Nicolas Grospierre / Anie Airey / Le Corbusier / Evelyn Bencicov
A.C.P Architecture contemporary photography
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Wedneday april 5th, 2016 the archi big
www.acp.com
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A.C.P Architecture contemporary photoraphy
the archi big You know, I do not think there is a good or bad situation. If I had to sum up my life with you today, I would say it’s first meeting. People who have stretched my hand, perhaps at a time when I could not, I was home alone. And it is curious to say the chances, encounters forging a destiny ... Because when you have a taste for something, when you have a taste for well-made thing, the beautiful gesture, sometimes does not find the contact in front I would say, the mirror that helps you forward. So it is not my case, as I said there, since I on the contrary, I have and I say thank you to life, I say thank you, I sing of life, I dance life ... I am nothing but love! And finally, when many people today tell me, “But how do you do this for humanity? “Well I tell them very simply, I tell them it’s the taste of love that taste so that led me today to undertake engineering, but tomorrow who knows? Perhaps simply to put myself at the service of the community, to make the gift, the gift of self ...
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Anie Airey
Nicolas Grospierre
Le corbusier
Evelyn Bencicov
Reading playlist Buddge Wesseltoft + sidsel endersen - Try Nils Petter Molvaer - Only thesethings count Cecile Mclorin Salavant - I didn’t know what time it was Jul Brian Eno - Textures Patty Smith - Because the night William Basinski - Cascade Fela Kuti - Zombie Timber Timbre - Creep on creepin on
Art direction Claire Catelas
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Author Karol Sienkiewicz, December 2015. Translated and updated by Agnieszka Le Nart, fevrier 2016.
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Architecture surrounds us every day, and is a very popular photography subject 10 - 05 - 2015
by Lou Bueno
A guide to architectural photography
6 Architecture is a broad subject, encompassing everything from skyscrapers to shacks. Virtually everywhere we go, we are surrounded by some sort of architecture on a daily basis. Because of this, it should come as no surprise that architecture is such a popular subject in photography.
the actual archi Tips
SHOOT AT NIGHT / Even the most boring architecture can come alive at night - in fact many modern buildings and city centres are designed specifically with night time in mind. After dark these buildings are lit by dozens of lights which bring colour and vibrancy, and cast fantastic shadows across the face of the building. Dramatic night lighting can really bring a building to life. Image by Trey Ratcliff. When photographing architecture at night be sure to use a tripod and set your camera to its lowest ISO setting to reduce digital noise to a minimum.
Despite its diversity, there are a number of principles and techniques which can be applies to most situations. Keeping them in mind at all times will encourage you to think more carefully about your framing, composition, and lighting. With practice, you’ll develop your eye for architecture photography. This will help you shoot your subjects in a more interesting way, avoiding commonly-repeated compositions and injecting more personality into your photos.
surfaces. The best way to deal with a backlit building is to either crop out the sky and use a longer exposure to rescue some of the detail, or photograph the building as a silhouette. Alternatively you could wait until it gets dark...
OLD ARCHITECTURE /When photographing old architecture, a straightforward and simple composition usually works best, showing the natural beauty and elegance of the building. It usually helps to include some of the surrounding scenery to give context to the architecture and make it feel less cramped. MODERN ARCHITECTURE / When photographing modern architecture you can get away with using a much more modern, abstract style. Experiment with wide angle lenses to produce extreme perspective, or photograph the building from unusual angles. Also, because modern buildings are often squeezed in very close to one another, you can crop in tightly on the building without making the photo feel unnatural. PUT YOUR ARCHITECTURE IN CONTEXT... OR DON’T / The question of whether to show your building’s surroundings depends on the situation and the message you want to convey. Ask yourself whether putting your building in context would add to or detract from the photo. If the scenery compliments your building then shoot a wider photo, but if the surroundings don’t fit with the message you want to convey, cut them out. As an example consider an old building in the middle of a modern city. If you wanted to capture this sense of not belonging then it would be important to include some of the surrounding modern buildings. But if you just want to emphasise the beautiful old architecture then the newer buildings would only detract from the photo, so you should crop them out. LIGHTING / Lighting is a crucial part of architectural photography. Of course we have no say over the position and orientation of a building, and lighting the building ourselves is usually out of the question (not to mention expensive!). Instead we have to make do with what nature provides.You can bring out the texture and detail of the architecture using frontsize lighting. Image by Gianni Domenici. Back lighting is the worst kind for architectural photography because it creates very uniform, dark
REDUCE DISTORTION BY USING A LONGER LENS / If you photograph a building from too close it can leave the walls looking distorted, as if the whole building is bulging outwards. Although this can be an interesting effect in itself, we usually want to reduce it so that it doesn’t become distracting.By using a telephoto lens and photographing your architecture from further away you will find that your building’s walls and lines appear acceptably straight. Tower block / Use a telephoto lens to flatten the perspective and eliminate distortion. Image by lvaro Vega Fuentes. You can also use a telephoto lens to create some great abstract effects. By photographing your architecture from a long way away and using a long focal length lens, you will flatten the perspective, making the lines of the building appear parallel, giving your photo a slightly surreal feel. PICK OUT INTERESTING DETAILS / Most architecture is covered with small-scale details which make fascinating photos in their own right - from ornate windows to patterns of rivets to decorative cornices. Be on the lookout for these details and crop in tightly on them for a more intimate photograph that conveys the character of the architecture. IT’S NOT JUST ABOUT BUILDINGS / When photographing architecture it is easy to get stuck in the mindset that “architecture equals buildings”. Of course this couldn’t be far from the truth, and in fact most man-made structures come under the architecture umbrella - bridges, towers, windmills, monuments, and even lamp posts. Think laterally and see if you can find some interesting photos that most people would miss.
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Advertisement It stands to reason that the recent Summer Games in London were the most photographed Olympics in history. Aside from all the people actually getting paid to take pictures, the opening night’s Parade of Nations proved that even the athletes couldn’t resist snapping smartphone shots of the pomp. But while most of the photographs taken over the course of those few weeks captured images of athletes and events, Janie Airey went to London to document a slightly different subject the Olympic arenas themselves, untouched and utterly beautiful.
Aquatics by Zaha Hadid quite clinical Anie Airey’s photographs prove that the most stunning lines at the London Olympics might not’ve been the ones defining Ryan Lochte’s six-pack. As Airey explains, “You rarely get the chance to appreciate the quiet of the actual architecture. I wanted the photos to reflect that a bit.” Photographer Janie Airey was commissioned by the Olympic Delivery Authority to photograph London’s Olympic arenas--before the medals and the masses. The spaces she captured were untouched, untrammeled, and utterly beautiful. ”Ninety-five percent of my work is photographing people,” Airey says, “so it was very refreshing to go into a space and just have to think about the line and form and working with what was already there.” She particularly enjoyed photographing the Aquatics building, designed by Zaha Hadid. A red judge’s chair becomes the focus--when devoid of an actual judge. ”I loved the silence of the buildings, and the spaces seemed a little austere and quite clinical, such a contrast to how they’d be a month or two later,” the artist says. Airey said she tried to capture a bit of “anticipation” in the shots. As Airey explains, “You rarely get the chance to appreciate the quiet of the actual architecture. I wanted the photos to reflect that a bit.” Photographer Janie Airey was commissioned by the Olympic Delivery Authority to photograph London’s Olympic arenas--before the medals and the masses. 01 /09 Photographer Janie Airey was commissioned by the Olympic Delivery Authority to photograph London’s Olympic arenas--before the medals and the masses. 02 /09 The spaces she captured were untouched, untrammeled, and utterly beautiful. 03 /09 “Ninety-five percent of my work is photographing people,” Airey says, “so it was very refreshing to go into a space and just have to think about the line and form and working with what was already there.” 04 /09 She particularly enjoyed photographing the Aquatics building, designed by Zaha Hadid. 05 /09 A red judge’s chair becomes the focus--when devoid of an actual judge. 06 /09 07 /09 “I loved the silence of the buildings, and the spaces seemed a little austere and quite clinical, such a contrast to how they’d be a month or two later,” the artist says. 08 /09 Airey said she tried to capture a bit of “anticipation” in the shots. 09 /09 As Airey explains, “You rarely get the chance to appreciate the quiet of the actual architecture. I wanted the photos to reflect that a bit.”
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“ The spaces seemed a little austere and quite clinical ”
Airey says that the Olympic Delivery Authority commissioned the photos just prior to the park opening, though last-minute preparations meant she had limited access to some of the venues. But you wouldn’t know it from her shots here, the arenas look perfectly complete and event-ready. But the feeling they evoke is one that’s very much at odds with the raucous affair we see on TV. Through Airey’s lens, spaces like the Aquatics building, designed by Zaha Hadid, are still and serene, able to exhibit their own personalities without yet being dominated by those of the athletes. “Ninety-five percent of my work is photographing people,” Airey says, “so it was very refreshing to go into a space and just have to think about the line and form and working with what was already there. I loved the silence of the buildings. The spaces seemed a little austere and quite clinical, such a contrast to how they’d be a month or two later.” The artist says she hoped to convey, even with the stillness, a bit of “anticipation” of the events to come. The Olympics are truly epic undertakings”amazing events on a grand scale,” as Airey describes them and in terms of pure logistics, the venues have to be built to match, with precisely sized pools, rows of spectator stands, and, of course, places for photographers and TV crews to capture all the action. But not even those in-the-flesh spectators, much less the millions around the world watching on TV and the web, get to really experience the spaces on their own terms. As Airey explains, “You rarely get the chance to appreciate the quiet of the actual architecture. I wanted the photos to reflect that a bit.”
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Photographer and experimental artist. Born in Geneva, Switzerland on September 28, 1975. Resides permanently in Warsaw Nicolas Grospierre holds a Master’s degree in Political Science from the Institut d’etudes Politiques in Paris and in Russian and Post-Soviet Studies from the London School of Economics. He has settled in Warsaw, but travels all over the world with his socially-aware, critical works of art and photography, often created in collaboration with artists like Kobas Laksa and Olga Mokrzycka. Adam Mazur of the Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle counts Grospierre among the so-called New Documentalists group, established at the group show of the same name, curated by Mazur at the centre in 2006. The New Documentalists are a group of artists who have departed from the traditions of artistic photography and opted for documentary-style photography that is based on a cool analysis, rather than a sentimental gaze. Grospierre started out with several series of portraits which reflected certain aspects of society at large. In 2001 he created the Portraying Communities Kamionka, comprising individual and group photographs of nearly all members of an alternative society of residents living in the town of Kamionka, just outside of Lublin. These are people who have abandoned a frenzied life in the city for the quiet, ecological lifestyle of the countryside. Although these photographs are rather like studies, they were taken in the homes of the subjects, in their personal surroundings. A similar technique was used in Grospierre’s series of portraits depicting the prisoners and workers of the Podgorze jail outside of Krakow (2002-2003). The series was presented at the Centre for Contemporary Art in Warsaw, accompanied by an audio installation that played typical sounds from the jail. Nonetheless, Grospierre has become best-known for his photographs of architectural sites, principally modernist structures, treated as relics of a recent past. The documentary style is apparent here as well - but it is entirely dry, bereft of the human impression, devoid even of objects belonging to the individuals who might plausibly inhabit these buildings or at least work in them. As a result, the images quite resemble each other, such as the Europejski Hotel series (2006) or Niewypoacalni / Not Economically Viable (2003-2005) - depicting the facades of unfinished one-family homes that were abandoned by their impoverished owners before they were even completed. The artist chooses places without people, which no longer fulfill their original function, which still maintain some aspects of their former glory, but are still a relic of the past. Above all, his works document a reality that Poland has only just stepped away from, but one whose impression is still felt and continues to impact current generations and the visual culture that is slowly ebbing. In 2005 he creat-
ed a series together with Olga Mokrzycka depicting Soviet Artek pioneers in Crimea. His 2004 Hydroclinic series documents a spa hospital in the Druskininkai resort in Lithuania, closed down in the ‘20s. The artist captured the strange, complex rococo decor just before it was demolished. Similarly the Lithuanian Bus Stops series (2003-2004) preserves the characteristic structures of modernist-style bus stops from the ‘60s and ‘70s. In the Colorblocks series (2005-2006) he photographed module apartment block constructions built during the middle of the 20th century.
summing up of sorts. It refers to the traditions of collecting in the construction of an eight-walled room filled with photographs - including both earlier works, references to earlier works and found works as well. These photographs took on various meanings and contexts when placed in an particular arrangement. Adam Mazur said of the show In as much as the library takes into account a level of rationality and order in the form of a catalog of constantly shifting knowledge and publications, the office of a collector opens us up to a an aesthetic experience of randomness and unpredictability.
Nicolas Grospierre, “The Never-Ending Corridor of Books” from “The Library” series, 2006 Nicolas Grospierre, “The Never-Ending Corridor of Books” from “The Library” series, 2006 Grospierre is very much concerned with the context in which his works are presented. In the case of The Library (2006) he set up a show of photos - based on the premise of visual illusion - into the space of an actual library and antique shop. The long stretches of photos depicting shelves stacked with books brought readers into the Borges-style library of Babel, which undermined the concept of a library as a complete, universal collection of archive materials by showing that there can always be more material. In 2007 he and Mokrzycka came together once again to put up a sort of photo-wallpaper depicting a museum hall filled with stuffed animals taken in the Mausoleum in Tbilisi, transforming the honorary tribune in front of the Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw into a virtual museum of taxonomy, referencing common associations with the structure and the images, such as the socio-realist space of the mausoleum at Moscow’s Red Square.
In November of 2010, Nicolas Grospierre was invited to Venice once again to create an installation within the iconic Palazzo Done, headquarters of the Signum Foundation. The multimedia work was built around a film made by the artist on the very grounds of the Palace in the spring, this time presenting the mysterious interiors through a converse mirror, also known as an oeil de sorciere. The aim of the project is to explore the illustrious history of a landmark site, while still leaving something to the imagination, maintaining an air of secrecy and intrigue. The title of the work is TATTARRATTAT, referring to the James Joyce’s word for a knock on the door... a sound that can lead to any number of possibilities. In 2011 Grospierre won the prestigious 2011 Polityka Passport award. That same year various Polish and international galleries hosted exhibitions of his works, including The Bank, The Picture that Grows and Paper Planes.
In 2008 Grospierre was invited to show a series of photographs at the Polish Pavilion at the Venice Biennale of Architecture, curated by Grzegorz Piotek and Jaroswaw Trybu. This series was entitled Polonia HOTEL - The Afterlife of Buildings, which was awarded the prestigious Golden Lion award. These charismatic photographs have a purist sensibility about them in their presentation of well-recognised contemporary buildings in Warsaw and other parts of Poland, such as the Rondo 1 and Metropolitan office buildings or the cathedral in Liche. These images were combined with photo-montages by Kobas Laksa, who took these very timely structures a few decades into the future, predicting quite dire consequences as a result of poor economic conditions and paltry socio-political practices - such as transforming a sleek glass tower into a very exclusive cemetery. That year he was also part of a residency programme at Location One in New York, which was followed by an exhibition entitled The Bank in the Location One exhibition space. His 2009 Kunstkamera at the Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle can be considered a
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Author: Karol Sienkiewicz, December 2008. Translated and updated by Agnieszka Le Nart, October 2010.
Nicolas (Mikohaj) Grospierre
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Selected individual exhibitions 2011 - The Bank, BWA Warszawa - The Picture that Grows, Warsaw - K Pool & Co, Pf Gallery, Poznan 2010 - TATTARRATTAT, Signum Foundation’s Palazzo Don, Venice 2009 - Kunstkamera - Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazowski Castle, Warsaw - Bank / The Bank (with Kaeko Mizukoshi) - Location One, New York 2008 - Disco Zacheta - Zacheta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw - Hotel Polonia - budynkew ycie po eyciu / Polonia Hotel - The Afterlife of Buildings (with Kobas Laksa) Polish Pavilion, Biennale of Architecture, Venice 2007 - Mauzoleum / Mausoleum (with Olga Mokrzycka) - Palace of Culture and Science, Warsaw 2006 - Biblioteka / The Library - Old Book Palace, Warsaw 2005 - Hydroklinika / Hydroclinic - Union of Polish Architects’ Pavilion, Warsawo Artists’ House, Jerusalem (2008) ECCO, Brasilia (2008) 2004 - Litewskie przystanki autobusowe / Lithuanian Bus Stops - Academia Theatre, Warsaw Rebell Minds Gallery, Berlin ARCO ‘05, Madrid - Portrety spoecznoci Podgrze / Portraying Communities Podgorze - Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazowski Castle, Warsaw 2003 - Portrety spoecznoi Kamionka / Portraying Communities Kamionka - Academia Theatre, Warsaw Moritzhof Gallery, Magdeburg German-French Cultural Institute, Aachen (2004) 2001 - Othello - National Theatre, Warsaw Zamek Cultural Centre, Pozna (2002) 2000 - Lot / Flight - Szpilka Gallery, Warsaw
Awards and Honours 2009 - Prize of the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Poland 2008 - Golden Lion at the 11th Venice Architecture Biennale for Best National Participation 2011 - Polityka Passport Award For more information on the artist, see www.grospierre.art.pl
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Selected group exhibitions 2011 - Skontrum, Krolikarnia National Gallery, Warsaw 2010 - Fitting in Space- Zico House, Beirut 98 Weeks Research Project Space, Beirut - Modernizacion - PHotoEspana, Cuenca - NineteenEightyFour - Austrian Cultural Forum, New York 2009 - Przypadkowe przyjemnoci / Unexpected Pleasures - BWA Gallery, Katowice - Take a Look at Me Now - Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, Norwich 2008 - Bloody Beautiful - Ron Mandos Gallery, Amsterdam - W sprzecznym miercie / In a Contradictory City Manhattan Gallery - Efekt czerwonych oczu / Red Eye Effect - Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazowski Castle, Warsaw - Where the East Ends - Nassauischer Kunstverein, Wiesbaden 2007 - Betonowe dziedzictwo / Concrete Legacy - Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazowski Castle, Warsaw - Antyfotografie / Anti-photographs - Arsena Municipal Gallery, Pozna 2006 - Nowi dokumentalici / The New Documentalists - Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazowski Castle, Warsaw - 2xP - Yours Gallery, Warsaw 2003 - BRONorblin - Norblin Museum, Warsaw - 2B - Norblin Museum, Warsaw - Sisiedzi dla susiadow / Neighbours for Neighbours Academia Theatre, Warsaw 2002 - Blok-Osiedle-Mieszkanie / Block-Neighbourhood-Apartment - Dziana Gallery, Warsaw Raster Gallery, Warsaw
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in Academic Paper
by Teresa Almeida
March 5, 2015 Paper
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LE CORBUSIER - HOW A UTOPIC VISION BECAME PATHOLOGICAL IN PRACTICE
Le Corbusier, a French architect and urban planner, intended to design a city structure on principles of rationality, orderliness, and social improvement. How did the implementation of his ideas create the centers of decay and crime that were the mid-century American urban housing projects?
Introduction Le Corbusier, born Charles Jeanneret (1887-1965), was a French architect and urbanist whose ideas had a lasting and profound influence across the globe. He was the forefather of the Modernist architectural style and led the International Congress of Modern Architecture. His theories were in reaction to the emerging Industrial Age. The new ideals of mass production and democracy inspired his vision of the built environment, while the pollution and chaos of new industrial cities compelled him towards idealistic notions of social improvement. Through planning and architectural design, Le Corbusier hoped to create a scientifically rational and comprehensive solution to urban problems in a way that would both promote democracy and quality of life. For him, the factory production process applied to high-rise buildings with prefabricated and standardized components is the most modern and egalitarian of urban forms (Helleman and Wassenberg, 4). Alike industrial processes and products meant that people could not be distinguished materialistically and would have equal access to opportunities. He had an idealized perspective on the technological advancements of modern life and a persistent faith in modernity’s ability towards progress and social improvement. Le Corbusier was so sure of architecture’s role in social transformation that he proclaimed “Architecture or Revolution”, by which he meant that revolution is inevitable unless Paris adopted his design plan, The Radiant City (Milne, 1980, 530). The irony of this optimistic belief in design is that his legacy has been blamed for one of history’s most ill-conceived and socially detrimental housing plans and projects the low-income housing projects in post-War America. In order to conclude if Le Corbusier’s vision was a failure, I will illustrate the intent of his theories, and then analyze if his plans implemented in practice diverged from his original ideas or if it was Le Corbusier’s vision in the first place that proved flawed. Both the ideas of Le Corbusier and a poor interpretation in the real world contributed to the failure of American housing projects. Both Le Corbusier’s overestimation of the remedial effects of the built environment and the political and economic conditions that radically altered his intentions produced negative psychological and social repercussions on the inhabitants of his designs.
Le Corbusier’s Vision, Design Influencing Social Practice, and Urban Housing Projects Early industrialization created impromptu urban cities that were frequently overcrowded, unhealthy, and unpleasant. Because of the chaos he saw, Le Corbusier believed that the solution for social ills lies in mathematical ordering of the built environment. He claims “We strive for order, which can be achieved only by appealing to what is the fundamental basis on which our minds can work geometry” (Le Corbusier, 1982, 95) and “Where the orthogonal is supreme, there we read the height of a civilization” (Le Corbusier, 1982, 43). The main principles of Le Corbusier’s theories include scientific rationalism, efficiency, and social improvement through design. This manifested in planning and architecture through the use of minimal ornamentation, repetitive units, high rise structures, and separation of use zoning. Crow claims that Le Corbusier’s theories revolve around two main arguments. The first is the “primacy of geometry for perception, cognition, and building”. The second is “urban growth must conform to the hierarchy of reason (geometry)” Crow, 1989, 244. This means that Le Corbusier believed that urban planning must follow the principles of rational design with scientific and ordered principles including regularity, unadorned surfaces, and straight lines to promote a sense of democracy and equality among people. This was in opposition to the display of wealth and individuality that would go on a highly decorated and extravagantly designed building. Le Corbursier had a social agenda behind his theories. He believed that there is a scientific, universal basis for everything including the needs and preferences of human beings. Thus, the same design scheme would be applicable all around. He “proclaimed democracy and equality through the built environment” and believed that “good or enlightened buildings would elicit similar attitudes or behaviors in individuals interacting with those buildings” (Birmingham, 1999, 296). The notion that the physical environment impacts human behavior remains highly contested. The relatively new discipline, related to urban planning and design, is known as ‘Design Influencing Social Practice (DiSP)’. DiSP is a concept that believes that “certain urban
forms and infrastructures confine, enforce, or suggest a corridor of behavioral choices” (Brand, 2005, 2). Le Corbusier theories suggest that he would support this notion. Le Corbusier claimed that “On the day when contemporary society, at present so sick, has become properly aware that only architecture and city planning can provide the exact prescription for its ills, then the time will have come for the great machine to be put in motion and begin its functions” (Le Corbusier, 1967, 142). Yet DiSP has not always proved successful in implementation. In experimentations using strategic design principles, people did not always respond as predicted. As an example, Brand discusses how the Panopticon, a prison structure that is supposed to control inmate behavior by creating a paranoid environment of continuous surveillance, was subverted by prisoners who secretly coordinated a revolt while maintaining a facade of normality. This incident demonstrates the unpredictability of human behavior that Le Corbusier failed to address in his theories. The public housing program in the 1950s United States combined these two elements of Le Corbusier’s design theories and environmental determinism, “the belief that an ideal or improved residential environment will better the behavior as well as the conditions of its inhabitants” (Hoffman, 1996, 424). The Housing Act of 1949 created a public housing program, which consisted of slum clearance and urban redevelopment, in order to “enable truly rational behavior which was troublesome under the previous messy urban structures” (Brand, 2005, 14). Le Corbusier’s high-rises were chosen as the model style for the new residential building structures, under the belief that providing a safe, clean housing structure would encourage lower-income people towards upward mobility. The housing was meant to diminish social ills by providing poorer citizens with an affordable and decent place to live in the interest of social welfare. In reality, many black Americans were forced into these structures for the sake of urban renewal and infrastructure projects. In contrast to its stated benevolent purpose, many of the buildings became havens of social decay and crime and were eventually razed or renovated. The structures, designed in accordance with Le Corbusian principles, were called “architectural systems that reinforce structural racism” (Birmingham, 1999, 291).
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The Inherent Flaws of Le Corbusier’s Theories Le Corbusier theories are criticized on many grounds. He contradicts himself when he claims to be a proponent of democracy, yet paternalistically imposes an order upon people with his vision of an advanced built environment. Scholars such as Jane Jacobs claim that Le Corbusier’s vision of cities is disassociated from popular input. Jacobs says “The materiality of the building is a relational effect. It is a building event rather than simply a building” (Jacobs, 2006, 11). This means that social interactions and contexts have much to do with the nature of a building and merely providing a technical concept and “purity” of design, such as Le Corbusier’s emphasis on geometry, cannot solely predict the impacts a building will have on its inhabitants. Also, in general, democratic participation is excluded when urban planning and architecture becomes strictly under the domain of architects and planners (without consulting the inhabitants), even if the intent is to improve society. Critics believe this “elitist” approach to city planning and architecture, supported by Le Corbusier and put into practice by U.S. Housing Authorities, accounts for the unsuccessful housing projects. Rather than enlist residents in dialogue about their needs and family structures, “modernist architectural designs intended to impose order on perceived morally debilitating clutter and disorganization” and disrupted the residents’ established “family and community lives and compromised patterns of economic development” (Russell and Gaubatz, 389). The innate disregard of the preferences of the inhabitants helped to contribute to social decay in housing projects because a forced new order ruptured the residents’ previously existing social networks and natural sense of existence. Le Corbusier’s belief that there is a scientific solution to all society’s issues has been criticized as disconnected with the real world. Le Corbusier believed that aesthetic and formal considerations would be sufficient to address social problems and inequities. Their solutions were found “through a rationalist and ahistoric process” (Leidenberger, 2006, 455). This means that Le Corbusier put form over the traditions and cultures of the inhabitants. This policy often resulted in an alienating environment that residents felt little connection to, which was the case in the Le Corbusier-designed city of Chandigarh, India and the modernist-influenced city of Bijlmermeer, Amsterdam. Le Corbusier’s belief in social advancement through technology led him to support the emerging industrial practices, that is, mass production techniques and a car-based transportation culture. He thought standardized high rises were the ideal form of a
modernist urban city and separation of zoning was the ideal format for a healthy society. Approval of modern transportation and single use districts manifested itself spatially in his theories such that the ideal location for residential buildings was away from commercial and industrial centers. In real life, this practice had an isolating effect on residents of high-rise developments because they did not have access to public transit or means of transportation to city resources. As Leidenberger states “effective transportation facilities proved crucial in tying high density residential patches to separate locations of work, education, leisure, and commerce. CIAM modernists looked at transportation as the key to maximize contacts among urban dwellers, which were considered to lie at the root of social harmony” (Leidenberger, 2006, 458). Modernists’ focus on formal issues has been criticized as an intellectual, irrelevant exercise in technicalities as “aesthetic indulgences masquerading as architecture, architects in retreat from any involvement with the actual world of buildings” (Ghirardo, 1984, 112). Ghirardo argues that “architecture of substance” goes beyond “trivial details” like formal elements and takes into account social and political realities and aspirations. He believes that those who try to relieve social ills singularly through design ignore the fundamental causes of problems “the power structure, racism, manipulation of land values, prices” (Ghirardo, 1984, 114). Although Le Corbusier’s intention was to improve society, he addresses it solely through principles of design, which are also subject to criticism. Le Corbusier’s theories support radical innovation and breaking with the past, which manifests in the built environment with a sharp, plain, and austere aesthetic. This is criticized as “decontextualizing” and “shocking” (Jacobs, 2006, 8) the lives of the residents, not improving them. Some even criticize Le Corbusier’s designs as being too flawed because they are too sophisticated. Jencks states that uneducated inhabitants could not successfully “read the architectural space” (Birmingham, 1999, 291) which led to their alienation from it. Modernist architecture was “non-referential” in that it relinquished all notion of historical and discursive meaning that could be understandable to the average citizen and created a sense of crisis. Birmingham, however, counters this by saying that the actualized building was so off-target from the original intentions of modernists (Birmingham, 1999, 300) and architectural styles alone cannot “limit people’s lives or exist outside the context of its production” (Birmingham, 1999, 302). Jencks’ critique excludes the broader social and economic damages and disadvantages that these residents experienced.
The Problematic Implementation of Le Corbusier’s Designs Alternate explanations for the failure of United States public housing place blame on the social and historical context within which Le Corbusier’s high rises were implemented. That is, racial motivations and economic restrictions. One of the most notorious projects was the Pruitt-Igoe complex in St. Louis. Designed by the architect Minoru Yamasaki and built in 1951, Pruitt-Igoe was meant to encompass Le Corbusier’s three essential joys of urbanism sun, space, and greenery (Birmingham, 1999, 296). Yamasaki initially imagined the structure as containing open galleries (horizontal space every third floor) with skip-stop elevators that only stopped at these galleries. This design was meant to promote sociability and foster social relations in these public spaces. It was modeled after Le Corbusier’s desire to maximize efficiency and open-spaced green areas by building vertically in order to conserve space and to improve social relations by making elevated communities “neighborhoods”/”streets in the sky” where residents could interact. In his high-rises, Le Corbusier imagined “airy visions of towers rising out of vast expanses of grass and greenery” (Hoffman, 1996, 431), the reproduction of “earthbound neighborhoods in the air”, and “wide, external building corridors” to “duplicate the complex functions and vitality of sidewalks and streets” (Hoffman, 1996, 432). However the end product resembled nothing like what Le Corbusier or Yamasaki had envisioned. The structure was initially built as a segregated residence for blacks and whites but when anti-segregation legislation passed, whites refused to move in. Thus, financial support collapsed significantly. This led to major structural changes including doubling of density, cancellation of landscaping, maintenance services, and public spaces, no open galleries, no public transit, no sidewalk connection to community, and haphazard construction. Green open space essentially became barren brownfields and served as “wastelands of concrete, a demilitarized zone surrounded by major streets” (Birmingham, 1999,301). Le Corbusier’s notion of purity with geometric shapes and lack of ornamentation became merely cheap and plain looking because of shoddy construction efforts. The structure that was supposed to create a sense of community in the landscape functioned more as an isolating and alienating tool of racial confinement. In this view, Le Corbusier’s designs and technical influences had less to do with the failure of housing projects than the fact that they were perverted by social and economic considerations, namely racism and lack of funds. Radford states “the changing organization of
“ A house is a machine for living in ” ― Le Corbusier
urban space has more to do with the logic of profit-driven development than with the ideas of those who have set out self-consciously to improve the world” (Radford, 1999, 723). Although not as devastating as the failures of United States’ housing projects, other Le Corbusier-influenced and modernist school designs did not succeed on a level matching the intentions of Le Corbusier’s social engineering theories. In Bijlmermeer, Amsterdam a modernist designed plan was constructed. It experienced failures that generally parallel the socio-economic failures of projects in the U.S. They include lack of amenities due to financial constrictions, a lack of good transit links to the center, lack of maintenance, and confused management and control issues. This led to the inhabitants’ indifference towards their residences and they would “dispose of garbage bags by ‘air mailing’ them over the balcony” (Helleman and Wassenberg, 6). The city did not suffer the same fate as Pruitt-Igoe’s demolishment in the 1970s because of eventual structural and service improvements. However, it demonstrates the failure of a city not because of inherent design flaws but because its actualization was corrupted by economic and infrastructural failures not related to the plan itself. Although many critics blame Le Corbusier for devising structures that reinforce deteriorating social effects, he does have some defenders. Leidenberger states that Le Corbusier wanted a cohesive “integral design of the entire building-landscape complex” (Leidenberger, 2006, 458) in his city plans. However “only subsequently did these areas evolve into separate and uncoordinated concerns, neglect of land design, and dull nature of open land” 2006, 458). That is, Le Corbusier put more thoughtfulness into
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his structures than were actually materialized, and so he must not be culpable for the design’s negative impacts. Radford goes even further and suggests exonerating Le Corbusier from any involvement at all for the decay of U.S. housing projects. He states that property values interests and white homeowners’ efforts against integration prevented the approval of any site for housing projects other than slum areas and “surely these pressures alone, dictating putting the most people in the least space, would have implied a high-rise architectural solution even if Le Corbusier had never lived” (Radford, 1999, 720). However, to me, it appears that both misguided elements in Le Corbusier’s theories for social improvement through design and the failure of an accurate realization of his vision contributed to the social and physical monstrosities that were many of the U.S. low-income housing projects. For instance, consider a specific element transportation. Le Corbusier’s practice of segregating uses (commercial, industrial, residential, etc.) over long distances produced an overreliance on an efficient transit system to create social harmony and opportunity. When Pruitt-Igoe’s financial investment collapsed, essential and required elements of Le Corbusier’s vision (in this case, easy mobility) were abandoned. Thus, taken together, any improvement or advancement in the social conditions of the residents’ seems nearly infeasible. To conclude, I present an example that exemplifies how both design flaw and historical context create social problems. Chandigarh, India which Le Corbusier himself contributed to was initially perceived as a failed city. Kalia claims that the problems experienced by Chandigarh were from “the absence of local authority, a lack of understanding of the local culture and values on the part of the planners, and the history of the region. Authority relations, lines of accountability, and decision-making structures never became clear” (Kalia, 1985, 135). Chandigarh experienced a sudden confrontation with modernism in what was a “tradition-bound, rural, and financially conservative” (Kalia, 1985, 135) location. Thus, his design was considered sterile and “profoundly alienating because of the absence of street life” (Fitting, 2002, 74) such as bazaars. Also, in line with the segregation of uses principle, Le Corbusier placed the capitol complex away from the city, which also had an alienating effect on the citizens “this act rendered the mo numental dimension of Le Corbusier’s vision remote and distant from the citizens” (Fitting, 2002, 79). In one sense, this could be interpreted as a failure of Le Corbusier’s ideological belief that design should be ahistorical, but the fact that managerial issues and explosive population growth were also involved shows that political contexts also contributed to Candigarh’s problems.
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The gorgeous, provocative and bizarre
Just pleasure Architectural nudity The photographic work of Berlin based photographer Evelyn Bencicova is every part stark and seductive, with twists on conceptually questionable compositions that we can’t help but be attracted to. Its in these minimal and mysterious narratives that she creates that we some how find ourselves drawn her smooth, bizarrely dewy hues skin tones and anonymous portraiture.
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A.C.P Architecture contemporary photoraphy
Portrait Yellow from the Kolorbloki Zori photomontage balconies concrete modules 3/4
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La Cite Radieuse Toit de La Cite Radieuse
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