Unité d’Habitation, Marseille, Le Corbusier, 1947-52. All photos by Lucien Hervé, 1949 (part of a series of c. 650 photos taken by Hervé during one day in December and later sent to Le Corbusier as what was to become the starting point of a life long collaboration)
The Unité is in every way as keen, sharp and terrifying as the Parthenon. in fact the same effects are achieved by the same means. A straightforward functional simplicity exaggerated in its plastic effect and – what is not often seen in metaphorical terms – the power of proportion. The whole building is constructed from fifteen basic dimensions, ‘Modulor’ dimensions, which are related to each other in simple, harmonic proportions. These relationships give a semantic strength quite apart from their numerical ratios and it may well be that the Modulor (Le Corbusier’s system of proportion worked out at this time) will be valued for this rather thn its particular dimensions. For what it brings to the building is the fullness, even dignity, of each constructional element. They are all allowed a plenitude of space and gesture. None is cramped, or hesitant or truncated as in so much architecture where one part obscures or denies another. Rather, by giving each part its ratio to another, a relationship is set up between them which implies a humane, mature and dignified discourse among equals. Why is this dignity found in so much classical architecture and not in other kinds? Perhaps because the adoption of a proportional system itself leads to particular visual meanings: harmony, restraint, a set of dramatic relationships where no single part is allowed unduly to usurp the presence of the whole. One thinks of the pyramids of Egypt and the Pantheon in Rome or the villas of Palladio which achieve certain feelings of grandeur and on concludes that perhaps the semantic meanings of all proportional systems are the same regardless of their favoured ratios and dimensions. Yet while an overall harmony is common to these buildings, individual meanings vary greatly. (…)
All in all, the Unité is what it was intended to be – a radical alternative to suburban sprawl, where groups of 1,600 people form a manageably-sized association that gives the benefits of individual privacy and collective participation in one unity. If this unity lacks one element, it is in the public realm and political space that are implied in an autonomous unit of this nature and which can be found in its utopian predecessors of the nineteenth century.
“Le Corbusier – and the Tragic View of Architecture”, Charles Jencks, 1973
“Le Corbusier in His Cabin, Cap-Martin. Photo by Lucien Hervé, 1951
restance 