"Corbusier's frozen perspectives of giant avenues crawling with coupes and humming with biplanes mean only one thing: a hatred of random encounter, which expressed itself in a city totally dedicated to rapid transit."
Robert Huges, The Shock of the New, p188



What Corbusier thinks:...

"The right angle, is as it were
the sum of the forces which keep
the world in equilibrium. There
is only one right angle; but there
is an infinitude of other angles.
The right angle, therefore, has
superior rights over other angles;
it is unique and it is constant
In order to work, man has need of
constants. Without them he could
not put one foot before the other...
The right angle is lawful, it is part
of our determinism, it is obligatory."
Quoted in Hughes, p187




LE CORBUSIER'S 'UNITE DE HABITATION' (COMMUNITY LIVING), A LARGE HIGHRISE BUILT IN MARSAILLE IN 1946-52 PROVIDES A CONSIDERABLE EXAMPLE OF A FAILED HIGHRISE AND A FAILED UTOPIA.




Trying to create "...the ideal of communal self sufficiency..."(HUGHES P190), Le Corbusier built into the housing project a shopping mall, hotel and gymnasium .

His authorship was extended to such a degree that he chose the furniture and fittings that would decorate the 'Unite' modules. Not surprisingly the residents of the 'Unite' rejected Corbusier's style "...soon restor[ing] the machine a habiter to the true style of suburban France." (HUGHES P190)





The crowing glory of the 'Unite' was the rooftop 'garden', which - not unlike it's designer - emphasized a view from the top.





Texts, physical or intangible will always be/become subjective even though they are often limited by their 'space'.