Le Corbusier - Architecture - Music - Mathematics - Longing For Classicism

Colección Congresos UPV
Los contenidos de esta publicación han sido evaluados por el Comité Científico que en ella se relaciona y
según el procedimiento que se recoge en http://cargocollective.com/lc2015
Dirección
Jorge Torres Cueco
Coordinación
Clara E. Mejía Vallejo
Colaboración en la edición de las actas

Francisco Martín López López
Juan María Songel González
Diseño e imagen gráfica

Alejandro Campos Uribe
© de los textos: los autores.

© de las ilustraciones: los autores.
© 2015, de la presente edición: Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València.

www.lalibreria.upv.es / Ref.: 6247_01_01_01
ISBN: 978-84-9048-373-2 (versión electrónica)
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4995/LC2015.2015
Le Corbusier, 50 years later. International Congress.

Se distribuye bajo una licencia de Creative Commons 4.0 Internacional.
Basada en una obra en http://ocs.editorial.upv.es/index.php/LC2015/LC2015
ORGANIZACIÓN
COMITÉ CIENTÍFICO
COORDINADOR:
JORGE TORRES CUECO.

Dr. Arquitecto. Catedrático y Director del Departamento de Proyectos Arquitectónicos en la Universidad
Politécnica de Valencia.
MIEMBROS DEL COMITÉ:
JOSÉ RAMÓN ALONSO PEREIRA

Dr. Arquitecto. Catedrático de Historia de la Arquitectura y Urbanismo en la Escuela de Arquitectura de La
Coruña.
TIMOTHY BENTON
Doctor y Profesor de Historia del Arte en la Open University de Cambridge. Miembro del Consejo de
Administración de la Fondation le Corbusier.
LUIS BURRIEL BIELZA

Doctor Arquitecto. Profesor Asociado Théorie Et Pratique De La Conception Architectural et Urbaine. École
Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture Paris-Belleville.
JUAN CALATRAVA ESCOBAR

Dr. en Filosofía y Letras. Catedrático de Historia de la Arquitectura en la Escuela Técnica Superior de
Arquitectura de Granada.
JUAN CALDUCH CERVERA

Dr. Arquitecto. Catedrático de Composición Arquitectónica en la Escuela Politécnica Superior, Universitat
d'Alacant.
JEAN-LOUIS COHEN
Dr. Arquitecto. Sheldon H. Solow Professor in the History of Architecture at New York University Institute of
Fine Arts. Antiguo miembro del Consejo de Administración de la Fondation Le Corbusier.
ARNAUD DERCELLES
Máster en Literatura Contemporánea en la Universidad de París X Nanterre y Máster en Historia Contemporánea
en la Universidad París I, Panthéon Sorbonne. Responsable del Centro de Documentación y de Investigación de
la Fondation Le Corbusier.
MARTA LLORENTE
Dra. Arquitecta. Profesora Titular de Composición Arquitectónica. Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de
Barcelona. Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya.
XAVIER MONTEYS
Dr. Arquitecto. Catedrático de Proyectos Arquitectónicos. Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de
Barcelona. Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya.
MARÍA CECILIA O’BYRNE OROZCO

Dra. Arquitecta. Profesora del Departamento de Arquitectura. Universidad de Los Andes. Bogotá. (Colombia).
ANTOINE PICON
Dr. Arquitecto. Ingénieur Général des Ponts et Chaussées. Profesor en la Harvard University Graduate School of
Design. Presidente de la Fondation Le Corbusier.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) 5
JOSEP QUETGLAS
Dr. Arquitecto. Catedrático de Proyectos Arquitectónicos de la Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. Miembro
de la Fondation Le Corbusier.
BRUNO REICHLIN
Dr. Arquitecto. Profesor emérito de la Universidad de Genève. Antiguo miembro del Consejo de Administración
de la Fondation Le Corbusier.
ARTHUR RUËGG
Dr. Arquitecto. Profesor de Arquitectura y Construcción en el Departamento de Arquitectura de la ETH Zurich.
Miembro de la Fondation Le Corbusier.
MARTA SEQUEIRA.
Dra. Arquitecta. Profesora del Departamento de Arquitectura. Universidad de Évora (Portugal).
MARIA CANDELA SUAREZ

Dra. Arquitecta. Profesora Auxiliar Invitada Universidade Lusíada do Porto e Universidade Fernando Pessoa.
MARGARETH DA SILVA PEREIRA

Dra. Arquitecta. Profesora de la Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro.
MARIDA TALAMONA
Dra. Arquitecta. Profesora de Storia dell'architettura y Directora del Master europeo en Storia dell'architettura en
la Università degli Studi Roma Tre (Italia). Miembro del Consejo de Administración de la Fondation Le
Corbusier.
COMITÉ ORGANIZADOR
DIRECTOR:
JORGE TORRES CUECO.

Dr. Arquitecto. Catedrático y Director del Departamento de Proyectos Arquitectónicos en la Universidad
Politécnica de Valencia.
SECRETARIA:
CLARA E. MEJÍA VALLEJO

Dra. Arquitecta. Profesora del Departamento de Proyectos Arquitectónicos en la Universidad Politécnica de
Valencia.
VOCALES:
RAÚL CASTELLANOS GÓMEZ

Dr. Arquitecto. Profesor del Departamento de Proyectos Arquitectónicos en la Universidad Politécnica de
Valencia.
JUAN DELTELL PASTOR

Dr. Arquitecto. Profesor del Departamento de Proyectos Arquitectónicos en la Universidad Politécnica de
Valencia.
JOSÉ RAMÓN LÓPEZ YESTE

Arquitecto. Profesor del Departamento de Proyectos Arquitectónicos en la Universidad Politécnica de Valencia.
SALVADOR SANCHÍS GISBERT

Arquitecto. Profesor del Departamento de Proyectos Arquitectónicos en la Universidad Politécnica de Valencia.
CARLA SENTIERI OMARREMENTERÍA

Dra. Arquitecta. Profesora del Departamento de Proyectos Arquitectónicos en la Universidad Politécnica de
Valencia.
JUAN MARÍA SONGEL GONZÁLEZ

Dr. Arquitecto. Profesor Titular del Departamento de Composición Arquitectónica en la Universidad Politécnica
de Valencia.
ALEJANDRO CAMPOS URIBE

Arquitecto. Doctorando del Departamento de Proyectos Arquitectónicos en la Universidad Politécnica de
Valencia.
PEDRO PONCE GREGORIO

Arquitecto. Doctorando del Departamento de Proyectos Arquitectónicos en la Universidad Politécnica de
Valencia.
PRESENTACIÓN
En agosto de 1965 se produjo en las aguas del Mediterráneo el fallecimiento de Le Corbusier, reconocido como
el arquitecto más importante del siglo XX. Con este motivo, el Departamento de Proyectos Arquitectónicos de la
Universidad Politécnica de Valencia, con el apoyo de la Fondation Le Corbusier de París, promueve la
realización de este congreso internacional en Valencia.
Tras el Congreso de Granada sobre Le Corbusier celebrado en dicha ciudad en el año 2007, de carácter nacional,
tuvo lugar en la Universidad Politécnica de Valencia el evento Mise Au Point. Seminario Internacional sobre
Investigación en Proyectos Arquitéctónicos- Workshop: Investigación sobre Le Corbusier, celebrado entre abril
y mayo de 2011, casi como una preparación para este congreso internacional que se celebra otros cuatro años
después y con la voluntad de reforzar este carácter internacional para glosar la figura de este arquitecto que ha
tenido una absoluta transcendencia en la arquitectura moderna y contemporánea.
Le Corbusier fue uno de los arquitectos más fecundos en producir interrelaciones entre ideas e imágenes, entre
disciplinas plásticas y arquitectura, entre historia y modernidad. El poder de sus ideas estaba continuamente
siendo experimentado y corroborado por su obra arquitectónica. En sus proyectos, escritos, pinturas y esculturas
va desengranando diferentes visiones de lo que debía corresponderse con la modernidad arquitectónica, que, en
su persona, se nutrió de referencias ideológicas también heterogéneas. Si hay algo que se destaca en su
trayectoria es la transversalidad en su labor creativa. Esta idea de transversalidad permite la apertura del
congreso a artistas plásticos, historiadores, editores de libros, fotógrafos, pensadores y, por supuesto, arquitectos.
Además su obra no se circunscribe al ámbito de su país de adopción, Francia, sino que sus proyectos están
presentes en todas las partes del mundo: desde París a Moscú, desde Alemania a Roma, en Suiza o Bélgica
encontramos edificios de Le Corbusier. Pero también en Venecia, Túnez, Estados Unidos, Japón o la India,
además de los planes de Estocolmo, Bogotá, Argel o Barcelona, por poner unos pocos ejemplos. Viajó varias
veces por España y en 1928 visitó la ciudad de Valencia. Sus huellas están presentes en todas las partes del
mundo. Fue el primer arquitecto global, de ahí el interés que suscita en todos estos lugares y la necesidad de la
presencia internacional de ponentes e investigadores.
Pero si hay algo que debemos destacar es su relevancia en un determinado campo del oficio de arquitecto: la
casa, la vivienda, la habitación. Toda su vida está marcada por una voluntad casi pedagógica de enseñar a
habitar: “savoir habiter”. Este era casi un lema irrenunciable y, de hecho, la vivienda constituye un objetivo
primordial en su quehacer. De hecho, en 1952, en su “Declaración de principios sobre los deberes de la
arquitectura moderna” escribe: “el deber que deben cumplir los arquitectos es, precisamente, poner en primer
lugar la vivienda”. Buena parte de los conjuntos residenciales actuales de cierto interés tienen sus raíces en las
múltiples propuestas de viviendas que realiza desde la primera década del pasado siglo. Explorar sus
permanencias en la arquitectura de hoy y cómo contribuir a una mejora del hábitat colectivo es, sin duda alguna,
un asunto que será tratado en este congreso.
Su legado es casi inabarcable. Le Corbusier desveló incesantemente la sucesión de sus pensamientos recogidos
en agendas, textos, entrevistas y artículos de prensa. Disponemos de la mayor parte de sus dibujos, bocetos y
planos de proyecto, además de una inmensidad de textos críticos sobre su figura. Por tanto, es un personaje en el
que caben múltiples modos de acercamiento. Pero además, su transcendencia es definitiva y sus epígonos
múltiples y reconocidos. Arquitectos contemporáneos de renombre internacional reconocen sus deudas con el
maestro franco-suizo: Rem Koolhaas, Toyo Ito, Alvaro Siza, Rafael Moneo, Luigi Snozzi, Peter Eisenman o
Kenzo Tange, entre muchos otros. Reconocer y rastrear su influencia en nuestra arquitectura es un tributo
necesario.
PRESENTATION
En août de 1965 se produisit dans les eaux de la Méditerranée le décès de Le Corbusier qui, à ce moment là, était
déjà reconnu comme l’architecte le plus important du XXème siècle. Cinquante années se sont écoulées depuis
lors et à la vue de cet évènement le Département de Projets Architectoniques de l’Université Polytechnique de
Valencia, avec le soutient de la Fondation Le Corbusier, a l’intention de promouvoir un Congrès International à
Valencia.
Quatre ans après le Congrès de Grenade, célébré en 2007 et de caractère national, eu lieu à l’Université
Polytechnique de Valencia la rencontre Mise au Point entre les mois d’avril et mai 2011. Celle-ci comprenait un
Séminaire International abordant le thème de la recherche en Projets d’Architecture et un Workshop
spécifiquement centré sur la recherche à propos de Le Corbusier. Autres quatre années sont passées depuis et le
moment semble idéal pour célébrer un Congrès International ayant pour but revisiter le travail et la figure de Le
Corbusier, architecte avec une transcendance absolue pour l’architecture moderne et contemporaine.
Le Corbusier a été un des architectes les plus féconds quant à la production d’interrelations entre idées et images,
entre disciplines plastiques et architecture, entre histoire et modernité. La force de ses idées était constamment
mise à l’épreuve et corroborée para son œuvre architecturale. Dans ses projets, écrits, peintures et sculptures il
égraine progressivement des visions diverses de ce qui devrait se correspondre avec la modernité architecturale
qui, en sa personne, se nourrissait de références idéologiques. Un aspect relevant de sa trajectoire réside dans la
transversalité de son activité créatrice. Cette ouverture d’esprit qui le caractérisait, donne lieu à ce que le congrès
soit susceptible de combler les inquiétudes tantôt des architectes, comme des artistes plastiques, des historiens,
des éditeurs de livres, des photographes et des penseurs.
A l’universalité des domaines de connaissance abordés vient se joindre l’extension géographique considérable de
son travail. La présence de son œuvre ne se limite pas au domaine de son pays d’adoption, la France, ayant
réalisé des projets presque partout dans le monde. Depuis Paris jusqu’à Moscou, de Berlin jusqu’à Rome, en
passant par Venise, la Suisse et la Belgique, il a embrassée la presque totalité du continent européen. Mais il a
aussi réalisé des projets aux États Unis, en Amérique Latine, au Japon et en Inde, sans oublier les plans urbains
qu’il a rédigé pour Stockholm, Bogotá, Alger ou Barcelone, pour ne citer que quelques exemples.
Il voyagea maintes fois en Espagne et en 1828 il visita la ville de Valencia. Son emprunte est présente partout
dans le monde. Il a été le premier architecte global, d’où découle l’intérêt que son travail suscite dans un ample
spectre international et la présence au niveau planétaire de chercheurs qui s’intéressent à sa production.
Il faut aussi souligner l’importance de sa contribution dans un certain domaine du travail de l’architecte: la
maison, le logement, l’habitation. Toute sa vie a été marquée par une volonté quasi pédagogique d’enseigner à
habiter : « savoir habiter ». Celle-ci était une devise quasi inébranlable, et de fait le logement constitue un des
objectifs de plus clairs de son savoir faire. En 1955, dans sa « Déclaration de principes sur les devoirs de
l’architecture moderne » il écrivit : « le devoir à accomplir par les architectes, c’est précisément de mettre au
premier plan le logis ». Une grande partie des ensembles résidentiels construits jusqu’à nos jours, et qui
présentent un certain intérêt, trouve ses racines dans les multiples projets résidentiels qu’il réalise depuis la
première décennie du siècle dernier. Explorer ces permanences dans l’architecture d’aujourd’hui et aborder la
réflexion sur la manière de contribuer à une amélioration de l’habitat collectif est sans aucun doute une affaire
que sera traité dans ce Congrès.
Son legs est pratiquement inabordable. Le Corbusier dévoila incessamment la suite de ses pensées qui
apparaissent recueillies dans des carnets, des textes, des interviews, et des articles de presse. Garce à la
Fondation Le Corbusier, que lui même se chargea de promouvoir avant sa mort, il est possible de disposer
aujourd´hui de la presque totalité de ses dessins, de ses exquises et d’innombrables plans des projets. En
parallèle, au long des années se sont écris une énorme quantité de textes critiques sur lui et sur son travail. De la
qu’il soit possible d’approcher le personnage depuis des sources multiples. Sa transcendance est définitive et ses
épigones multiples et reconnus. Architectes contemporains de renommée internationale reconnaissent leurs
dettes vis à vis du maitre franco- suisse : Rem Koolhaas, Toyo Ito, Alvaro Siza, Rafael Moneo, Luigo Snozzi,
Peter Eisenmann ou Kenzo Tange, entre maintes autres. Reconnaître et suivre les traces de son influence dans
notre architecture actuelle s’avère être un hommage toujours nécessaire.
INTRODUCTION
In August 1965, Le Corbusier, recognized as the most important architect of the twentieth-century, passed away
in the Mediterranean Sea waters. For this reason, the Architectural Design Department at the Polytechnic
University of Valencia, with the support of the Le Corbusier Foundation in Paris, promotes this international
conference in Valencia.
After a national conference on Le Corbusier took place in Granada (Spain) in 2007, the Polytechnic University
of Valencia organized between April and May 2011 an event called Mise Au Point. International Seminar about
Research on Architectural Projects - Workshop: Research on Le Corbusier, almost as a preparation for this
international conference to be held in the same premises four years later, the intention now being to strengthen
its international scope, in order to reassess this leading figure with an unquestionable significance in modern and
contemporary architecture.
Le Corbusier was one of the most prolific architects in the creation of links between ideas and images, between
visual arts and architecture, between history and modernity. The power of his ideas was continually being tested
and confirmed by his architectural work. In his projects, writings, paintings and sculptures he worked out
different visions of what should match architectural modernity, which drew on a personal background built upon
diverse ideological references. If there is any outstanding feature in his career, it is the transversal condition of
his creative work. This idea of transversality enables us to open this conference to artists, historians, book
publishers, photographers, thinkers and, of course, architects.
Moreover, his work is not limited to France, his adopted country, as we can find his projects and buildings all
over the world, from Paris to Moscow, from Germany to Rome, in Switzerland or Belgium, as well as in Venice,
Tunisia, United States, Japan and India, in addition to the plans of Stockholm, Bogotá, Algiers or Barcelona, just
to name a few examples. He travelled several times around Spain, visiting the city of Valencia in 1928. His seal
is visible all over the world. He was the first global architect; hence the interest aroused in all these places and
the importance of counting on the participation of international speakers and researchers.
Something to be particularly noted is his relevance in a specific field of the architect’s task: the house, the
dwelling, the room. All his life is marked by an almost pedagogical will, to teach how to live: "savoir habiter".
This was an almost unavoidable motto, being housing a key target in his work. In fact, he states in 1952, in his
"Declaration of principles concerning the duties of modern architecture": "the duty to be fulfilled by architects is,
precisely, to give first priority to housing". A great amount of current housing developments with a certain
degree of significance are based on the numerous housing proposals he worked out since the first decade of the
last century. One of the aims of this conference is to explore the permanence of his proposals in current
architecture and how to contribute to improve the quality of collective housing.
His legacy is extremely extensive. Le Corbusier never ceased to reveal the wealth of his thoughts, which were
collected in notebooks, texts, interviews and newspaper articles. Most of his drawings, sketches and project
drawings are available to us, in addition to an extensive range of critical texts about him. Therefore, his
personality allows many different approaches. But on top of this, he exerted a far-reaching influence on many
well-known heirs. Internationally renowned contemporary architects, such as Rem Koolhaas, Toyo Ito, Alvaro
Siza, Rafael Moneo, Luigi Snozzi, Peter Eisenman and Kenzo Tange, among many others, acknowledge their
debts to the French-Swiss master. To recognize and trace his influence on our architecture is a necessary tribute.
Jorge Torres Cueco

Director del congreso LC 2015
ÍNDICE
Le Corbusier’s uncanny interiors
Tiziano Aglieri Rinella 23
Reconstrucción de una pirámide borrada. Análisis de la Capilla Mortuoria encargada por Lucie
Delgado Chalbaud en Caracas, Venezuela, 1951
José Javier Alayón González, Mariolly Dávila Cordido and Odart Graterol Prado 47
Les « Unités » Modulor dans la Philosophie de l’Espace de Gaston Bachelard

Aurosa Alison 65
El espacio público en Le Corbusier. Evolución de su pensamiento y de sus estrategias formales

Eusebio Alonso García 74
Estrellas sobre fondos cambiantes: convocando la luz

Isabel Álvarez and Silvia Blanco 99
All of Paris, Darkly: Le Corbusier’s Beistegui Apartment, 1929-1931

Ross J. Anderson 113
Le Corbusier y la Reorganización del hábitat rural

David Arredondo Garrido 128
Le Corbusier et la main ouverte à Chandigarh. La genèse d’une œuvre

Abdelmalek Arrouf and Nadia Berkane 145
Architecture as machine; Towards an architectural system for human well-being

Paramita Atmodiwirjo and Yandi Andri Yatmo 168
La construcción de lo inefable
Alfredo Baladrón Carrizo 178
Fotografías que seccionan una mirada a Le Corbusier

Carlos Barberá Pastor 199
Une correspondance architecturale: Ionel Schein "enfant" de Le Corbusier

Silvia Berselli 223
Vernacular Serbia Traced by Jeanneret, Yugoslav Modern Figured à la Corbusier

Ljiljana Blagojevic 236
La Fábrica verde de la Ciudad lineal industrial: una propuesta de Le Corbusier para el trabajo del
hombre en la “época maquinista”
Silvia Bodei 256
Experimenting with prototypes: architectural research in Sweden after Le Corbusier’s projects

Ingrid Campo Ruiz 272
Team10 out of CIAM: Sobre el papel de Le Corbusier. Identificación y legado.

Alejandro Campos Uribe 285
La Villa Savoye. Permanencias y transformaciones

Teresa Carrau Carbonell 309
F VAL. Feria Valencia y Guillermo Jullian de la Fuente. L´héritage de Le Corbusier

Federico Carro Gil, Miguel Navarro Pérez and Marta Mompó García 327
Le Corbusier’s Legacy: Modern experimentation in Mario Bonito´s work

Helder Casal Ribeiro 347
Ronchamp in the spotlight. The feature of a shocking building in the 50s journals
Francisco Javier Casas Cobo 366
El lugar del arte en arquitectura. Los “lieux porte-voix, porte-paroles, haut-parleurs” de Le
Corbusier en su discurso del Convegno Volta, 1936
José Luis Chacón 373
Le Corbusier et les relations avec le Brésil

Silvia Raquel Chiarelli and Ruth Verde Zein 384
Le Corbusier’s Musée à croissance illimitée: A Limitless Diagram for Museology

Irene Chin 407
Le Corbusier and the mysterious “résidence du président d’un collège”

Fabio Colonnese 422
Le Corbusier Roof-Spaces
Alessandra Como, Isotta Forni and Luisa Smeragliuolo Perrotta 441
Des-montaje de la maqueta de la propuesta para el Palacio de los Soviets de Le Corbusier

Miguel Ángel De la Cova Morillo 461
Le Corbusier y Charles Lasnon: De las maquetas blancas de los Salones de Otoño a los plan-reliefs
del nuevo urbanismo
Miguel Ángel De La Cova Morillo 480
Le Corbusier’s Proposal for the Capital of Ethiopia: Fascism and Coercive Design of Imperial
Identities
Elisa Dainese 502
Le Corbusier y la construcción vertical del espacio estratificado

Sonia Delgado Berrocal 517
Analyse architecturale, modélisation 3D et narration filmique: un regard original sur quelques

objets corbuséens
Denis Derycke and Véronique Joanne Boone 531
Le Corbusier’s Cité de Refuge: historical & technological performance of the air exacte
Luis Manuel Díaz and Ryan Southall 551
Le Corbusier et la Belgique / Son Héritage

Marc Dubois 568
Machines à exposer
Cathérine Dumont d'Ayot 578
Learning from Le Corbusier

Laurent J. Duport 601
Georges Candilis (1913-1995) architecte pour le plus grand nombre

Laurent J. Duport 625
Concevoir aujourd'hui un film sur la villa Savoye

Anouchka Dyephart 646
Autour du pyjama de Le Corbusier. Le vêtement comme modèle de pensée fondateur

Clotilde Félix Fromentin 660
Le Corbusier y Lúcio Costa. Diálogos sobre la síntesis de las artes

Fernanda Fernandes da Silva 680
Listening and the League of Nations: Acoustics Are the Argument

Sabine von Fischer 694
Le Corbusier. Arquitectura urbana: Millowners Association Building y Carpenter Center
María Pía Fontana and Miguel Y. Mayorga Cárdenas 713
Le Corbusier and Ariadne

Alessandro Fonti 738
Architecture and Art: La Ronchamp’s symbiosis as a "total work of art"

Sarah Frances Dias and Maria João Durão 754
Summer houses in Portugal: the legacy of the Exitenzminimum and the work of Le Corbusier
Tiago Freitas 775
La Villa Sarabhai. La riqueza de lo ambiguo

Andrea García González, Vicente Mas Llorens and José Santatecla Fayos 786
Influencias pintorescas de Le Corbusier en el Pabellón Brasileño de Osaka ‘70

Sergio García-Gascó Lominchar 804
Arquitectura y tapiz de Le Corbusier. La trama y la urdimbre de la casa nómada

Antoni Gelabert Amengual 819
Génesis del proyecto de la Cité de Refuge de París

Alejandro Gómez García 827
Le Corbusier: architecture, music, mathematics: longing for classicism?

Clara Germana Gonçalves and Maria João Soares 844
Mirada objetiva y dimensión subjetiva del cine en Le Corbusier

Josefina González Cubero 862
Memory and change through Le Corbusier. Fragments of urban views

Fabiola Gorgeri 880
Captando la mirada. Publicidad y reclamo en el espacio expositivo de Le Corbusier

Jerónimo Granados González 896
The Baghdad Affair. How diplomacy supplanted one of the last major projects by Le Corbusier
Nuno Grande 910
Bruno Zevi on Le Corbusier: another way to an “organic architecture”

Luca Guido 933
Maestro y discípulos: Japón y el pabellón para la Exposición Internacional de París de 1937

Pablo Jesús Gutierrez Calderón 954
Le Corbusier between sketches. A graphic analysis of the Acropolis sketches

Sebastian Harris 975
Le Corbusier Postwar Painterly Mythologies

Geneviève Hendricks 993
El dibujo y la noción de horizonte en Le Corbusier

Germán Hidalgo Hermosilla 1001
Mapping the Stylistic Affiliations of Le Corbusier’s Work

Phoebus Ilias Panigyrakis 1016
THE INEVITABLE ORDER: Revisiting the Calibrated Biomimetics of Le Corbusier’s Modulor

Rajini Itham Mahajan 1029
On Diagonal Time in Le Corbusier’s Visual Arts Center

Michael Jasper 1043
Charles-Edouard Jeanneret miembro de l´OEUVRE
Inmaculada Jiménez Caballero 1061
Ratio and the Divine Proportions: Le Corbusier and Rudolf Wittkower

James Kirk Irwin 1081
« L'espace indicible »: conceptions et textualités

Mickaël Labbé 1093
Le Corbusier y Lilette Ripert. Les Maternelles vous parlent, hacia una pedagogía más humana
Paula Lacomba Montes 1108
Crónica de un desencuentro: Le Corbusier en las Américas

Alejandro Lapunzina 1132
Estrategias geométrico-matemáticas en la obra de Le Corbusier (1923-1933)

Teresa Larumbe Machín 1148
From Impact to Legacy: Interpreting Critical Writing on Le Corbusier from the 1920s to the
Present
Graham Livesey and Antony Moulis 1169
La mirada de Pedro Vieira de Almeida a Le Corbusier: una visión desde Portugal en la segunda
mitad del siglo XX
Tiago Lopes Dias 1186
El epígono de El Modulor: La serie amarilla en las investigaciones de Rafael Leoz

Jesús López Díaz and José Antonio Ruiz Suaña 1198
La mediterraneidad en la obra de Le Corbusier. La bóveda catalana lecorbuseriana: Influencias y

evolución
Esmeralda López García 1221
La Ligne Claire de Le Corbusier. Time, Space, and Sequential Narratives

Luis M. Lus Arana 1233
Le Corbusier’s legacy in the tropics: modern architecture in Angola and Mozambique (1950-1970)
Ana Magalhães 1253
Le Corbusier, el punto de partida de Juan Borchers

Sandro Maino Ansaldo 1265
Le Corbusier and the American Modulor

Madalena Mameli 1282
Maisons Jaoul, confort higrotérmico y su percepción en la arquitectura de tipología unifamiliar de

Le Corbusier
Daniel V. Martín Fuentes 1295
La casa y el recinto. Un proceso abierto a través del proyecto para la Residencia Peyrissac en una
explotación agrícola en Argelia
Carmen Martínez Arroyo, Rodrigo Pemjean Muñoz and Juan Pedro Sanz Alarcón 1315
Letter from the Basses-Pyrénées: An Unintended Trigger for a Site Exchange

Laura Martínez de Guereñu Elorza 1330
El "hameau" vertical de Le Corbusier. Una alternativa residencial al bloque lineal

Yolanda Martínez Domingo and Josefina González Cubero 1348
Le Corbusier -hombre y arquitecto- en Cap Martin

Anna Martínez Durán 1364
Elogio del cuadrado: cuadrícula, cuadro, cuatro, cubo
Andrés Martínez-Medina 1378
Le Corbusier versus Sergei Eisenstein. La construcción de un sueño

Elena Martínez Millana 1393
Búsquedas para el establecimiento de una relación armónica con el paisaje. Dos exploraciones
paralelas
Clara E. Mejía Vallejo and Juan Deltell Pastor 1416
Global Architects: a dialogue between Le Corbusier and Fernando Távora on Architecture

Universality
Susana Meleiro Lima 1435
« Histoire d'une Fenêtre ». Le Corbusier y la construcción de la mirada

Ricardo Merí de la Maza, Alfonso Díaz Segura and Bartolomé Serra Soriano 1448
La Réaction Poétique of a Prepared Mind

Matthew Mindrup 1466
FLC 4932. Lo inesperado en la obra de Le Corbusier. Consideraciones en torno al origen de la

promenade.
Roger Miralles Jori 1474
Brise-soleil: principios y transformación en la obra de Le Corbusier

Silvia Morel Correa, R. Anzolch and R. Pedrotti 1485
L'Architecture Vivante y Le Corbusier

María Pura Moreno Moreno 1506
The Thematic Content of Le Corbusier’s Musée Mondial: Nature and Perspectivity

Dagmar Motycka Weston 1525
Architecture in Translation: Le Corbusier’s influence in Australia

Antony Moulis 1544
Le Corbusier and the “Lection of the gondola”

Alioscia Mozzato 1553
Le Corbusier in Berlin, 1958: the universal and the individual in the unbuilt city
Mara Oliveira Eskinazi 1575
Le Corbusier and The Americas: Affinities, Appropriations and Anthropophagy

Daniela Ortiz Dos Santos 1592
“Who is Le Corbusier?” According to Turkish Architecture

Guliz Ozorhon and Ilker F Ozorhon 1614
Chandigarh antes de Chandigarh (Cartografía de una idea)

José del Carmen Palacios Aguilar 1625
Páginas de un desencuentro: Le Corbusier y L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui (1930-65)

José Parra Martínez 1643
Habitar el aire
Marta Pérez Rodríguez 1665
Le Corbusier and São Paulo - 1929: Architecture and Landscape

Guilherme Pianca 1685
La forme du temps à Moscou

Pedro Ponce Gregorio 1703
Entre les lignes ou de bouche à l'oreille. Le Corbusier en roumain
Radu Tudor Ponta 1725
Dattiers Andinos y la Búsqueda Paciente en Rue de Sèvres, 1948-1959

Ingrid Quintana Guerrero 1748
The Philosophical Framework of Le Corbusier's Education: Schuré and German Idealism

Armando Rabaça 1765
Le Corbusier in Chandigarh: A Search for the Natural Order

Aparma Ramesh 1784
The mur neutralisant as an active thermal system: Saint Gobain tests (1931) versus CFD
simulations (2015).
Cristina Ramírez-Balas, Juan José Sendra Salas, Rafael Suárez Medina, Enrique D.
Fernández-Nieto and Gladys Narbona-Reina 1798
Le Corbusier, Missenard et Le Climat

Javier Redondo Morán 1820
Construcciones ambientales en el hábitat moderno: Le Corbusier y André Missenard (1937-57)

Ignacio Requena Ruiz and Daniel Siret 1832
Notre Dame du Haut, Ronchamp, the shape of a listening. A whole other generative hypothesis
Luca Ribichini 1846
La lección del embalse. Le Corbusier y los aprovechamientos hidroeléctricos

Antonio Santiago Río Vázquez 1861
Le Corbusier et le Brésil: une Synthèse des Arts Majeurs, et aussi des Arts Mineurs
Cecilia Rodrigues Dos Santos 1876
“L’emploi du quatrième mur sur le pan de verre”. Apariciones del concepto de cuarta pared en los
libros, textos y documentos de Le Corbusier
José Antonio Rodríguez Casas 1890
Le Corbusier en ‘Líneas Simples’: Toyo Ito

Marta Rodríguez Fernández 1909
Metáforas obsesivas e ideogramas (marcas del surrealismo en la construcción del discurso de Le

Corbusier)
Luis Rojo de Castro 1921
Possibles liens avec le Monde Antique. La suggestion des ruines dans les œuvres de Le Corbusier:
de l’architecture Romaine au bâtiment de la Haute-Cour de Justice de Chandigarh
Chiara Roma 1945
Le Corbusier y la autonomía de la arquitectura

Alberto Rubio Garrido 1961
Corbu's Hands
Agnieszka Rumież and Witold Oleszak 1977
Le Corbusier et Christian Zervos dans Cahiers d’art

Maria Paola Sabella 1986
CAPRICCI NO CAPRICHOSOS: copy_paste de Le Corbusier; o los inesperados saltos de la cabra

Maurizio Salazar Valenzuela 2007
Diagrama y Arquitectura. La Sintaxis Espacial en el Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts
Juan Alejandro Saldarriaga Sierra 2028
Dibujando La Casa Peyrissac
Albertina Saseta Naranjo 2044
Le Corbusier’s early urban studies as source of experiential architectural knowledge

Cristoph Schnoor 2064
Le Corbusier y el edificio del Ministerio de Educación y Salud

Luciane Scottá 2082
Garder mon aile dans ta main: The genesis of the Open Hand
Gabriel Sepe Camargo 2100
Criterios de combinación de colores para la arquitectura en Salubra I: estudio de tonos

Juan Serra, Jorge Llopis, Ana Torres and Manuel Giménez 2117
The Photo book as Symphony – Ronchamp as Sculpture: Re-composing Architectural

Photography
Talette Simonsen 2130
La poética del urbanismo de Le Corbusier: arte y función en la ciudad moderna

Andrea Soler Machado and Emanoela Gehlen Bregolin 2147
Complejidad y contradicción en Le Corbusier

Roger Such Sanmartín 2163
Let’s play with Le Corbusier

Barbara Świt-Jankowska 2175
Visions “humaines” ou “infernales”: les moyens de transport et la perception de la ville chez Le

Corbusier
Simona Talenti 2184
The eye of the architect. Le Corbusier and the photograph: demonstrate, learn, remember
Annarita Teodosio 2205
In Quest of Modernity: Le Corbusier's Project for the New Civic Hospital in Venice
Inés Tolic 2216
Copy-Paste: Le Corbusier en OMA/Rem Koolhaas

Raúl Del Valle González 2231
Learning how to design architecture form the Villa Savoye design process
Karel Vandenhende 2246
Los dibujos para el Palacio

Victor Hugo Velásquez Hernández 2255
Bajo la Luz. Buscando la luz

Íñigo de Viar Fraile 2275
Rem Koolhaas: Le Corbusier through the Looking-Glass

Beatriz Villanueva Cajide 2295
Sobre una caracterización 'corbuseriana' del mobiliario moderno

María Villanueva Fernández and Héctor García-Diego Villarías 2308
El proyecto del Convento de Sainte Marie de la Tourette. De la celda al espacio inefable

Alejandro Vírseda Aizpún 2325
Le Corbusier’s Secret Geometry: Speculations on Regulating Lines Hidden in Ronchamp

Peter Wood 2349
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4995/LC2015.2015.791
Le Corbusier: architecture, music, mathematics: longing for classicism?
C. G. Gonçalves*, M. J. Soares**
* CITAD, Universidade Lusíada de Lisboa / ISMAT
** CITAD, Universidade Lusíada de Lisboa
Abstract: This paper aims to study the role of the relationships between architecture, music and mathematics in Le
Corbusier's thought and work and their relevance in his reinterpretation of classical thinking. It seeks to understand to what
extent working with this triad – a foundational and, up until the seventeenth century, dogmatic aspect of architecture in
general and of its aesthetics in particular – expresses a will not to break with the fundamental and defining aspects of what
could be considered as architectural thought rooted in classical tradition: that which is governed by the will to follow the
universal order in the work of art; building a microcosmos according to the macrocosmos; linking, in proportion to one
another, the universe, man and architecture. The Modulor presents itself as a manifestation of that will, synthesizing these
aspects while proposing itself as an instrument for interdisciplinary thought and practice in which the aforementioned
aspects of classical thought are present, clearly and pronouncedly. Le Corbusier’s thought and work presents itself as a
twentieth century memory of an ancient and ever present tradition conscious of its struggle for “humanity”.
Resumen: Este artículo pretende estudiar el papel de la relación entre arquitectura, música y matemática en el pensamiento
y la obra de Le Cobusier y su significado en su reinterpretación del pensamiento clásico. Intenta entender en qué medida con
esta triada – aspecto fundacional y hasta el siglo XVII dogmático de la arquitectura, en general, y de su estética, en
particular – Le Corbusier expresa su recusa por cortar el vínculo con los aspectos fundamentales y definidores de lo que
puede considerarse un pensamiento de tradición clásica en arquitectura: aquel tutelado por la voluntad de seguir el orden
universal en la obra de arte – construyendo un microcosmos según un macrocosmos – para así vincular, a través de la
proporción, universo, Hombre y arquitectura. El Modulor se presenta como manifestación de esa voluntad, sintetizando estos
aspectos y presentándose como un instrumento para un pensamiento y una práctica interdisciplinares en los cuales el
pensamiento clásico se encuentra clara y marcadamente presente. El pensamiento de Le Corbusier, través su mirada hacia la
relación arquitectura-música-matemática, se presenta, en el siglo XX, como una memoria de una antigua y siempre presente
tradición, consciente de su busca por “humanidad”.
Keywords: Le Corbusier; Architecture, music and mathematics; classical thought; Modulor.

Palabras clave: Le Corbusier; Arquitectura, música y mathematica; pensamiento clásico; Modulor.
1. Introduction
One of the most fascinating themes in studying the history of architecture is relating tradition with modernity.
One discovers that there is a tradition to being modern and that sometimes these two aspects can, almost
unexpectedly, manifest themselves simultaneously within the same person. This seems to be the case with Le
Corbusier.
It is well known that twentieth century modernism was a backdrop for passionate debate on tradition. One of
modernism’s foremost protagonists – Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951) – very ably defined what was,
paradoxically, a lucid position; that from an accepted and beloved, but outdated, tradition one can create a new
order that strives to become a new tradition: “I venture to credit myself with having written truly new music
which, being based on tradition, is destined to become tradition.”1 If the topic were architecture, this could be Le
Corbusier’s discourse.
Tradition is deeply linked with the idea of the classical or even classicism. This idea of classical refers to a way
of thinking – of reading the world and relating it to architecture – and eventually to a method.
It is no coincidence that in Modern Architecture Since 1900 William Curtis begins the chapter “Form and
Meaning in the Late Works of Le Corbusier” with this quotation from Henri Focillon: “The principle which gives
support to a work of art is not necessarily contemporary with it. It is quite capable of slipping back into the past
or forward into the future… The artist inhabits a time which is by no means necessarily the history of his own
time.”2 And in The Classical Language of Architecture, John Summerson describes Le Corbusier as “the most
inventive mind in the architecture of our time and also, in a curious way, one of the most classical minds”3.
2. Architecture, music and mathematics
Founded in Antiquity – with the Pythagorean School, to be precise – the tradition strongly linked with classical
thinking in general, and Humanism in particular, that links proportions in architectural to intervals in music
through mathematical relations, was also deeply rooted and also further developed during the Middle Ages. In
reality, that tradition was only broke in the mid-17th century. However, despite that chiasm, it does not seem to
have totally disappeared from subsequent architectural thought.
In this tradition, along with mathematics, music has always enjoyed a special status, in part precisely because of
its correlation to mathematics – both geometry and arithmetic. This aspect fascinated architects and provided
them with tools to bring their works into line with the laws of the universe. Whilst it is true that this scenario was
seriously challenged in the 17th century, the aura was not gone forever and the spirit within which it was built
remained. And, of course, music continued to fascinate architects (as well as many other authors and scholars). It
is important to mention that throughout history it is more frequent that architects seek theoretical knowledge or
inspiration in music than the opposite.4
2.1 Music and mathematics
“La musique est évidemment une des joies de la vie.” [Fig.1]
Considering himself a “musician at heart”5, two ideas related to music, as stated in The Modulor6, fascinated Le
Corbusier: one was the fact that music, with scarce means, was able to generate infinite solutions that were all
different from each other; the other was that music was governed by simple, clear and “economic” rules.
Accordingly, for Le Corbusier music had gone further than architecture and was thus an example to be followed:
“… how many of us know that in the visual sphere – in the matter of lengths – our civilizations have not yet
1
Schoenberg, Arnold, Style and Idea, p.174.
2
Curtis, William, Modern Architecture Since 1900, p. 271.
3
Summerson, John. The Classical Language of Architecture, p. 111.
4
For a general study on architecture and music see Gonçalves, Clara Germana, Arquitectura: diálogos com a música:
concepção, tradição, criação.
5
Le Corbusier, Modulor 2, 1955 (Let the User Speak Next: Continuation of “The Modulor” 1948), p.330. In the final
paragraph of the book.
6
Le Corbusier, The Modulor: A Harmonious Measure to the Human Scale Universally Applicable to Architecture and
Mechanics.
come to the stage they have reached in music? Nothing that is built, constructed, divided into lengths, widths,
volumes, has yet enjoyed the advantage of a measure equivalent to that possessed in music, a working tool in the
service of musical thought.”7
This constant fascination with music throughout history in general, and the history of architecture in particular, is
continued today in the works of authors such as Marcos Novak (b.1957) who argues that “music has reinvented
itself in far more profound ways than architecture has dared”8.
However, for Novak to link architecture and music under the Pythagorean-Platonic tradition is to associate the
former with the cadaver of a cosmological musical tradition that has been dead for a long time. He is speaking
out against a tradition that still exists. And he refers to one of the most important of Le Corbusier’s collaborators,
Iannis Xenakis (1922-2001): “Xenakis claims that we are all Pythagoreans. Perhaps this is so, since we are
obviously still enamored with numbers. Most of our conceptions about the relationship of architecture and music
are remnants of Pythagorean belief. The most prevalent conception is concerned with the static balance of fixed,
perfect parts, eternal because desiccated, desiccated because imagined to preexist in an ideal, immaterial
world.” 9 In Musique, Architecture, Xenakis had indeed claimed: “We are all Pythagoreans.”10 He also focuses
on a note citing Bertrand Russel (1872-1970) in 1924: “Perhaps the oddest thing about modern science is its
return to Pythagoricism.”11 It would seem that the paradox was not exclusive to architecture...
Xenakis’ mentor, Le Corbusier, was also fascinated by this tradition. And he considered himself not only a
musician but also a “mathematician at heart”12. The following shows how passionately and poetically Le
Corbusier spoke of mathematics:
“Mathematics is the majestic structure conceived by man to grant him comprehension of the universe. It holds
both the absolute and the infinite, the understandable and the forever elusive. It has walls before which one may
pace up and down without result; sometimes there is a door: one opens it – enters – one is in another realm, the
realm of the gods, the room which holds the key to the great systems. These doors are the doors of the miracles.
Having gone through one, man is no longer the operative force, but rather it is his contact with the universe. In
front of him unfolds and spreads out the fabulous fabric of numbers without end. He is in the country of
numbers. He may be a modest, and yet have entered just the same. Let him remain, entranced by so much
dazzling, all-pervading light.” 13
But music came at first. Le Corbusier describes arriving at mathematics through music: “More than these thirty
years past, the sap of mathematics has flown through the veins of my work, both as an architect and painter; for
music is always present within me.”14
7
Le Corbusier, The Modulor, pp.16-17.
8
Novak, Marcos, “Breaking the Cage”, p.69. And he continues: “In this century alone, we have witnessed a series of
emancipations: in Arnold Schönberg, the emancipation of dissonance; in Edgard Varèse, the emancipation of noise; in
Iannis Xenakis, the emancipation of stochastic form; in John Cage, the emancipation of nonintention.” Novak, Marcos,
“Breaking the Cage”, p.70.
9
Novak, Marcos, “Breaking the Cage”, pp. 69-70.
10
Xenakis, Iannis. Musique, Architecture, p.73.
11
As cited in Xenakis, Iannis, Musique, Architecture, p.73. Originally published in The Nation, 27-9-1924.
12
Le Corbusier, “The Final Year: a Transcription and Translation of Le Corbusier’s Last Recorded Interview”, p. 119.
13
Le Corbusier, The Modulor, p.71.
14
And he cites Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683-1764), for whom music was the foundational discipline:
“… ‘Music is not a part of mathematics; on the contrary, it is the sciences which are a part of music, for they are
founded on proportion, and resonance of the body of sound engenders all proportion.’” 15
And in emphasising that it is music – particularly harmony – that dominates, he goes on to develop Rameau’s
idea:
“This last audacious statement is by Rameau, and it throws light on our investigation: music rules all things, it
dominates; or, more precisely, harmony does that. Harmony, reigning over all things, regulating all the things of
our lives, is the spontaneous, indefatigable and tenacious quest of man animated by a single force: the sense of
the divine, and pursuing one aim: to make a paradise on earth.”16
But whilst it was music that led him to mathematics, it would also appear to be true that his fascination for music
was due, at least in part, to the traditional and close links between music and mathematics. The foreword to The
Modulor17 already makes reference to Pythagoras and the beginnings of Greek musical systematisation based on
mathematics. This is revealed in the quotations Le Corbusier uses of authors who argue that mathematics and
music are inseparable:
“… ‘Music is a secret mathematical exercise, and he who engages in it is unaware that he is manipulating
numbers.’18 (Leibnitz.)
… ‘The man practising on the keyboard is unaware that he is handling logarithms.’ (Henri Martin.)”19
One must also consider that in the 1950s mathematics was a study discipline of choice. And at the time many
studies on geometry applied to nature and art were carried out. See, for example, the vast body of work produced
by Matila Ghyka (1881-1965)20 who was a friend to Le Corbusier. This prominence of mathematics was also
manifested in events such as the international conference on De Divina Proportione organised by the Milan
Triennale in 1951, in which Le Corbusier took part. According to Rudolf Wittkower21, this conference had an
impact on the Modulor 2 (although the impact on the younger generation was not quite so substantial).
This was followed, by way of example, by a debate22 at RIBA on 18 June 1957 on the notion “that systems of
proportion make good design more easier and bad design more difficult”. Forty eight members of the audience
voted for the motion while sixty voted against. Bruno Zevi (1918-2000) welcomed this defeat declaring that “no
one really believes any longer in the proportional system”23. What about Le Corbusier? Forty eight against sixty
15
16
17
18
This quotation can be found, not surprisingly, in the article by Matila Ghyka, “Frozen Music”, p.187.
19
20
One should mention in particular the works Esthétique des proportions dans la nature et dans les arts (1927), Le nombre
d'or: rites et rythmes pythagoriciens dans le développement de la civilisation occidentale (1931) and The Geometry of Art
and Life (1946) which would seem to have been decisive both in the creation and written formulation of the The Modulor.
According to Jean-Louis Cohen, Le Corbusier had copies of the first two books. “ Le Corbusier’s Modulor and the Debate on
Proportion in France”, p.3.
21
Wittkower, Rudolf, “The Changing Concept of Proportion”, p.210.
22
See Pevsner, Sir Nikolaus, “Report of a Debate on the Motion 'that Systems of Proportion make good design easier and bad
design more difficult’”.
23
As cited in Wittkower, Rudolf, “The Changing Concept of Proportion”, p.210. Zevi also writes: “The hecatomb took place
in the early fifteenth century. It was the triumph of perspective. Architects stopped working concretely on architecture and
limited themselves to designing it.” The Modern Language of Architecture, p.23
in the 1950s does not seem radical. And Le Corbusier would have voted in favour given the chance and would
no doubt have back up his view, as he does in The Modulor with an unimpeachable and universally accepted
opinion: “..., Einstein had the kindness to say this of the ‘Modulor’: ‘It is a scale of proportions which makes the
bad difficult and the good easy.’”24
Although most architects (and artists) abandoned their classical fascinations, “... Le Corbusier’s answer is quite
different. He distinctly believes in the older systems of proportion, newly dressed up by him and his team. The
elements of his Modulor are traditional and extremely simple: square, double square, and divisions into extreme
and mean ratios”25. This position contrasts, in Wittkower’s opinion, with that of the majority of artists (and, of
course, architects) whose position can be summed up by these words by Eliel Saarinen (1873-1950): “‘To lean
upon theoretical formulas … is a sign of weakness that produces weak art.’”26
Wittkower explains how “the break of the arts away from mathematics, however, was no easy task. … the
‘relapses’ during the nineteenth century were countless.” 27 And according to Ghyka, in 1943 – curiously enough
five years the publication of Wittkower’s Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism and the formulation
of the Modulor –: “The predominantly scientific character of Renaissance and Baroque Architecture, … caused
in the seventeenth century the anti-geometric or intuitionist reaction whose manifesto was formulated in France
by Perrault; and since then there has been an alternation of pendulum swings, ... This conflict between planned
composition and intuition or inspiration is still going on, not only in the realm of architecture.”28 Concerning
poetry, Ghyka refers Paul Valéry (1871-1945) whose Eupalinos ou l’architecte29, published in 1921, is a clear
manifesto for the believe of the close relationship between architecture and music. And Ghyka on Le Corbusier
(in 1943): “… Le Corbusier… rediscovered the eternal value of the proportion, of the interplay of proportions
within an organic design. He rediscovered also the usefulness of the golden section as a ‘regulating theme’,
…”30
One should also bear in mind that, although the Golden Section played an unimportant role in Renaissance and
post-Renaissance art, in his treatise published in 1854, Adolf Zeising (1810-1876) declared it the central
principle of proportion in the macrocosm and microcosm.31 In the mid-19th century, the idea of proportion
regained its esoteric and Pythagorean sense. 32
In his discussions with the organising committee of the De Divina Proportione congress Le Corbusier called
attention to the fact that the title meant renouncing past ages, abandoning scientific exegesis and was not a
contribution to the studies in question, i.e., “of bringing harmony into modern times”33 arguing that it would “be
24
25
26
27
28
Ghyka, Matila, “Frozen Music”, pp.189, 191.
29
According to Mario Curti, “[t]his text had considerable influence in French intellectual circles during the twenties and
thirties of the twentieth century, very likely with respect to proportion and the golden section in particular.” “Canons of
Proportion and the Laws of Nature”, p.5.
30
Ghyka, Matila, “Frozen Music”, p.193.
31
32
See Curti, Mario, “Canons of Proportion and the Laws of Nature: Observations on a Permanent and Unresolved Conflict”.
33
Le Corbusier, Modulor 2, p.154.
linked most particularly with the works of the Renaissance”34. He went on to propose changing the name of the
Congress to Symmetry for “as it may be adopted today by advance guard of modern thought, pursues a double
goal: that of denouncing it's false meaning of equality, maintained by a still vocal academic tradition; and that
of putting the concept of symmetry back in its proper place, on the plane of equilibrium: the very essence of
proportion”35.
Le Corbusier’s idea appears to be close to the idea of Symmetry in Antiquity; as it has always been accepted
except for the period between mid-17th and early 20th centuries. In line with Corbusian thought: something akin
to commensurability, i.e. the definition of form based on a single measurement unit. Symmetry implies
proportion, which is the relationship between elements regardless of the measurement unit. By way of example
one could cite Albrecht Dürer’s (1471-1528) treatise on proportions, De Symmetria Partium in Rectis Formis
Humanorum Corporum (1532). Even for Palladio (1508-1580)36, symmetry meant much more than the simple
application of a system of commensurable proportions. As he inherited a long tradition, he saw symmetry as a
meaningful relationship between numbers in harmony with the cosmic order revealed by Pythagoras and Plato. It
appears quite clear that these are Modulor’s intentions, too.
One can say that during Renaissance design is a means to achieve harmony – an idea exterior to the object – with
academicism it is an end in itself. That is line with Le Corbusier: “The regulating line is a mean to an end; it is
not a recipe. Its choice and the modalities of expression given to it are an integral part of architectural
creation.”37
And somewhat paradoxically; axial symmetry is, after all, a small part of the history of architecture and Henry-
Russel Hitchcock (1903-1987) and Philip Johnson’s (1906-2005) International Style is not so revolutionary.
2.2 Architecture and music
For Le Corbusier38 architecture and music were both a question of measure. Sounds can be transmitted via
writing only if one heeds two conditions: they are divided into sections and are measured39. Or one could say: if
they are “geometrized”.
Le Corbusier used the term “measure” and it was indeed about measure and not length. The difference between
measure and length is fundamental to understanding this point. A metre is nothing more than an abstract number,
incapable of describing an interval – a measure in space40 [une mesure in the original French edition]. It is, in
reality, a dangerous measure in that one runs the risk of it being used in its submultiples, which would not be
desirable in architecture.41
34
Le Corbusier, Modulor 2, p.154. Here Le Corbusier would seem to reveal a lack of knowledge, given that in the
Renaissance the question of commensurability was a fundamental one and that irrational numbers – or measures – were
avoided. See Wittkower, Rudolf, “The Changing Concept of Proportion”, p.202.
35
36
Wittkower, Rudolf, Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism, p.97.
37
Le Corbusier, Towards a New Architecture, p.3.
38
39
40
Le Corbusier, The Modulor, p.33. Note that this “correction” in the English-language edition clarifies better the notion that
was to be expressed.
41
Another statement, as included in The Modulor, linking architecture and music is that architecture, like music, is
space and time.42 For Le Corbusier, architecture does not have a synchronic presence but a diachronic presence,
as is the case for music: “Architecture is not a synchronic phenomenon but a successive one, made up of pictures
adding themselves one to the other, following each other in time and space, like music.” 43
This idea was certainly in line with that of the promenade architecturale. Le Corbusier affirmed that he rejected
the principles that governed Renaissance architecture because, in his opinion, the visual perception was neither
the main principle nor even one of the generating design principles. The human eye (with its restricted field of
vision) is unable to encompass the philosopher’s polyhedrons44 [polyèdres philosophiques in the original French
edition]. This is a fundamental point. For Le Corbusier saw and felt the relationship between architecture and
music more from the intuitive and perceptive viewpoint than by means of a composition in which the conceptual
aspect played the leading role, the latter being the case with Alberti (1404-1472) or Palladio.
42
43
Le Corbusier, The Modulor,p.73.
44
1. Unpublished text on music for La Revue Internationale de Musique. Sent by letter on 22 February 1938 to Charles Leirens
of La Maison d'Art. A3(1)195-002@FLC-ADAGP
2.3 Working with Xenakis
A relationship between architecture and music was put into practice in a very fruitful way between 1947 and
1959 – a period in which Le Corbusier and Iannis Xenakis established, through their work relationship, a
veritable intellectual partnership in which the musician’s and architect’s shared interest in, or fascination with,
mathematics, and geometry in particular, played a fundamental role. This interest came to manifest itself in a
shared course through the development of a theoretical and practical interdisciplinary relationship between
architecture and music in which mathematics played an all-important role.
Xenakis was involved in several design projects: the Unité d’Habitation of Marseilles (1947-53), where he was
responsible for calculating the concrete structure; the Unité d’Habitation of Rezé-lès-Nantes (1950-55), for
which he designed the façades of the crèche located on the terrace, in which one can recognise the neumes of
Gregorian musical notation and a “stochastic”45 distribution of the prefabricated windows calculated on the
Modulor46; Chandigarh, in particular the Assembly Hall (1951-59) with its enormous hyperboloid; the Convent
of Sainte Marie de la Tourette (1953-61); the Maison de la Culture at Firminy (1956-59); and also the Philips
Pavilion at the Brussels World Fair of 1958 (1956-58), the design of which he was responsible for and whose
experimental attributes were to be of fundamental importance in Xenakis’ later trajectory as a composer.47 La
Tourette is a key work in this collaboration. Here, Xenakis applied to the fenestration a design based on the score
for his composition Metastaseis (1953-54), which itself was influenced by the Modulor.
Although Xenakis had been academically trained in engineering and music and had no prior professional
experience as an architect, his collaboration in the master’s firm was to take on fundamental importance,
precisely due to the possibilities for interdisciplinary work it opened up. And it was this interdisciplinarity that
Le Corbusier referenced in relation to Xenakis’ collaboration in the design project of Convent of Sainte Marie de
la Tourette:
“This design of glazed panels for the convent was made by Xenakis, an engineer who became a musician and is
now working as an architect at 35 rue de Sèvres: three favourable vocations united in one man. The way in
which music and architecture touch upon one another, so often referred to in connection with the Modulor, is
now made manifest professionally in a musical score by Xenakis, ‘Metastassis’ [sic], in which the resources of
the Modulor are used as an aid to musical composition.”48
The alliance between Le Corbusier and Xenakis provided a relationship of not only mutual disciplinary
interpretation but also of mutual disciplinary re-interpretation: architectural design and musical composition
methods informed each other well beyond the development of mere theoretical supports; Le Corbusier’s design
system informed Xenakis’ compositional system and, in turn, Xenakis applied principles used in musical
composition to the architectural object.
45
A type of music developed and created by Xenakis that used statistics – and probability calculation in particular – in music
composition.
46
Sterken, Sven, “Une invitation à jouer l'espace”, p.185.
47
The attribution of a designer role to Xenakis for the works produced during his time working with Le Corbusier varies
depending on the author. Xenakis claims responsibility for a large part of the design of La Tourette, and there is general
consensus amongst authors that he designed the Philips Pavilion (with Le Corbusier reluctantly acknowledging him as co-
designer). See, for instance, Treib, Marc, Space Calculated in Seconds and Xenakis, Iannis, Musique de l’architecture.
48
Le Corbusier, Modulor 2, p.326
It was indeed a relationship between architecture, music and mathematics. With the later being the link between
the first two. Serving as a guide. Norman Lebrecht49 has commented on how the love of the eternal, so often
associated with sensibility to mathematics, is evident in Xenakis. Music created through “geometry” was less
perishable than works generated by a passing impulse. The structure was fundamental and mathematics should
regulate music. This corresponds to the views of Le Corbusier, for whom mathematics would regulate
architecture.
3. The universe, man and architecture
A link can be established between Corbusian thought and that which corresponds to an idea of a mathematical –
mathematical-proofed – universe established following traditional principles laid down from Galileo to Newton.
Architecture was to be a reflection of that Order:
“…, ‘nature is ruled by mathematics, and masterpieces of art are in consonance with nature; they express the
laws of nature and themselves proceed from those laws. Consequently, they too are governed by mathematics,
and the scholar’s impeccable reasoning and unerring formulae may be applied to art. The artist, is a medium of
infinite, extraordinary sensitivity; he feels and discerns nature and translates it in his own works.’” 50
An observation that also comes extraordinarily close to the idea advanced by Palladio in the Quatro Libbri:
“Since architecture, like all the other arts, imitates nature, nothing (in it) can satisfy that is foreign from what is
found in nature.”51
Unlike so many of his generation, his discourse is sometimes so close to a classical discourse; a discourse on the
objectivity of beauty. In Antiquity, as illustrated by Luc Ferry52, the work of art was conceived as a
microcosmos. A microcosmos that expressed an idea that is exterior, that belongs to the outer world – to the
macrocosmos. The idea of beauty referred to the world’s objectivity: the world created by God and ruled by His
harmony. In Antiquity, the artist is not a creator ex nihilo, for what was to be revealed was already there, at a
deeper level. The artist is the one who has the good fortune to be able to “translate” a divine message. The
classic genius is not he who invents; it is he who discovers. Le Corbusier put himself in that position.
Proportion is the main tool for imitation. Proportion is mimesis in practice.
But the demand for a rule clashes with the architect’s inherent taste: the architect must judge with his talent. Le
Corbusier seems to reflect the constant difficulty reconciling objectivity and subjectivity that has been patent
throughout the history of architecture.
“I will fight against any formula and any set of instruments which take away the least particle of my freedom. I
want to keep that freedom so intact that at the very moment when golden figures and the diagrams point to a
perfectly orthodox solution I may reply: ‘That may be so, but it is not beautiful’. And I conclude, once and for
all: ‘I do not like this, I do not feel it with my taste, my flair, all the intuition of which I have a good enough
share to know when I must decide that here is something I do not want.’”53 But he continues: “Such a decision
49
Lebrecht, Norman, The Companion to 20th Century Music, p.389.
50
Le Corbusier, The Modulor, pp.29-30. This observation by Le Corbusier is a reproduction of a conversation with Andreas
Speiser, then professor at Zurich University.
51
As cited in James S. Ackerman, Palladio, p.160.
52
Ferry, Luc, Homo Aestheticus.
53
will certainly not imply any attack on mathematics (which is so near to the divine that it will always be
ultimately elusive in its infinite withdrawals), ...”54 This reasoning is, in reality, not a modern one. We find the
same perplexity in Palladio, for instance. In Quattro Libri (1570), he writes on rules for the proportion of rooms:
“There are still other heights for rooms which fall under no rule, and the architect has to use them according to
his judgement and need.” And “one cannot give a certain and absolute rule about their [measurements of doors
and windows] height and with.”55 On the other side of this discussion, Claude Perrault (1613-88), even declaring
the subjectivity of the aesthetic judgement, affirmed the architect’s need for a profound knowledge of proportion
(essential to architecture).
In closing his essay, “The Changing Concept of Proportion”, Wittkower writes: “When all is said and done, it
must be agreed that the quest for symmetry, balance, and proportional relationships lies deep in human nature.
… the search for systems of proportion in arts will continue as long as art remains an endeavour of man.”56
Apropos the use of metrics and the rejection of the Modulor for future large-scale use, Le Corbusier criticised the
French Standardization Organisation, AFNOR, arguing as follows: “… ‘the AFNOR proposes to standardize all
the objects involved in the construction of buildings. The method they are proposing to employ is somewhat
over-simplified: simple arithmetic, getting a simpler cross-section of the methods and costumes used by
architects, engineers and manufacturers. This method seems to me to be an arbitrary and a poor one. Take
trees: if I look at their trunks and brunches, their leaves and veins, I know that the laws of growth and
interchangeability can and should be something subtler and richer.’” 57
Le Corbusier referenced Anglo-Saxon cultures which still today use the inch and the foot as measurement units,
thus maintaining a relationship with the human body: “The Anglo-Saxon society uses the foot-and-inch, which
knows nothing of the decimal system… The metre reigns over the other part of the world. I am seriously angry
with the metre (forty-millionth part of the meridian of the earth) for having desubstantialized itself as it has
done, and for having placed itself so perfectly, so dangerously, so unhappily outside the human scale.”58
The relationship between the proportions of the human body and architecture also echoed the classical tradition:
Le Corbusier highlighted the fact that the measures used in the various civilizations of Antiquity referenced a
single standard, whereby the unit used was almost always related to the human body. He goes further and refers
to the primitive59: “..., I admired the peasants’ house, the house of men, the huts, the modest thing on a human
scale. And that’s where I invented a part of my Modulor, by rediscovering all the human dimensions in humble
things. They are based on the cubit, the foot, the inch, etc.,– used from the very beginning of time, because there
was no other way to measure.”60 All measures are “based on man”61.
The Modern showed nostalgia for permanence and, for this reason, found comfort in the classical tradition. It
sought rules for representation of the world – interior and exterior – that were considered lost. It also expressed
54
55
56
57
Le Corbusier, The Modulor, p.36. This is a reproduction of a conversation between Le Corbusier and Hanning, one of his
colaborators.
58
Le Corbusier, The Modulor, pp.114-115.
59
He advocates the primitive apropos the regulating lines in the chapter “Regulating Lines” in Towards a New Architecture:
“Primitive man has brought his chariot to a stop, …” p.69.
60
Le Corbusier, “The Final Year: A Transcription and Translation of Le Corbusier’s Last Recorded Interview”, p.117.
61
Le Corbusier, “The Final Year: A Transcription and Translation of Le Corbusier’s Last Recorded Interview”, p.117.
the idea that the human measurements be present in that relationship. It is also symptomatic that the drawings for
the Modulor so clearly mirror the Vitruvian man (as published from Renaissance treatises onwards). [Fig.s 2 and
3]
4. The Modulor as a synthesis
Apart from Le Corbusier’s personality one should bear in mind that this theme had been present in his mind
since his sojourn in Germany in 1910, Matila Ghyka’s work on the golden number was fundamental and that,
generally, proportions became a central subject of discussion in postwar France. 62
The title The Modulor: A Harmonious Measure to the Human Scale Universally Applicable to Architecture and
Mechanics contains, from the outset, clues to this unequivocal pursuit of order. Measure, harmony, universality,
mechanics: four established concepts of order, transversal in history and transversal between themselves.
Unlike the metric system, the “‘Modulor is a working tool for those who create (those who compose: planners
and designers), and not for those who execute (masons, carpenters)’”63. One should note here the traditional –
one could say, even, classicist – point of view regarding the attribution of different roles and status to those who
think and those who execute. This idea had already been strongly rejected in the Bauhaus (for instance) in
particular by Walter Gropius (1883-1969) who denounced it in his discourses arguing for the abolishment of the
artist-artisan distinction. The connection to classicism – understood as an intellectual attitude reflected in a
system of proportions – was also a way of defending the architect’s status: “I am not a builder”. Just as, during
the Renaissance, the architect wasn’t also a builder. Leonardo’s cosa mentale.
The Modulor presents itself as a manifesto for the cause of a mathematical – arithmetical-geometrical – world. In
that world, music affirms its presence as well. The idea of the rule – the ordering instrument – seems to echo
music: “The Modulor is a scale. Musicians have a scale; they make music, which may be trite or beautiful.”64 Le
Corbusier cites Stamo Papadaki (1906-92), who in his investigation of the Modulor’s possible applications,
attributed a “subtitle” to it: “‘A scale of harmonious measurements of space.’”65
And if music seems to be absent it is there, deep down. It is the linking element. It’s behind. Like, in
Renaissance, for Alberti, as Wittkower clarifies, “... harmonic ratios inherent in nature are revealed in music.
The architect who relies on those harmonies is not translating musical ratios into architecture, but is making use
of an universal harmony apparent in music.”66
The Modulor also illustrates the proximity between different ages in which there is a desire for a world created
by, and continuing to exist as, a natural and universal Order. In this sense, Le Corbusier expresses his wish that
the Modulor – as a universal system, as a universal rule – could be an instrument to standardise the diverse
measurements of length. He was convinced that the Modulor would find practically unlimited application in
geographic and temporal terms. Inspired by Rameau, he sought to create the basis for a new and, if possible,
everlasting tradition.
62
See Cohen, Jean-Louis, “ Le Corbusier’s Modulor and the Debate on Proportion in France”. German culture was absolutly
decisive from this point of view.
63
This is part of a Le Corbusier’s answer to a letter by John Dale. Le Corbusier, The Modulor, p.178
64
Le Corbusier, The Modulor, p.5. In the introduction to the second English-language edition.
65
66
Considering Le Corbusier as a follower of the Pythagorean-Platonic tradition, even if he did not declare himself
as such, the fact is that he tried – in particular with the Modulor – to reconcile within mathematics the geometric
with the arithmetical tradition. While the geometry was usual in the Middle Ages, arithmetic was favoured by
Renaissance architects. According to Wittkower, “[i]rrational proportions would have presented a dilemma to
Renaissance artists, for the Renaissance attitude to proportion was determined by a new organic approach to
nature, which aimed at demonstrating that everything was related to everything by integral number. By contrast,
the medieval quest for ultimate truth behind appearances was perfectly answered by geometrical configurations
of a decisively fundamental nature”67. And “… the medieval artist tends to impose a pre-established
geometrical norm upon his imagery, while the Renaissance artist tends to extract a metrical norm from the
natural phenomena that surround him.”68. And “Modulor” as Summerson69 so ably explains is a word derived
from module and section d’or. It thus couldn’t be closer to ancient times… and tradition.
The Modulor is also a synthesis of commensurability and incommensurability. And whilst, on the one hand, Le
Corbusier synthesises those two aspects with the Modulor, on the other the Modulor is also meant to be a
synthesis of a different nature: i.e. of the present and tradition. “In the light of history [Modulor] appears as a
fascinating attempt to coordinate tradition with our non-Euclidian world.”70 The Modulor “… is certainly the
first consistent synthesis since the break-down of the older systems, reflecting our own civilisation into bargain.
At the same time it testifies to the coherence of our cultural tradition.”71 However “Le Corbusier’s dual system
of irrational magnitudes is still dependent on the conceptions which Pythagorean-Platonic thought opened up
for western mankind.”72
We should risk to say that it is also the synthesis of French ever rationalism with German ever metaphysics...
And it embodies the circle, the square, the circle and the square in relation, double square, the first integers...
But Wittkower considers: “... Le Corbusier’s is a composite system, and – in spite of its ultimate derivation from
Pythagorean-Platonic thought – its vacillating quality seems to reflect the spirit of our non-Euclidian age.”73
And he argues that: “…by taking man in his environment, instead of universals, as his starting point, Le
Corbusier has accepted the shift from absolute to relative standards. His Modulor lacks the metaphysical
connotations of the old systems.”74 Is this the case?
The Modulor ensures the mutual relations between the parts and between the parts and the whole. Man and
building. The Modulor aims to be a new homo bene figuratus. [Fig.s 2 and 3]
67
Wittkower, Rudolf, “The Changing Concept of Proportion”, p.202
68
Wittkower, Rudolf, “The Changing Concept of Proportion”, p.202
69
Summerson, John, The Classical Language of Architecture, p.113.
70
Wittkower, Rudolf, “Systems of Proportion”, p.18.
71
72
73
74
2. Study for the Modulor (undated). Image 32285@FLC-ADAGP
º
3. Study for the Modulor (undated). Image 20978@FLC-ADAGP
5. Longing for classicism
The question arises: is the architecture-mathematics-music relationship – which embodies Pythagorean-Platonic

tradition – the result of nostalgia for the past? Is this nostalgia the result of this love? Or are this love and
nostalgia simultaneous manifestations of a way of being, a way of creating? This would seem to be the case. This
relationship is so fundamental for it is Le Corbusier’s main link to Antiquity and the tradition established then
and his wish for a timeless classical thought – a timeless way of thinking and building architecture.
And, even though Le Corbusier did not have the erudite knowledge of music that architects such as Alberti and
Palladio had, thanks to his more intuitive and perceptive approach he sought to maintain that relationship. He
was convinced that, despite his more intuitive and perception-based approach, the ancestral link between the
three disciplines was real. As he wrote in his unpublished article [fig.1]: “[L’architecture et la musique] sont
deux arts très proches: la mathématique les unit.”
Longing for classicism is the desire to continue an ancient tradition – to a certain extent a “primitive” one –
while wishing to live and act in the present. Le Corbusier seems to have not wanted to lose this tradition, but the
truth is that Romanticism also influenced him. The idiosyncrasies introduced by Romanticism came into conflict
– a creative and stimulating conflict – with the ideals of the new society founded on an idea of functionalism and
rationalism that required the neutrality of the object – the artistic object in general and the architectural object in
particular – in relation to personal choices. However, he did not want to give up his position.
If it is true that, as Wittkower states, from the 17th century onwards “[w]hat mathematics gained as an abstract
discipline from the seventeenth century on, it lost as a guiding principle in the field of aesthetics”75 and,
simultaneously, “[t]he reciprocal notions ‘proportion’ and ‘beauty’ were stripped of their metaphysical and
universal character”76, it is this metaphysical aspect that Le Corbusier does not seem to have wanted to abandon.
Whereas Edmund Burke (1729-1797) in Enquiry into the origin of our ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful
argued that beauty does not have “anything to do with calculation and geometry”77, Le Corbusier would have
countered that it also has to do with them. Le Corbusier did not reject feeling and the subjective, but he did not
stop believing in the tradition.
As in the work of Schoenberg, L’Esprit nouveau aspired to becoming a new tradition. Founded on tradition.
And order exists. (And is needed.) As do numbers. And mathematics. They all express the great Order: “Good
composition requires the use of a very few elements, but each of those should have a distinct personality, and a
strong one at that. It takes only twenty-six letters to write tens of thousands words in fifty languages. [George
Sadoul, in a note]. The Universe, at our present state of knowledge, is composed of ninety-two elements. All
arithmetic is written with ten figures, and music with seven notes. The year has four seasons, twelve months, and
days composed of twenty-four hours. Order is the very key of life.” 78
Mathematics – be it geometry or arithmetic – rules human creation. And the universe. Both architecture and
music – spatial composition and sound composition – ought to be based on mathematics. Like the universe. And
man, the inhabitant of the universe and architecture, through the Modulor, lives and nourishes from that same
universe. This is classical thought.
And Le Corbusier’s sensibility is very much classical: “... I studied Gothic a lot. I had, for a year – I was in
Paris for a whole year – I had the set of keys to Notre-Dame de Paris, given by the ministry to young people who
wanted to study it. I wandered around inside, I would go to the top of the towers, into the ambulatories, into
every possible corner of Notre-Dame. Notre-Dame is magnificent, it’s a very beautiful thing; only my heart is
turned toward Greece and not toward the Gothic, which is hard and almost aggressive next to… I’m talking
about a Greek feeling and a Gothic feeling. They’re two different feelings.”79
An architect, a “musician by heart”, a “mathematician by heart” with his heart “turned toward Greece”.
Did transcendence exist for Le Corbusier? A transcendent harmony? He refers to “numbers” as “business of the
gods”. And he states: “Behind the wall, the gods play; they play with numbers, of which the universe is made-
up.”80
Le Corbusier: human so human; classical, so classical.
Looking for Harmony.
75
76
77
As cited in Wittkower, Rudolf, “The Changing Concept of Proportion”. p.202 See also Wittkower, Rudolf, Architectural
Principles in the Age of Humanism.
78
79
Le Corbusier, “The Final Year: a Transcription and Translation of Le Corbusier’s Last Recorded Interview”, p.120.
80
6. Acknowledgments
This paper is funded by National Funds through FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia under the Project
UID/AUR/04026/2013.
Thanks to Fondation Le Corbusier.
Thanks to Delphine Studer (Fondation Le Corbusier).
7. Bibliographic references
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Curtis, William J.R. Modern Architecture Since 1900. 2nd ed. London: Phaidon, 1995. [First pub. 1982.]
Ferry, Luc. Homo Aestheticus: l’invention du goût à l’âge démocratique. Paris: Éditions Grasset & Fasquelle,
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El espacio público en Le Corbusier. Evolución de su pensamiento y de sus estrategias formales

Estrellas sobre fondos cambiantes: convocando la luz

All of Paris, Darkly: Le Corbusier’s Beistegui Apartment, 1929-1931

Le Corbusier y la Reorganización del hábitat rural

Le Corbusier et la main ouverte à Chandigarh. La genèse d’une œuvre

Architecture as machine; Towards an architectural system for human well-being

Fotografías que seccionan una mirada a Le Corbusier

Une correspondance architecturale: Ionel Schein "enfant" de Le Corbusier

Vernacular Serbia Traced by Jeanneret, Yugoslav Modern Figured à la Corbusier

Experimenting with prototypes: architectural research in Sweden after Le Corbusier’s projects

Team10 out of CIAM: Sobre el papel de Le Corbusier. Identificación y legado.

La Villa Savoye. Permanencias y transformaciones

F VAL. Feria Valencia y Guillermo Jullian de la Fuente. L´héritage de Le Corbusier

Le Corbusier’s Legacy: Modern experimentation in Mario Bonito´s work

Le Corbusier et les relations avec le Brésil

Le Corbusier’s Musée à croissance illimitée: A Limitless Diagram for Museology

Le Corbusier and the mysterious “résidence du président d’un collège”

Des-montaje de la maqueta de la propuesta para el Palacio de los Soviets de Le Corbusier

Le Corbusier y la construcción vertical del espacio estratificado

Analyse architecturale, modélisation 3D et narration filmique: un regard original sur quelques

Le Corbusier et la Belgique / Son Héritage

Learning from Le Corbusier

Georges Candilis (1913-1995) architecte pour le plus grand nombre

Concevoir aujourd'hui un film sur la villa Savoye

Autour du pyjama de Le Corbusier. Le vêtement comme modèle de pensée fondateur

Le Corbusier y Lúcio Costa. Diálogos sobre la síntesis de las artes

Listening and the League of Nations: Acoustics Are the Argument

Le Corbusier and Ariadne

Architecture and Art: La Ronchamp’s symbiosis as a "total work of art"

La Villa Sarabhai. La riqueza de lo ambiguo

Influencias pintorescas de Le Corbusier en el Pabellón Brasileño de Osaka ‘70

Arquitectura y tapiz de Le Corbusier. La trama y la urdimbre de la casa nómada

Génesis del proyecto de la Cité de Refuge de París

Le Corbusier: architecture, music, mathematics: longing for classicism?

Mirada objetiva y dimensión subjetiva del cine en Le Corbusier