Carpenter Centre

The Carpenter Centre for the Visual Arts (1963) designed by Le Corbusier is a building of intricate spatial devices, carefully choregraphed movement, and revealing views. It is Le Corbusier's only building in North America and one of his last buildings. As such the building is a fascinating collection of ideas, architectural language and devices developed in Le Corbusier's lifetime compressed into a complex building which reveals and explains itself to you with ease. Elements from La Tourette, Marseille, Chandigarh, and earlier works of the 1920's such as Ville Savoye and Maison Ozenfant.

Approaching the building from any angle one is swept up, under or into the building and which leads to the centre of the building as views of the different volumes and glimpses into the office space, exhibition space open before arriving at full height glazed walls of the studio, the building effectively cut through in section, split by the ramp and movement of people and revealed.

The ease of movement and orientation is continued as one enters the building and moves through a heirachical series of open and closed staircases, through the gallery spaces, up into the studios and across into the offices. The landscaped terrace is both roof terrace and due to the main ramp a new artificial ground plane.

One of the most exciting aspects of the building, like many of Le Corbusier's buildings, was the way in which it was being used. The artists treat the space as a workshop and studio without the preciousness one might expect from such a building and gave the building a feeling of being enjoyed and used for it's intended purpose.

Maison La Roche

Maison La Roche, 1923-24, by Le Corbusier.

Atelier Ozenfant

Atelier Ozenfant, 1922, was designed by Le Corbusier for his friend, Ozenfant. It incorporates some of the principles which which Le Corbusier set out in his 'five points of architecture'. The main double height studio space, originally designed with roof lights which have since been replaced with a roof terrace, is flooded with light. The geometrical clarity both inside and out creates a clearly legible and peaceful interior that is both spacious and functional. For such a small building, it is dense with brilliant spatial and planning devices, thresholds begining at street level and moving up the entrance stair which brings the visitor off the main straight and reveals the laneway, various shaped windows which reflect both the planning of the interior and respond to the corner site and is filled with natural light.

Le Corbusier designed a house which was both a working and living environment and gallery simultaneously. Whilst this combination of working, living and gallery existed in the large homes of the French nobility and rural farm houses Le Corbusier created a distinctly modern version of mixed program which architect's today are proposing as a new typology.

Villa Savoye

Villa Savoye (1928-29) by Le Corbusier. The biggest discovery whilst in Paris was Le Corbusier. It was a special moment walking down the driveway of the Ville Savoye and then turning the corner to see the beautifully symmetrical building surrounded by grass and trees which I has seen in architecture books for many years. In both the Ville Savoye and Maison la Roche the spaces were so clean and filled with light, so much light, yet somehow homely and far from cold and industrial, in comparison to todays mass produced building materials. All the materials and surfaces were selected for obvious reasons, the coloured walls defined the spaces wonderfully and gave the spaces a sense of character which was far from banal or imposing and the amount of storage, shelving and built in furniture gave you the impression that the inhabitant was of the utmost importance. The windows, views and flow and interaction of the public spaces and outside was so purposefully done you could easily imagine the house filled with life, and a vibrant life at that. This is so different from what I had expected and so far removed from the work of so many contemporary architects today. Despite some of Le Corbusier's grander ambitions I got the sense in his domestic work that whilst obviously radical for their time there was a desire for the architecture to improve and facilitate the life that exists within the building. That whilst it may have been promoted as a machine for living in that the role of the machine was to be at the inhabitants aid and become useful to supporting the life that existed rather than imposing itself on the inhabitant or dictating its use to the inhabitant. In comparison to the dark spaces and heavily ornamented older buildings the spaces of which I love a great deal and often prefer to contemporary architecture, Le Corbusier's work made so much sense and seemed to have more in common with the more utilitarian buildings that exist in the French countryside and have for centuries, the work of Loos and even John Pawson. I could imagine myself living in these buildings with ease and the neutrality of the architecture and its simple and functional design where one could appreciate the reasons for part of the building being a certain way seemed far from radical. This seems at odds with many of the more radical architecture movements of the last half of the twentieth century and today where so much of the 'architecture' is not essential neither simple and neutral and certainly not designed to improve how a person inhabits the space. Perhaps if I was alive in the 1920's I would have been quite shocked by Le Corbusier's building but after going to Paris I never understood how simply his buildings achieved the qualities of fresh air, light, function and circulation and how in a strange way modest were the aspirations of these houses in terms of creating a place to live. And how strong the relationship to more basic types of architecture was in the work of the Modernists. I thought at the time that perhaps the most radical aspect of the work was that he had the audacity to call it Architecture.

Pavilion Suisse

Pavillion Suisse, 1932, designed by Le Corbusier.

Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret 1932

The Pavillion Suisse is located in the Cite Universitaire in Paris to provide accomodation and support services for Swiss students studying in Paris.

The Pavillion reflects the development of Le Corbusiers work at the time and includes developments of his 'five points of architecture' including a glazed curtain wall and six sculpted reinforced concrete columns that replace fine piloti which raise the building off the ground and form a public space beneath the building.

The student accomodation is located in the upper floors and the public spaces are located on the ground floor and in a seperate curved volumn which extends from ground level to the top floor. The curved volume contrasts with the rectilinear block of accomodation to which it is attached.