By: Chris Melton
Our third lecture in our Contemporary European Architecture class centered on "Moving Landscapes." This concept has two key points: How the user moves through the landscape, and how the idea of landscape has become mobile through architecture. For my blog post this week, I would like to discuss how architectural design should move the viewer through the project, and thus enhance the experience of the structure, and in turn, the site or landscape as well. Today I would like to explore this concept by analyzing two of Le Corbusier's works, and how they relate to this subject.
Our starting point this week was the architectural concept of the 'promenade,' which, at its core, is a starting point to move through an area. Promenades should lead the viewer to the area beyond through both views and vistas, or lack lackthereof. The first work I would like to discuss in its use of promenade is a particular work of Le Corbusier's. This work, which was an apartment commission for Charles de Beistegui, is a stark style deviation for Corbusier. Beistegui was an avid collector of art of the surrealist movement, and this apartment's design, whether through commission or initial design or a combination thereof, seems to reflect this surrealist movement at times, and perhaps played to the artist within
Corbusier himself.
Surrealist aspects aside, the Beistegui apartment uses this concept of promenade throughout its structural design. As shown in the board above, the placement of thresholds throughout the apartment tends guide the user into the next area. Corbusier uses this in a few different ways. One example is by juxtaposing large openings next to smaller ones to promote a certain circulation that then creates both public and private spaces. Another example of this is done by his placement of staircases that either promote or demote movement to certain areas. The stylistic, spiral staircase below, pulls the viewer up to the first public rooftop area. This first area is a walled garden with select cut outs that give very specific panorama views of the site and city beyond. These allow the user to experience the specific vista that can only be viewed from that spot. Corbusier also crafted a second rooftop garden that is actually very different from anything else he has ever done. Using a second, separately styled staircase, he promoted a softer movement, that then created a more private space above. This second roof top garden, through both the high walls and furniture elements inside, is very surreal. With baroque furniture, a false fireplace, and a large mirror, this private area seems to be almost out of a surrealist painting itself, and is very quite interesting from this architect.
While the Beistegui apartment is a very interesting work to analyze, the best example of promenade would be Corbusier's design of Villa Savoye. Corbusier design uses this concept to not only pull the viewer through his structure laterally, but vertically as well. He designed the central stairway and ramp (shown above) to allow unseen light to flood down, and thus pull the user to the rooftop garden above. But, this is only one of his takes on promenade. Corbusier's use of his own five points on architecture in his plan of Savoye also led to the structure of the villa to become a promenade to the site around it. Not only does the design of Savoye pull the user through it, views from the interior leading the user to the next room, or garden (shown below), or etc; but the running windows, free plan below, and roof garden pull the viewer's eyes away from the beautiful structure that surrounds them, and into the site beyond. This, I think, is where Savoye's true beauty lies. The architectural design doesn't ever stop the viewer; instead it creates a rhythm that not only leads the viewer through the structure, but into the landscape beyond. The viewer never stops and focuses on one aspect for too long, as there is always another element yearning for attention, pulling on the senses.
Through his use of promenade in his designs and his creation of these gathering spaces in the form of roof top gardens, I think that Le Corbusier is a great example for how architecture itself is 'moving landscapes.' The idea that promenade can lead the viewer through the structure, and craft such a specific yearning into the landscape beyond, plants the seed of movement through the landscape into the user's mind. An idea that won't go away until it is sated. The second idea, that landscape is mobile, can be seen in the form of both works' rooftop gardens. These hortos conclusus gardens have not only literally elevated the landscape, but have moved the nodes of the circulation to the roof. This promotes a need to stay, to experience, and to view the area beyond, that previously didn't exist. While Le Corbusier didn't ever physically move landscapes, his use of architecture design certainly changed how his patrons viewed and experienced the landscape of his sites; and through that fact alone, his designs were successful.
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