A good comparison of the Parthenon with the machine age. The parthenon being so well attuned to human vision. The machine age being so able to adjust and improve even the smallest detail. The polemical book contains seven essays, all but one of which were published in the magazine L'Esprit Nouveau beginning in 1921. Each essay dismisses the contemporary trends of eclecticism and art deco, replacing them with architecture that was meant to be more than a stylistic experiment; rather, an architecture that would fundamentally change how humans interacted with buildings. This new mode of living derived from a new spirit defining the industrial age, demanding a rebirth of architecture based on function and a new aesthetic based on pure form. Since then, architectural knowledge pursued a steady curve of advancement, accelerated by architectural publications that made this knowledge available to different parts of the world. Ultimately, the Internet arrived, making the exchange rate of information so fast that new iterations of modern architecture are today accelerating this curve in unprecedented ways. This is a key idea. The best architectural principles are infact unchanged from the beginning. Great Architecture is timeless. The first major exposition of his ideas appeared in Vers une Architecture (1923), a compilation of articles originally written by Le Corbusier for his own avant-garde magazine, L'Esprit Nouveau. The present volume is an unabridged English translation of the 13th French edition of that historic manifesto, in which Le Corbusier expounded his technical and aesthetic theories, views on industry, economics, relation of form to function, the "mass-production spirit," and much else. A principal prophet of the "modern" movement in architecture, and a near-legendary figure of the "International School," he designed some of the twentieth century's most memorable buildings: Chapel at Ronchamp; Swiss dormitory at the Cit Universitaire, Paris; Unit d'Habitation, Marseilles; and many more.

Technological innovation took a giant leap forward during WWI and Architects in the twenties start to try to incorporate this into their Architectural programs. The next time I heard about Corbusier was while walking around the streets of Haifa and Tel Aviv in March 2019 with Waleed Kakabi, an architect who headed the building conservation team for the City of Haifa. I mentioned to Waleed how many "International Style" buildings there were, and how ugly I thought they were. Waleed, deftly brushing aside my confident ignorance, kindly decided to give me a short but thorough survey on the Bauhaus school and modernism. EDIT - had to add this part after thinking about it Remember that his solutions to build social housing projects for millions at a time, by building huge skyscrapers in a very mechanical, clean and effective way, "a machine for living", is his solution for the sad situation the poor working class of France after World War 1 was in. And he tried to improve the living qualities of the cité's in cities where people lived with huge families on top of each other, and in each others dirt. He tried to do something about it. So see those social projects in light of those times and not the dirty big and sometimes ugly projects they are today. Do also be reminded that social housing based on his idea in certain communist, or ex-communist countries as Russia, eastern Europa or North-Korea is a failed version of what is here envisioned.

Develop

Although represented as a break from past styles. It analyses Greek architecture in paticular and clearly Le Corbusier wants to make a clear link with early simpler forms of classisism linking to it’s use of primary forms. Don’t take this as a simplification of the development of architectural discourse, but rather, a way to effectively adapt and share the tools of the critic for the general population, enabling them to engage in a closer way with the architectural discussion. A plan proceeds from within to without. (what about urban planning - city spaces as rooms maybe this is why Lecorb is so good at buildings and so bad at cities?)

Only in 1922 had the young Swiss painter and entrepreneur opened an architectural office with his cousin Pierre and begun to refer to himself as a heroic “dark crow” among the avant-garde. He had already published extensively and knew his way around the printers in the city. He was a talented graphic designer with a gift for apocalyptic prose in the style of an American evangelist. Hanno-Walter Kruft saw through the cult-like rhetoric when he argued that Le Corbusier “convinced himself with almost willful determination that he was destined for the role of tragic revolutionary, a martyr come to redeem the world—by architecture.” Whatever architecture was standing after the conflagration of 1914-1919 was like an old religion: worthless and out of date. I read this book for a class assignment, I was looking forward to it because Le Corbusier is the biggest influence of the modern era of architecture, his principles are still up to date and architects all around the world still learn and apply his theories today (though I am not sure they should). Don't forget that this is a manifesto aimed towards an audience of architects, engineers and other artists living in the 1920s. Now its been restated again. Are these modern technologies analogies for a modern architecture like that of the classical studies earlier in the book? ok so this is another mistranslation. The original is ’Cooperative ‘la pipe.’ which hints at the mass production of said object. Intereting use of a bourgeois symbol to denote mass production here. It also occurs 6 years before This is Not a Pipe by Magritte in 1929. So interesting link to a founding image of Post-Modernism and it’s implications. Clearly LeCorb is no Post-Modernist.Rome is the damnation of the half-educated. To send architectural students to Rome is to cripple them for life."

A Corbusier-ian maxim: Architecture has nothing to do with the various "styles". Styles "are to architecture what a feather is on a woman's head; it is sometimes pretty, though not always, and never anything more" Le Corbusier brought great passion and intelligence to these essays, which present his ideas in a concise, pithy style, studded with epigrammatic, often provocative, observations: "American engineers overwhelm with their calculations our expiring architecture." "Architecture is stifled by custom. It is the only profession in which progress is not considered necessary." "A cathedral is not very beautiful . . ." and "Rome is the damnation of the half-educated. To send architectural students to Rome is to cripple them for life." He is not advocating for ‘construction must be shown’ or ‘when a thing responds to a need it is beautiful’ not purely functional. By pointing away from everything in the past, Le Corbusier focused our attention on the wrong things, things that have pushed us toward the destruction of our planet, not merely away from failed solutions or bourgeois excesses in old ways of building. As bold and attractive to war-weary Europeans as International Style modernism became in its heyday, it could not answer the complex needs of the information age. Complete rejection of every past building tradition, style, idiom, and construction system is untenable if we are to adapt our existing environment to climate change and energy shortages. Corbusier’s designs show real feel and touch for spaces and for a living environment that elevates it’s clients. This is in real contrast to his personal politics or some of his grandiose urban planning visions. His designs here show off his design ability I think really well.

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I swapped the word “architecture” for “military design” in one of the sections and here’s how it read: Hard to imagine that a book written in 1931 by a French architect could apply so readily to the varying problems faced in multiple 21st Century fields of study... in my case in regards to military design.