I am a big fan of Corbu's Villa Savoye, one of my favorite buildings of all time. He also has plenty of masterpieces but I can never understand why he got caught up with giant massing of densities in open parks. He would lift the buildings skirt at the ground level, and let the grass grow.
Do a lot of great architects lose it after a certain time? A lot of great architects got lost into Post Modernism such as Paul Rudolph. I just can't understand Crobu's vision of this giant impersonal massings, especially after you see masterpieces like Ronchomp.
the ville radiuese (sp?) was an extension of the same thinking that yielded the villa savoye: minimize the footprint and let the ground flow through. the fact that it didn't work for its time in western culture doesn't mean he lost it. just that it wasn't a fit. i hear from another archinector that it works OK in tokyo.
some projects work, some don't. some work in a certain place, at a certain time, with a certain group of stakeholders. it's part of our challenge.
As an urbanist applying his best architectural thinking to problems of the massive, congested industrial metropolis, he devised the towers-in-a-park concept to solve the central paradox of density versus open space. Sixty-story towers provide the density (1200 people/acre) while 95% of the ground remains for landscaped parks, squares, and fields (in that part of the city).
The lift up onto pilotis at the ground floor is another architectural aspect of this drive to allow space to flow freely, liberated by the steel frame.
the low income housing in chicago was a direct page out of corb's handbook, they are all demolished now, or soon will be. there are a lot of social factors that play into it.
corbu's ideas not only work brilliantly well in tokyo (i lived in one such), they also work well in germany and lots of other countries. its mostly a social issue, not corbu's fault. architecture is just not that important when it comes to behavioral issues. energy use and such you can make an argument about, but crime and low-income or no-income households and all the problems that go with them are more about government than design. from what i understand corbu's towers are pretty sought out, no?
I have a definite answer to your question. It comes down to historic context. Read this wiki article on tenements.
'...tenements often covered more than 90 percent of the lot, were five or six stories high, and had 18 rooms per floor of which only two received direct sunlight...'
This is the problem Corb masterfully solved. Unfortunately, for every solution there are 99 new problems. We've come a long way since. It's still a work in progress.
Corb was an early pioneer, and we are all still preaching his gospel in one way or another.
I recently read a book called Creating Defensible Spaces by Oscar Newman, and I fell in love with his simple concepts. I understand why huge residental projects with large spaces that share commons do not succeed very often. After reading this book I thought of Pruit Igoo... then Corbu's towers, and the list can go on with many that went down this path. I never understood in school why they were not highly regarded. As they were inspiring in a way. I somewhat understand now after reading Newman's book. I guess I was young and naive thinking that everything Corbu touched was gold... but he was a working architect like many of us, and not an immortal.
I understand that social, government, and economy all play an upper hand but the concepts of Newman defines a lot. Can we blame these failures mostly on that of the residents though when we know who the occupants and the client are?
Corb and Wright were working architects, but had lots of free time on their hands during various lean years and fluctuating economies, when built work and real clients were hard to come by. These periods were when each worked on his writing and theorizing about "the city," and particular ways to bring each one's particular architectural and philosophical bent to urban problems via urban design.
For Corb, it was re-build the city the right way. For Frank, it was get rid of the conventional city altogether.
i think in the most cases the architecture is not bad... the man is bad..
"the disappearing city" of wright is a very fascinating idea for design a city.. though perhaps unattainable ..
are you kidding, we all live in broadacre city. it just looks shittier than wright imagined. and for some reason not as many helicopters in our driveways. no accounting for taste.
well, me neither, truth be told. i live in tokyo, but i was going for effect not truth.
i just find it ironic that (with notable and obvious exceptions) we most of us live in some version of urbanity that the modernists thought up as theoretical visions. it's just that the real world isn't as clear as their diagrams and is harder to see. basically it all came true and we sit around gnawing on their bones not noticing at all, blame it on bankers and humanity in general if you want a real fall-guy. corbu was just documenting some thoughts, he was never in control.
Why did Corbu get stuck on high-rises in big spaces?
I am a big fan of Corbu's Villa Savoye, one of my favorite buildings of all time. He also has plenty of masterpieces but I can never understand why he got caught up with giant massing of densities in open parks. He would lift the buildings skirt at the ground level, and let the grass grow.
Do a lot of great architects lose it after a certain time? A lot of great architects got lost into Post Modernism such as Paul Rudolph. I just can't understand Crobu's vision of this giant impersonal massings, especially after you see masterpieces like Ronchomp.
the ville radiuese (sp?) was an extension of the same thinking that yielded the villa savoye: minimize the footprint and let the ground flow through. the fact that it didn't work for its time in western culture doesn't mean he lost it. just that it wasn't a fit. i hear from another archinector that it works OK in tokyo.
some projects work, some don't. some work in a certain place, at a certain time, with a certain group of stakeholders. it's part of our challenge.
As an urbanist applying his best architectural thinking to problems of the massive, congested industrial metropolis, he devised the towers-in-a-park concept to solve the central paradox of density versus open space. Sixty-story towers provide the density (1200 people/acre) while 95% of the ground remains for landscaped parks, squares, and fields (in that part of the city).
The lift up onto pilotis at the ground floor is another architectural aspect of this drive to allow space to flow freely, liberated by the steel frame.
the low income housing in chicago was a direct page out of corb's handbook, they are all demolished now, or soon will be. there are a lot of social factors that play into it.
corbu's ideas not only work brilliantly well in tokyo (i lived in one such), they also work well in germany and lots of other countries. its mostly a social issue, not corbu's fault. architecture is just not that important when it comes to behavioral issues. energy use and such you can make an argument about, but crime and low-income or no-income households and all the problems that go with them are more about government than design. from what i understand corbu's towers are pretty sought out, no?
I have a definite answer to your question. It comes down to historic context. Read this wiki article on tenements.
'...tenements often covered more than 90 percent of the lot, were five or six stories high, and had 18 rooms per floor of which only two received direct sunlight...'
This is the problem Corb masterfully solved. Unfortunately, for every solution there are 99 new problems. We've come a long way since. It's still a work in progress.
Corb was an early pioneer, and we are all still preaching his gospel in one way or another.
I recently read a book called Creating Defensible Spaces by Oscar Newman, and I fell in love with his simple concepts. I understand why huge residental projects with large spaces that share commons do not succeed very often. After reading this book I thought of Pruit Igoo... then Corbu's towers, and the list can go on with many that went down this path. I never understood in school why they were not highly regarded. As they were inspiring in a way. I somewhat understand now after reading Newman's book. I guess I was young and naive thinking that everything Corbu touched was gold... but he was a working architect like many of us, and not an immortal.
I understand that social, government, and economy all play an upper hand but the concepts of Newman defines a lot. Can we blame these failures mostly on that of the residents though when we know who the occupants and the client are?
Corb and Wright were working architects, but had lots of free time on their hands during various lean years and fluctuating economies, when built work and real clients were hard to come by. These periods were when each worked on his writing and theorizing about "the city," and particular ways to bring each one's particular architectural and philosophical bent to urban problems via urban design.
For Corb, it was re-build the city the right way. For Frank, it was get rid of the conventional city altogether.
i think in the most cases the architecture is not bad... the man is bad..
"the disappearing city" of wright is a very fascinating idea for design a city.. though perhaps unattainable ..
are you kidding, we all live in broadacre city. it just looks shittier than wright imagined. and for some reason not as many helicopters in our driveways. no accounting for taste.
no accounting for taste ... however, I do not live in Broadacre City but in a city developped in an intensive way ...
sorry for my painful english ...
well, me neither, truth be told. i live in tokyo, but i was going for effect not truth.
i just find it ironic that (with notable and obvious exceptions) we most of us live in some version of urbanity that the modernists thought up as theoretical visions. it's just that the real world isn't as clear as their diagrams and is harder to see. basically it all came true and we sit around gnawing on their bones not noticing at all, blame it on bankers and humanity in general if you want a real fall-guy. corbu was just documenting some thoughts, he was never in control.
this is true...
Did we forget that FLW was proposing a mile high tower back in the day? Old man getting crazy or just a publicity stunt?
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