Customer Reviews

Towards a New Architecture (Dover Architecture)

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1 star:		(3)

 

 

Probably the most important book in Modern Architecture. Certainly the most villified over the years, especially since the death of Le Corbusier. In it he laid the ground work for Modern Architecture, extolling the virtues of an architecture that was the product of the machine age rather than a pastiche of historical styles.

Le Corbusier illustrated the principles which he felt should govern architecture, drawing from historical references such as the Parthenon, but stressing the need to come up with a new proportional system reflective of concrete construction. He had developed the Dom-ino system by this point and had designed a few villas along these lines. Included are wonderful sketches and models of his Citrohan House, which he hoped would be mass-produced like the automobile. He even approached the French car maker, Citroen, in this regard.

He explored low-scale housing solutions based on what he called the "Honeycomb" principle, porous housing blocks that allowed light and air to pass through the buildings for better ventilation and more airy courtyards. He forsaw many of the environmental concerns architecture now faces, despite the many attacks to the contrary.

Le Corbusier would reshape many of his ideas over time, but this book outlines his early view of architecture in the machine age, which led to the quote most often taken from this book, "a house is a machine for living." But, Le Corbusier saw it in much more human terms than his critics have.

Worth the read just for Le Corbusier's description of the effects that a building has on the psyche's of its users. Lots of great line drawings. When reading, remember that the book is a collection of magazine articles, hence the repitition that occurs from chapter to chapter. The book should have been only half as long as it is; a lot of unnecessary filler.

Le Corbousier's mathematical and, at times, brutal approach to architecture is clearly and coherently laid out in this gem of a book. He is very to the point and uses words and ideas that can plainly be understood by his audience. This book is not as bad as some people say it is - Le Corbousier's just not a romantic like the rest of us!

This book is inspirational for those who believe in modern architecture. The ideas are still as potent as ever. This book reflects the optimism of those early 20th century architects who worshipped new technology, who had a fervent desire to do every "modern" using industrial materials, who denounced old materials like stone and wood, who preached the benefits of a social architecture for the masses. For almost a century, this book has also influenced every great architects in the 20th century.

Having said all that, this book needs to be read with the reminder that not everything it preaches is "correct" and the many manifestations of modern architecture is darn right "de-humanizing" and "souless". This book is best contrasted by the work of Frank Lloyd Wright and many contemporary architects who emphasize the importance of a sense of "living" space in architecture.

I should probably come clean and say I'm not a big fan of Corbu right off. Something about a man who has the pomposity to change his name, and publish a magazine pushing his own ideas, then quote from the same magazine in his own book just irks me a little bit.

But I thought I'd give him a chance, after all, my professors seem to think this Corb guy is important in the history of Architecture. That is- he completely destroyed what many previous writers have defined as architecture. This indeed establishes his importance.

All architectural students should read this book- its very quick and easy. Corb didn't use very complicated language- though he shows some traces of being the father of today's ArchiSpeak gobbledegook when he uses a word like "modalities."

Corb idolizes the Parthenon (rightly so), but twists his love for it to fit his ideas of what 'architecture' is. He has a deep fasciniation with 'pure' forms, and believes that the use of pure forms and geometries will arrive at beauty. In a nice paragraph, he dismisses Gothic architecture as "not very beautiful" because it uses muddled complex forms that don't fit his dictated palette. So in order to consider the Parthenon (which uses subtle complex forms to achieve its beauty) beautiful, he likes to call the columns 'cylinders,' turning a sculpted, crafted element with entasis into one of his 'pure' forms. In actuality, the Parthenon is strongly rooted in artistic sculpural expression and cultural tradition, not an attempt to achieve 'pure' forms as Corb would like to see.

Its little contradictions that abound as well- He praises the Acropolis's use of interesting site planning and progression to create angled views rather then flat on views, and then on the next page he cries for ordered, rigid compositions in his cities.

And then there's the whole fascination with the Engineer and Industrial-designed objects. Unfortunately grain silos, WW1 bombers, and automobiles are nothing like buildings. Attempting to make a house a 'machine for living.' Bleah. Who wants to live in a machine? A machine has no soul, humans can't define themselves in a machine. Corb has crazy notions like you should hide all your paintings in the closet and take them out one at a time rather then clutter up your modernist, pure, architecturally designed walls with them. How dare an inhabitant of a house try to express themselves in a way that detracts from how the architect is trying to express himself! It all slips out on page 142: "... a chair is in no way a work of art; a chair has no soul; it is a machine for sitting in." So by simple reasoning, Corb's machines for living in have no art, and no soul. He recognizes this lack of soul with his little mantra:

"We must create the mass production spirit.
The spirit of constructing mass-production houses
The spirit of living in mass production houses
The spirit of conceiving mass production houses."

Since there was no love for modernism when he was writing, Corb recognized that he must create it. And the whole boook is an attempt to do so. There is a danger to trying to create something the ramifications of which you don't fully understand. Jane Jacobs does a nice critique of Corb's "City for six million" in The Death and Life of Great American Cities- his city planning was dangerously influential, and his architectural ideas have had an impact of similar magnitude on the Western world's built environment. (much for the worse, IMHO :)

If anything, this book is pure propoganda for modernism. He upright tells you that cities of today (well, cities of then) do not work, that people hate their old houses, and that his architecture and city planning will solve everything. It also fits the propoganda mold by being incessantly repetitive. He must think his average reader has a brain the size of a pea- passages are repeated SEVERAL times, when there is no logic, try repetition to hammer your ideas into other people's heads.

All said and done though, every student of architecture should nab this book and have a read through it. Le Corbusier, along with Mies Van Der Rohe, Adolf Loos, and Walter Gropius were the big guys of Modernism, but Corbusier was definitely the man that had the biggest impact. The text is nice and big, and there are lots of illustrations, so it goes quickly.

This is probably the stupidest book I've ever read. It amazes me that people still read it as if it has something worthwhile to offer. I read it 21 years ago when I was 17, and I filled the margins with harsh criticism. I looked at it again a couple years ago to see if I still agreed with those criticisms and I did. The book is a monument to illogic, and what's frightening is that it's been enormously influential. The basic thesis is this - airplanes, ships and grain silos look cool, so our buildings should look like them. If anyone tries to convince you that the message is deeper than that, don't be fooled. It's rubbish. Unfortunately it goes beyond buildings to urban planning. And it was very influential in this realm also. To devastating effect. This is probably a good point to refer anyone who's considering this book to Jane Jacobs' The Death and Life of Great American Cities, not only because of her specifics, but because of her method. Corbusier envisioned utopias and decided they were perfect models for a brave new world without any research or logical basis whatsoever. Jane Jacobs studied real cities, real neighborhoods and real people and came to conclusions from her observations of reality. Another book I'd recommend as an antidote to Towards a New Architecture is Christopher Alexander's A Pattern Language. I'm not a mindless devotee of Alexander - the book is a mixture of wisdom, common sense and nonsense. But it has real value, unlike Towards a New Architecture (except for it's historical importance), and my point here is Alexander's methodology. He and his colleagues did a lot of research and studied real situations in real places, from which they drew their conclusions. There's no question in my mind that Le Corbusier was a genius. I've been to Ronchamp and it's one of the most amazing places I've been on Earth. He was a great architect. But a theoretician? Forget it! Also, I think it was Lewis Mumford who referred to Corbusier as a "twisted genius." I have to agree with this assessment (and recommend another book - Le Corbusier and the Tragic View of Architecture, by Charles Jencks). Corbusier's philosophy was condescending and elitist, and his architecture was fundamentally anti-human. His multidudes of imitators foisted his brutal environmental image on the world, minus the genius. It's time we start treating this book as it deserves to be treated - as illogical, self-serving garbage that's been hugely influential in giving us a world that's full of mean, inhuman, unpleasant places.

First of all, the guy that wrote that corbu's architecture is anti-human is wrong about that point. But he's right about everything else. Le Corbusier's theories about urban planning and architecture have done terrible damage to the built environment since they were adopted by practitioners. However, if one doesn't learn about the errors of the past, one risks repeating them. It's a good book for philosophical debate, and a good book to learn about for history's sake, but don't take the theories to heart.

The book itself is great, however, Toward an Architecture (Texts & Documents) [Paperback]
A01 Le Corbusier (Author), John Goodman (Translator), Jean-Louis Cohen (Introduction)
is the better version of this book. It has better translations and images. Schools no longer use the Towards a New Architecture because they find Toward an Architecture the better more correct version. Amazon sells the new version as well, and I would recommend people to get that version instead.

Good price, but book arrived damaged (bent and dented cover) as it if it hand been dropped. Wasn't part of packaging/mailing issues because two other books in the same box arrived with no damage.

I bought this book when I started architecture school and it has been a part of my life ever since. I believe that this is essential to understanding the current architectural trends and a must for any architecture student.