le corb.

so last night i was reading le corbusier's essay on 'order' in city of the future and i have found a new respect for the man. i used to be morally opposed to le corb because i was forced to study this building and i thought it utterly ridiculous. the plan makes no sense for the human body, the roof leaks, and it seems to have a genuine disregard for any type of design. but, as a naive sophomore (because i am oh so wise in my old age) i failed to actually do any research on his design intent. on his essay on order, corbu speaks a lot about scale and order.. duh. so he says that the right angle is the most perfect angle in nature. it is made by the visible horizon and the pull of gravity. it is pure because it is perfect, and the only one.. while there are an infinite number of angles between 0 and 90. he goes on to say that nature is this confusion of ordered disorder and man has a really difficult time understanding the order of nature, so he imposes the only natural order he understands - the right angle. at the city scale, the right angle dominates. but once one 'zooms in,' he can see that the right angle starts to disintegrate. as objects and designs get closer to the human body, they start to take on a more organic shape, like the violin and the chair. with corviale, a monstrosity dominated by the right angle, residents are naturally uncomfortable in their given 'cubicles.' i wish to try to analyze the changes and additions the residents make to their right angled space to make it more comfortable to their bodies.His experience in society, space, dimension and time affect the type of objects he brings to fill his space and their arrangement. Man is at harmony with the universe because he is able to inhabit it, adapt and produce in it. Man inhabits, man manipulates, man designs. Thus, the inhabitant becomes the architect of a space that is uniquely his.

container contenitore
harmony armonia
compartment scompartimento
fragment frammento

permeate pervadere
connect collegare
manipulate maneggiare
disintegrate disintegrarsi


ps. there are more pictures of corviale here