İstanbul, Nisan 2014.

 

The architectural world that Le Corbusier began his work in was crawling with revolutionary changes under the strong waves of modernization and industrialization. Yet, the period saw widely dominating innovations in his work, making him one of the most well-known pioneers of the modern architecture. His highly unique concepts and principles remained alive through many decades; for instance, even today they constitute one of the main pillars of the contemporary architecture. Blake points out that the uniqueness in Le Corbusier’s architectural thought is very hard to be overrated. Considering the conditions of their era, it is palpable that Corbu, Mies and Gropius gravitated towards utilitarianism instead of rather non-pragmatic and artistic architecture. However, being an artist foremost, they were not uncreative enough to sacrifice the artistic value of buildings for the sake of better utilities. In their opinion, the functions of the products should not be seen as main objectives of the work, they must rather be things that are supposed be there. In this sense, they created a new architectural approach that prioritizes the artistic value in the pragmatically constructed buildings. They chose to use cubes, spheres etc. to produce many objects instead of conventional methods and reflected their arts on all of their works to create the Machine Art. As it is possible to argue that, the coalescence of arts and the technic in the architecture is critically important. Modern Architecture brought many radical thoughts and styles. The avant-garde architects of the 20th century, including Le Corbusier, revealed innovative products that dominated the century. A conflict of ideas took place in the 20th century in the midst of various efforts to create a new set of architectural theories. As a result of discussions of 19th century, the new century saw a new architectural thought. The biggest difference between the new and the old was the utilitarianism of the new view. The modern architects strived to prevent old stylistic thought from reviving, by using the newly emerged means of science. As it is can be understood above, the contemporary architects endeavored to disseminate and endure the utilitarian architecture. In the 20th century, one of the most important styles of modern architecture is “the international style”. This style is widely accepted in the many corners of the world. The style was able to prevail throughout the world smoothly with the help of technology. The shortage of capital in the aftermath of the World War II, was also a big factor that pushed the architects to create functional and practical buildings. The international style has three new concepts: “First, a new conception of architecture as volume rather than as mass. Secondly, regularity rather than axial symmetry serves as the chief means of ordering design. These two principles, with a third proscribing arbitrary applied decoration, mark the productions of the international style.” (Taschen, 1990, “Foreword” sections, para. 9) As it can be understood above, the dogmatic and limited rules of the old architecture were replaced by flexible and innovative designs and the rules of the new architecture.

 

Le Corbusier is known for many innovations that he brought to the architecture. He writes his ideas in a systematic and orderly way, and put them into practice in all of his works. He gathered his most famous ideas under the name of Five Points of New Architecture, which correspond to the set of rules that Le Corbusier almost always followed during his career. The five rules that he put forth are first planting the building on the columns called pilotis to expand the garden through the ground floor, second making sure that the building has a terrace floor that can be used as a garden to enjoy the city vista up on the roof, third implementing the open plan by using minimum number of columns to create more flexible room independent from walls and columns, fourth creating ribbon windows that will allow much more sunshine as they are wider than the conventional windows, fifth creating the free façade by designing façade that are independent from buttressing system to have more various aesthetic measures. These five principles allowed the new architects to unleash a totally new way of architecture. It can be argued that, Five Points of New Architecture brought very radical changes that were esteemed by everyone. There are two main projects that we can see the traces of the Five Points of New Architecture: Dom-ino House and Citrohan House. The former is a simple reinforced-concrete building with six columns, floors, a roof and stairs, keeping only these rules constant, creating numerous plans is possible. These concepts form the open plan that offers an order designed independent from load-bearing walls. The latter is a more “sophisticated” plan including a two storeys high building with two floor levels. The specific positions of the kitchen, dining area and the bedrooms are clearly stated in this plan. It can be argued that, by applying these simple and neat plans, a satisfactory building design can be produced easily. Le Corbusier offered new measurement system, to design a building, in his books. He built this system with some inspiration from the nature and environment and some help of mathematics. Taking mathematical evaluations of the human body helps Le Corbusier to create the system that is called Modular. A man lifting one of his arms, creates an image with various parts of his body are positioned in an order that reveals Fibonacci series. It is my conviction that, this mathematical ordering facilitates and standardizes the planning of places. The Proportional Grid, antecedent of the modular, is put forward with an aim to have a globally acceptable concept for many situations, which was foreseen by Le Corbusier. The Proportional Grid is obtained with an imaginative male body state and includes number mysticism, golden section, geometry and Fibonacci series. It can be stated that, a universal language in the modern architecture is formed with the help of the Grid System that divides the space in an orderly fashion.

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Le Corbusier is known not only in his own country but also in the whole world with respect. His active life, products and architectural innovations are the biggest reasons for this. Many people make use of his works with pleasure today even though many years have passed. Le Corbusier, who has been named among the best architects of the world, will continue to be known for years.

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