The Engineer’s Aesthetic and Architecture

[Amy]

Corbusier introduces a lot of themes in the opening essay; the purpose of architects vs the purpose of engineers, logic vs beauty, the home as a primal tool vs architecture as meditation. What resonated with me was how he describes architecture as being important to health and happiness, and how this is particularly important in the home but is often something that is overlooked or not considered by non-architects.

‘We are to be pitied for living in unworthy houses, since they ruin our health and our morale.’

Just from this first short essay I can tell Corbusier likes to see the world as following strict rules and categorises things as opposites to each other. You can see why one of his most famous quotes is ‘the house is a machine for living in,’ which sounds cold, practical and harsh. I prefer:

“There does exist this thing called architecture, an admirable thing, the loveliest of all. A product of happy peoples and a thing which in itself produces happy peoples.

The happy towns are those that have an architecture.”

- Praise Architecture

[arjn]

Yeah, it's funny how for Corbusier the idea that 'house is a machine/tool' and that 'architecture is a phenomenon of the emotions' can coexist without any apparent contradiction. I found the essay quite enjoyable when he gets all worked up about everything from national schools, to clients with "eyes which do not see", to architecture having forgotten it's beginnings.

That last provocation is interesting, since he follows it by demanding architects reject thinking in "styles" and think more directly in terms of affect. To paraphrase him, we must use elements capable of affecting our senses, in a way that that the sight of them affects us immediately. For all his valorization of the rational engineer, he sure seems like a champion of emotion when it comes to architecture. Which is why his support, almost celebration, of the spirit of mass production is so strange. Today there seems nothing so removed from emotion as mass-production, but Corbusier seems to believe mass-produced houses can be both beautiful and rejeuvinating. He seems to view mass-production as a synthesis of his utilitarian and passionate tendencies. I don't know if in 2020 he would hold the same view.

[Amy]

pod_twit wrote: "Yeah, it's funny how for Corbusier the idea that 'house is a machine/tool' and that 'architecture is a phenomenon of the emotions' can coexist without any apparent contradiction. I found the essay ..."

I totally agree. Corbusier would possibly have a more cynical view of mass production today, but something tells me he would still believe it to be a good and beautiful thing and would just be saying everyone else is doing it wrong.