Le Corbusier - The Art of Architecture

Venue:	Barbican Art Gallery, London, UK
Duration:	19 February 2009 - 24 May 2009
Organizer:	Vitra Design Museum
Accompanying publication:	Hardcover, 398 pages ISBN: 978-3931936723
Reviewer:	David Nicholson-Cole, CTBUH Contributor

Le Corbusier (1887-1965) has been celebrated in "The Art of Architecture" exhibition in Liverpool, Fall 2008 and in the Barbican, London Spring 2009. It has been the largest such exhibition for 20 years, and has drawn healthy numbers of visitors. This recent exhibition appeals hugely to the architectural historian due to the high quality of authentic drawings, photos, original models and artefacts on display. Many of the models had come from his own studio and had been touched and crafted by 'Corb' and his assistants. There is a fascination in seeing his spectacles, pipe, drawing tools and chair, designs for his early houses, and original models of Ronchamps and Chandigarh. By contrast, the 1987 exhibition in London's Hayward Gallery was more pleasing and educational for the general public, being furnished with dozens of specially made models and exhibition panels demonstrating his range of architecture.

So what was there for the tall building enthusiast?
Corb was widely blamed for inspiring mid 20th century concrete high-rise, and It has taken decades for the public to rehabilitate 'Corb' by associating him more with Ronchamps and Villa Savoye. This exhibition brought one's memories back strongly to that 'other Corb', the visionary pioneer of residential tall buildings. The Barbican is a mixed use residential neighborhood of tall and linear concrete housing designed by British architects inspired by the best of his ideas. It is finally becoming popular, and provided an appropriate choice to be the location for the exhibition.

The Plan Voisin for Paris, 1925, was strongly featured - an area of Paris that only 65 years earlier had been demolished and rebuilt to Baron Haussman's master plan was to be cleared again, this time for giant cruciform towers within a landscape. This shocked people at the time, but with the hindsight we have now, it shocks again. It is a huge relief that it did not happen. Such blocks have only been successful where population density truly justifies them, such as in Hong Kong.

The Plan Obus for Algiers (1931-1942) was to be a continuous linear curving band of building, topped by a road, 60-90m high. This was to have been terminated by a residential skyscraper and the exhibition included an impressively huge original wood-crafted design model. For the author, this un-built tower and his built series of Unite residential blocks demonstrated two very significant ideas of Corb, sorely in need of revival - firstly, that of sculpting the facade with projections and ledges to manage shade and daylight and maintain a cool interior in hot climates without air conditioning, and secondly of including mixed uses and public spaces in residential buildings on the ground plane, in skycourts and on the roof in tall buildings. One interesting variant of his skyscraper for Algiers was the triform 1939 design, in which optimum access to daylight and view, and light to the core predates Lake Point Tower (Chicago), countless Hong Kong housing structures, and Burj Dubai by many decades.


Le Corbusier, Unité d’habitation de Marseille, roof view, 1946-52 ©FLC, Paris and DACS, London 2009		Le Corbusier, Phillips Pavilion at the World’s Fair in Brussels, 1958 ©FLC, Paris and DACS, London 2009		Le Corbusier, Notre Dame du Haut chapel, Ronchamp, 1955 Photo credit: Bildarchiv Monheim/arcaid.co.uk ©FLC, Paris and DACS, London 2009