Scribd Logo
Importer

Bienvenue sur Scribd !

  • LCAtlas

    Transféré par

    josefbolz
    13 vues6 pages
    Le Corbusier, Ramirez, flight, sketchbook

    Copyright

    © © All Rights Reserved

    Formats disponibles

    PDF ou lisez en ligne sur Scribd

    Avez-vous trouvé ce document utile ?

    Ce contenu est-il inapproprié ?

    Signaler ce document
    Le Corbusier, Ramirez, flight, sketchbook

    Droits d'auteur :

    © All Rights Reserved
    Téléchargez comme PDF ou lisez en ligne sur Scribd
    Signaler comme contenu inapproprié
    13 vues6 pages

    LCAtlas

    Transféré par

    josefbolz
    Le Corbusier, Ramirez, flight, sketchbook

    Droits d'auteur :

    © All Rights Reserved
    Téléchargez comme PDF ou lisez en ligne sur Scribd
    Signaler comme contenu inapproprié
    sur 6
    Enrique Ramirez En Route to/from India: In the Sky with Sketchbooks Opposite: Le Corbusir onthe steps ofa Su Aiton Caravelle lone. 1960, Fondation Le orbuser, Pari. FLCL41-60 Fp. 1 /B/C on vole 86000 m /en A eat pout ere Tet Blan / en Be bord dea tare / en C cect a la plaine” (A/B/C one es at 6000 m (19.700 fet] / A le perhaps Mont Blinc / 8 the edge ofthe earth /Cis ‘ready the pli). 151. nk and colored poncl on pape Bian 1314" (21.6x949 em), Fondation Lo Corbuse, Paris FLC 0-1408.8 Fg. 2 View of Greece made whe ying From Bombay to Posi. October 7, 1954. Pens and pastel on paper, 4550x 7 Y (11 18 on, Fondation Le Corbusier Paris Shetehoo0K J95 (October 1908: Charles-Edovard Jeanneret. a bespectacied draughtsman’s apprentice in Auguste Perret’ offic, sits in a cramped apartment above the quai Saint-Michel and hears 8 faint, motorized drone outside. He peers out a window, perhaps looking northeast toward the two towers and flying buttresses of Notre-Dame de Paris, and then westward, scanning the skies above the cityscape for a glimpse of the Comte de Lambert crcling the Eiffel Tower aboard a rickety, ungainly Wright Flyer. It was a fateful moment for the young Jeanneret ‘iho declared the Comte’s flight to be the very moment when “men hed captured the ch mera” of fight and “driven it above the city For a man who would leave an indelible trace on architectural culture via carefully deployed tropes that elded distinctions between cities, buildings. machines, and organisms, the metaphor of an unruly crestion tamed by modern technology was also @ fitting one for the design process. It was a metaphor he would con: tinue to cultivate as 2 multimodal, glabe-girding architect (figs. 1 and 2. Beginning with his fist travels to Moscow, in 1928, continuing with his fights In small passenger planes around South America in 1929 and across the Atlantic aboard a zeppelin in 1936, ond culminating in his et-age jaunts to India during the 1950s and '605— these aerial "voyages en zigzag” disciplined and conditioned Le Corbusier's perceptions of landscapes.® Consider his sketches of la foi du méande (the aw of the meander), a phrase he coined ta describe the sinuous, unpredictable courses of the rivers in South America, depicted as a skein of wild, curving ines ona flat, featureless plain (page 321. fg. 8) The verdant pempas and aquamarine bays of the world below wore a rich viual and living ‘archive, a mirror buried in the earth that reflected his contemplations and peregrinations.* ‘Yer this awakened sensibility to landscape had appeared earlier, when Jeanneret was study lng under the painter Charles LEplattenier in La Chaux-de-Fonds. Although evidence of his teacher's embrace of a regional style sapin (fr tree style) can be detected in the evocative timberike framing of Jeanneret's Villa Fllat (1905-07), the first stirrings of a new aware- ness wore already present in the various studies he completed for UEplattenar. From unhur: ried aquarelles of the peaceful, grassy slopes of La Chaux-de-Fonds to hasty pencil sketches. ‘of the rugged spine of the Swiss Jura—these early engagements with landscape suggest a wrod Riso Sa algo Mania Stnohes Par, Le Ceaser ys oa Marta Carbusery ope (008 ano. 1880.17 Tose ptnex’ fie ams, Ail Ve: La Corbusier in Bra ete Cobimer Rede Jee, (1929) Jounal ol reer 1220-1988 de ras Cave Edscten 55, $y 2002) 208 1 Le Cats Avo (ardor The 2 ew-Lae Cote, Ombre 366 Asie transformation in which the young pupl's attentive hand was giving way to the future archi teet’s mobile eye “The landscape encountered in Paris in 1921 by Le Corbusier and Amédée Ozenfant, 1s editors of LEsprit nouveau, was not one of pines. glades, and berms but rather 8 furry of pistons, engines, cars, ships, and other technological and mass-produced artifacts. For ‘Des yeux qui ne voient pas... les avions” ("Eyes That Do Not See... . Airplanes"), an art cle that later became a chapter in Vers une architecture (Toward an Architecture) (1923), Le Corbusier expressed contempt for architects who were capable of articulating solutions to only “badly posed” problems of housing.* But aircraft designers such as Louis Blériot and Henri Farman were different: they designed mass-produced machines of a clarity of Func: tion and performance beyond the ken of contemporary architects. To combat this figurative blindness and demonstrate an alternative to it, Le Corbusier assembled photographs of and ‘advertising copy about SPAD, Farman, Caproni, and Handley-Page aircraft into @ vision of the airplane as the refined solution ta the “well-posed” problem of fight.* ‘As either inditing eye casting ite clarified gaze on the ground below or as swift bird cof pray razing cities with machine guns, the airplane captured the essence ofthe architect as ‘an ennobled intellect, part astute observer, part defiant critic, part opportunistic seer* And In Sur es quatre routes (The Four Routes) (1941) Le Corbusier pointed to new horizons with ‘a new landscape metaphor. “You are §,000 feet above the earth,” he wrote, “and the sky has taken on the green ofthe stratosphere.” In this suprising comparison, the eiplane’s natural milieu i far above the calm, pure air that he had identified in Vers une architecture as the domain of skyscrapers. Here, verdant sky becomes the true terrain of human fight, en alu sion to the grassy meadows at La Chaux-de-Fonds that points to Le Corbusier's future aerial voyages as another kind of experience. ‘The sketches and descriptions that Le Corbusier recorded while in fight reveal not ‘one sky but many, For airplane passengers the sky is an observation platform, 2 place from which to consider and contemplate the world below. Seated behind a bulkhead, looking out from a port or starboard fuselage window. passengers do not see forward, lke a pict, but 44 La Cobuser owardan 6 Ses Cohen, “Monertapandt: 7 LeGurbsor The Four Rots ‘ronocire vars tin Goxtiman —LeViyape anes apres tan Dea ror D Ocho, (Con Anges: Getty Renerhintiute, sateen Clase Pree ed, 1947, 5 10-08. Oia ub 207)» 174 Orghaly puernd Le Cobia MorartsBographoves lad an Sure quate oes ar Verune archaea PoeG Ciba (Pare Etna de Vile, 2008p. Gamat 18) Ge, 1923). wees, 367 Ramirez ‘experience the scene as if it were @ moving panorama. Oceans, forests, fields, roads, cities, bulldings—environments, both natural and human-made—blend into each other, giving the il sion ofa single fabric, uniform and expansive. On his fist fights Le Corbusier was a passive ‘observer ina serene and meditative cabin interior” Flying in 2 Latécodre passenger plane over Argentina in 1929 he remarked how cities, “rectilinear villages," and farms all appeared in ‘an undisturbed, neatly arranged checkerboard patter (page 320, fig. 4) Then, with a change in equipment came a change in vision. In the skies above Montevideo, aboard a Fokker trimo- tor, whose ribbonlike windows along the fuselage provided an otherwise uninterrupted view Cf the scene below, Le Corbusier's experience of fight was altered. It was from this vantage point that he compared the world to @ “poached egg,” with mountainous wrinkles and smooth, ‘watery expanses. The vibrant view melded the landscape of the earth to the landscape of the ‘sky: “From a plane you can see on the plans of Uruguay the clouds that will sadden a home, or ‘assure abundant crops, or rot grapevines; or that encounter of clouds which results in lightning ‘and thunder, feared as if gods.” As a machine for observation, the airplane turned the sky into ‘a solpsistc landscape, leading Le Corbusier to decare, “| ext in life only i can see. ‘The sky inspired other moments of introspection that highlighted the architect's sen- sorium. As an airplan(n)er—the architect as olseau planeur. gliding and making plans from the sir-—Le Corbusier flew above Ro in 1929 and observed the lush, green mountainsides ‘around Guanabara Bay, a “body 20 hilly and so complicated," with @ topography that left the Viewer "seized with enthusiasm” at having “felt ideas being born” (page 330, plate 67)" ‘The result was nothing short of enrapturing: ‘You have entered into the body and the heart Cf the city, you have understood part ofits destiry." Thus the sky was also a landscape that rewarded and gratified the senses, no matter what object was being considered from it, ‘or howe In 1957, above the Indus River, he reflected on his travel so far. on how travel inside {an airplane cabin wae a paradise when compared to hs “truly atrocious" and "overwhelm- ng” life on land," But another change in equipment threatened this composure and serenity. 18 Saruniahewriten “The wisn Maa MIT Pas 15) pp. 3.6.7. Souus trtte dsin fat ‘fanarpane ot era tut slows Oral sbiehed oe Prag art: "a lvrat"evorema” ade Fertcreaton femal wor inte cann Pecaons auran at raert plane” m LEnhatiun eu mouveent ‘it p80 Tanto by the Para G. Cres, 930, 1 a Conus Stathboas 3, sutee 10 Le Cortney, “Brlan Coot” 195410570 Prange de rnc 1B LeCorser,“Anercan roaaie InPreceons 755. Cray ab (New Yr: retell story InPreciton onthe Peart Site ahd eGo mn —-Fondton Cambie, Maes MI ‘ececti ad ty Paring tans. Preseons. Tm roter of oseau pane Pon: Par: arate Le Corte ath Scheie uj (Condon, canbe veda orang ters Pod 1980.0 Fg. 9 Notas and sketches mace whe fying on an Ins Lackheed Super Constalation, May 1986, Pore and eaered pena an oper 7"5ex 454" (18311 om), Fondation Le Crbuser, Pav, Shetcmback Ké2 Fig. 4 Sketch of the intro ofan Ar Ica Lockheed Super Corstelation. December 1959, Ponolandinkon paper 480% 7 (11x 18) Ferdation Le Corbusier Par. Sketchbook PSD Airines such as Air France and Air India were making the transition from propeller-driven Lockheed Super Constellations to jet powered Boeing 7075 for their international fleets, and the resulting changes to their passenger-cabin configurations, from smaller windows to larger bulkheads that interrupted the view ofthe sky outside, didnot escape Le Corbusier's aerial sensibility. Nor did changes in the form of the fuselage. He celebrated the Lockheed’s grace: {ul prole, comparing it to. fish darting and whirling in its watery milieu (fig. 3); the Boeing 707 was the complete opposite: a specimen of performance devoid of pleasure, a mere per: forator slicing through the air lke a missile." ‘Such sensual interpretation ofthe hardware of fight shows Le Corbusier, here the

    Vous aimerez peut-être aussi