From The City of To-morrow and Its Planning (1929) LE CORBUSIER ‘A Contemporary city’ From The City of To-morrow and Its Planning (1929) Iulia Munteanu MPA I, NGO Management

(Charles-Edouard Jeanneret-Gris) Le Corbusier (Charles-Edouard Jeanneret-Gris) (1887-1969) - Swiss-French Architect, city planner, designer, painter, writer and philosopher; one of the pioneers of the Modernist Movement (International Style) in architecture; his designs for modern houses – “machines for living”

A Contemporary City Of Three Million Inhabitants “the skyscraper in the park”- idea today ubiquitous Plan Voisin presented in Paris in 1922 → controversial rows of identical, strictly geometrical skyscrapers→ Right Bank (Paris) the city of today!

Site Population level site – ideal site for contemporary city citizens suburban dwellers mixed sort → define areas to be allotted to the 3 sections

Areas proposed: The City – business and residential centre The Industrial City The Garden Cities – workers’ houses legal establishment of a protective zone between industrial city and garden cities Population – more dense, small distances to cover → increase density

Traffic 3 types: heavy goods traffic + lighter goods traffic + fast traffic → 3 kinds of roads: - below ground – for heavy traffic - at the ground floor level - arterial roads for fast one-way traffic cross-roads = enemy to traffic tramway – shouldn’t exist in modern city

The Plan of the City Basic principles: decongest the centres of the city augment city density increase the means for getting about increase parks and open spaces gridiron system- streets every 400 yards

main arteries for fast traffic run N-S and E-W → elevated roadways great open space at the base of skyscrapers around the city – protected zone (green fields) garden cities – form a wide encircling band right at the centre of city→ railway station: landing platform (aerodrome) + mezzanine + ground floor + ‘basement’ + ‘sub-basement’ + ‘sub-sub-basement’

The city 24 skyscrapers – only for business purposes → 10,000 to 50,000 employees residential blocks – 600,000 inhabitants garden cities – 2,000,000 inhabitants or more open space → squares, gardens, theatres, restaurants, cafes, museums, shops, sports grounds, public services, universities; protected zone – building prohibited → reserved for the growth of the city

Further principles and City aesthetics city of today is dying for it is not geometrical We must build in the open! achieve uniform lay-out of city → result of true geometrical lay-out is repetition → standard, a perfect form to introduce uniformity into the building, we must industrialize building A city made for speed is made for succes!