, that "heroic period" was not LC's highest achievement. It was a failed experiment. Abandoning it, Corb moved on, taking architecture away from intellectualism and doctrine into a realm where it would become a living thing, speaking directly to all men.

Although LC the demiurge would never acknowledge influences, Jencks shows how he was as much caught up as anyone in the cultural tides of his time - the term "zeitgeist" reappears - and was affected by many people: his early teachers, his Parisian friends like Amédée Ozenfant, his clients, and many women from Josephine Baker to Minnette De SilvaF. Alas, halfway through this fascinating exposition the clichés appear; we are told Ronchamp was a harbinger of postmodernism. You hope Jencks will forget about this - things were going so well - but it gets worse, unfortunately. Nevertheless, for the critically-aware reader this is a far more serious, cogent book than much recent production from the Jencks idea factory, and withstands scrutiny better than many of his wacky theories about jumping universes. If you can ignore all the "isms" you'll find yourself in the company of an admirable scholar and an excellent writer.

It's interesting to learn that up to about 1910 Jeanneret the urbanist was in favour of the traditional street, and even made little study-drawings in the manner of Cammillo Sitte. It was not until his adoption of the name "Le Corbusier" - adopting an ideology and manifesto - that we find him expounding his disastrous doctrine of the Ville Radieuse. Jencks reiterates Colin Rowe's devastating critique of this (without crediting Rowe) but is unable to explain why the big change happened. For me this is because he ignores Futurismr. Oh well; we all have our own Le Corbusier. For all its faults, this book is a milestone.

[Sean Billy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Exactly what I was looking for.