30491 - History of Contemporary Town Planning (1) (2nd cycle)

Course contents

(There aren’t differences in program between students attending and not attending)

Subtitle: The Complete Works of Le Corbusier

No major protagonist of the figurative culture of the twentieth century has been able to decline along with painting, sculpture, decorative arts, architecture and urbanism, with increasingly significant results for the evolution of individual arts, such as Le Corbusier. The course will examine critically the various periods of his work, from his formative years, focused on the grammar of ornament and the rules of visual perception, until the building of the city of Chandigarh and its monuments in "béton brut".

Keywords: city, vision, contemporary architecture, art.

Topics of the course

The course will be divided into four sections, dedicated to the central themes of the thought and work of Le Corbusier, and articulated according to a chronological order:

Ornamental composition and optical illusionism, 1902-1919

- The years of the Ecole d'Art in La Chaux-de-Fonds under the leadership of Charles L'Eplattenier: grammars of ornament and application of ornamental composition

- Truth of "adorned construction": the first trip to Italy, the comparison with the Vienna Secession, apprenticeships at Auguste Perret and Peter Behrens offices

- Studies in Germany: the principles of spatial vision

- The manuscript of "Construction de villes": beginning of reflections on urbanism

- Visions of antiquity: the trip of 1911 (the Balkans, Istanbul, Athens, Pompeii, Rome, Pisa)

- The villas in La Chaux-de-Fonds: build memories

- Domino system, garden city and first ideas of city skyscrapers

- Silhouette of the city and the city of towers surrounded by greenery

- Towards an industrial aesthetic

- "Après le Cubisme" (with Amedee Ozenfant)

Purism and psychophysiology of vision, 1920-1928

- The review "L'Esprit Nouveau"

- The project of the city of 3 million inhabitants

- "Towards an architecture": spreading a poetic

- The first purist architecture

- Nature of color and psychophysiology of perception

- Pavilion de l’Esprit Nouveau: dioramas and Plan Voisin for Paris

- The Villa Stein-de Monzie, the houses in the Weissenhof siedlung in Stuttgart, and the Villa Savoye: definition and demonstration of the "5 points d'une architecture nouvelle"

City of Illusions, 1929-1939

- "La rue": filming models of Plan Voisin

- New Vision: The aerial view

- Topography and city: visions for Latin America

- The penthouse Beistegui, a diorama for Paris

- The "Ville Verte" for Moscow

- The model of the "Radiant City"

- The "Plan Obus" for Algiers

- The "Athens Charter", 1933

- The Pavillon des Temps Nouveaux: show urbanism

"Espace indicible" and "béton brut", 1940-1965

- The site construction of the Unité d'Habitation in Marseille: the vertical garden cities and the invention of the aesthetics of "béton brut"

- "Synthesis of the plastic arts" and "espace indicible"

- For a "sculpture destinée à l'architecture": the "sculptures moulées"; "Plastique acoustic," sculptures with Joseph Savina; "Sand-casting" with Costantino Nivola

- Mural painting and tapestries "muralnomad"

- "New World of Space" and photography in black and white; the project for a "laboratory" of the "synthesis of the major arts"

- The Chapel of Ronchamp: shaping space by embossing and photographs of the ''espace indicible"

- Chandigarh: from the Radiant City to the construction of the contemporary city

- Museums of unlimited growth in Ahmedabad, Chandigarh and Tokyo

- "Boîte à miracles" for spontaneous theater; "Electronic Games" on the roof of the Unité d'Habitation in Marseille; The "Poème électronique": birth of art installation

- Kinetic illusionism, in the manner of Vasarely; Automatic drawings: in the wake of Breton

- The second Salubra wallpaper collection: Op and Pop patterns

- "Transfer" of works and photographic enlargements; The Monastery of La Tourette: forms of transfer

- The Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts in Cambridge-Massachusetts: the hands and head

Readings/Bibliography

(There aren’t differences between students attending and not attending)

- W. Curtis, Jr., Le Corbusier: Ideas and Forms, Phaidon Press, London, 1994

- R. Gargiani, A. Rosellini, Le Corbusier. Béton Brut and Ineffable Space, 1940-1965. Surface Materials and Psychophysiology of Vision, EPFL Press, Lausanne, 2011

- A. Rosellini, Le Corbusier e la superficie, dal rivestimento d'intonaco al béton brut, Aracne, Roma, 2013

- S. von Moos, Le Corbusier. Elements of a Synthesis, nai010 publishers, Rotterdam, 2013 (1a ed., 1968)

The bibliography will be supplemented by articles provided during the course

Teaching methods

Lectures

Assessment methods

(There aren’t differences between students attending and not attending)

Oral exam
To pass the oral exam, students must demonstrate that they have acquired a critical understanding of the topics discussed during the course and a critical knowledge of the recommended bibliography.
The student will be able to:
• Recognize and analyze in detail the work of Le Corbusier, architect, urban planner, artist and theoretician
• Explain and interpret the various creative phenomena
• Develop personal reflections on the relationship between idea, form and cities
• Demonstrate a critical understanding of the various issues discussed
• Use proper terminology

Teaching tools

The course images will be provided to the students

Office hours

See the website of Anna Rosellini