Le Corbusier and the Problems of Representation Author(S): Luis E

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Le Corbusier and the Problems of Representation Author(s): Luis E. Carranza Source: Journal of Architectural Education (1984-), Vol. 48, No. 2 (Nov., 1994), pp. 70-81 Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture, Inc. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1425314 Accessed: 17-03-2015 06:57 UTC

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This content downloaded from 152.118.24.10 on Tue, 17 Mar 2015 06:57:47 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Le Corbusierand the Problemsof Representation

Luis E. CARRANZA,Harvard University

By readingthe graphic,architectural, and assesshis attitudes towardwomen in gen- capitalisthostilities . . . freedom and irre- photographicrecords of the workby Le Corbusier eral and within the context of his architec- if not Male througha feministlens, we can see thatit is sponsibility immorality."4 loadedwith codes and systemsof meaningthat ture. To do this, however, we must paintersoccupied and representedin their reflecthis attitudes,and those of society,about understand the "traditional" view of works places unavailableto "respectable" within women'splace the contextof his modern women within the of women, such as bars, brothels, and the architecture.By giving us a glimpseinto his spaces architecture, subconscious,these clues disturbinglyconfirm the relationshipbetween the architectand backstage. whathas alwaysbeen insinuated,that Le his objectification of women, and the Women in the 1800s did not look, Corbusierobjectified and had an aversiontoward of the of the women.The canonization of his oeuvrehas placement of himself in relation to the but ratherwere the object gaze renderedthis and subsequentrelated work world, specificallythe one he created.' flaneur,a man who moved throughoutthe problematicthrough its genderedassociations city observing, but never interacting,and and meanings. "consumingthe sights through a control- The Spaces of Femininity ling but rarelyacknowledged gaze, directed as much at other people as at the goods for THE UTILITARIAN AND FUNCTIONALIST AS- Within the context of urban life in nine- sale."5For women to go out into the male pects that have traditionally set architec- teenth-century France, Griselda Pollock public realm createdmany difficulties.As ture apart from the fine arts have also discusses the depicted distinctions in Jules Michelet points out, these included made it difficult to engage architecture paintingof the spacesthat women were al- being mistakenfor a prostituteor being re- within a feminist critique. The multiva- lowed to occupy and those that they were duced to a mere spectacle.If a woman en- lence of meaningsheld by an architectural forbidden. She argues that the work of tered a restaurantalone, "alleyes would be objectand the silencecontained in its walls Berthe Morisot and Mary Cassatt illus- constantly fixed on her, and she would are preciselythe elementsthat seem to pre- tratedthe spacestraditionally occupied by overhearuncomplimentary and bold con- vent critique by comparisonwith what is women as being very differentfrom those jectures."6This could be seen as a conse- possible with painting or sculpture. The spaces depicted exclusivelyby men, as ex- quence of a particular public arena that spatialqualities of architecturealso obfus- emplified in the work of EdouardManet allowed bourgeois men to seduce or pur- cate issuesrelated to femininitybecause, as and other Impressionists. These female chaseworking-class women. In contrastto we know, the self-referentiality of space painters primarily dealt with the spaces women'sfirmly defined position, a man, or negates any type of ideological transmis- and subjects that fell into the categoryof flaneur,was allowed to lose himself in the sion, including its determination as domestic social life and, as such, never crowd,gaze voyeuristically, and act in com- gendered.The genderingof space,as I will exceededthe status of "mere"genre paint- plete freedom.The middle-classor respect- later show, occurs through the typological ings.2The spacesoccupied and represented able woman, on the other hand, was and socially constructed assignment of by these women were not simply relegated compartmentalized in the private realm spaces, which are based primarily on to domesticinterior scenes, but ratherrep- within which, on their returnfrom the ex- genderedstereotypes that have dominated resentedthe positionalityin discourseand terioror public world, the men acted with western thought. For these reasons, to social practice, ordered by sexual politics constraintin accordancewith their socially evaluatearchitecture as being specifically and the economy of looking and being acceptableroles as fathersand husbands. gender-based,we must examinethe archi- seen, in which their femininity was mani- The division of space acrossgender tects and the types of decisions that they fested.3In the case of Cassattand Morisot, lines had alreadybeen defined in architec- make, before and after the creation of ar- these spaceswere a direct influence of the tural terms by Renaissancearchitect Leon chitecture, that allude to a particularly transformationof the city into a place for BattistaAlberti in his treatise,I Libridella gendered portrayal or positioning of consumption and specularity. Women Famiglia,7 in which he similarly delegates women throughtheir architecture.By em- were positioned within the realm of the the place for women as the house and the ploying this framework,we can begin ex- private spaces that were, as Pollock sug- place for men as the public world: "It amining the works of Le Corbusier to gests, "spacesof sentiment and duty from would hardly win us respect if our wife which money and powerwere banished ... busied herselfamong the men in the mar- Journal ofArchitectural Education, pp. 70-81, placefs] of constraint."Men, on the other ketplace, out in the public eye. It also @ 1994 ACSA, Inc. hand, occupied the public spacesof "daily seems somewhat demeaning to me to re-

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This content downloaded from 152.118.24.10 on Tue, 17 Mar 2015 06:57:47 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions main shut up in the house among women honor."'0The distinction of male and fe- Vivante, for example, render everyday ex- when I have manly things to do among male scopophilia and the politics of look- periences and objects accessible to the men, fellow citizens and worthy and dis- ing creates and reinforces the spaces of reader by presenting them not only as frag- tinguishedforeigners .... The characterof femininity. A woman remainswithin the mentary but as "corresponding to the ex- men is stronger than that of women.... socially acceptablerealm of the interioror perience of culture in the society of Women, on the other hand, are almost all in socially sanctioned environments to media.""11Under closer examination, we timid by nature,soft, slow, and more use- avoid being seen (as a prostitute) and to find that these photographs do indeed ful when they sit still and watch over our avoid seeing (as an act of perversion by present the contemporary cultural situa- things."8 In this case, as in Pollock's ex- having men too much on her mind). tion; however, they also provide us with a ample, genderlines mirroreconomic divi- The materializationof these beliefs window into his subconscious. An explora- sions: Men tend to business because of can clearlybe seen manifestedin the archi- tion into Le Corbusier's process of con- their shrewdness,and women stay at home tecture and in the positioning of women tinuous editing of photographs-erasing, because of their timidity and inability to within it, particularly in its representa- removing from context, reframing, choos- deal with financial transactions. Alberti tions, shown by the work of Morisot and ing, composing, and constructing-reveals also notes that, whereasthe exteriorworld Cassatt. How, then, is one to read an ar- many indications in these images about Le is the realm of labor for men, the home is chitecture that attempted to break with Corbusier's aversion toward women.12 their place of constraint, away from busi- past architectural traditions? Is Le What we find is that Le Corbusier follows ness transactionsor work. Corbusier's oeuvre truly innovative in a and repeats architectural conventions or In Alberti'streatise, the female gaze conceptual restructuring of these tradi- standards that attempt to control the im- or look is equatedwith spyingand is there- tions, or does it maintain and reproduce age of women and nature through privileg- fore condemned. Alberti claims that a the ideology and patriarchal hegemony ing the position of men/architecture over woman should be more eager to know within the innovative restructuringof his women/nature. However, at the time of what happens in her own house, as she buildings?As discussedearlier, to ascertain representation, Le Corbusier reveals traces should be guardingthe man's possessions, the ideological intention of the architec- of himself and the role he envisioned for ratherthan outside its walls, noting that a ture it is necessaryto examinethe decisions women as well as their position within his woman who spies "too much on men may made by its architectsthat determinethese architectural and artistic production; in be suspected of having men too much on qualities. In Le Corbusier'swork, this can other words, the representations of archi- her mind, being perhapssecretly anxious clearlybe found in his architectureand his tecture reveal the classical structure of pa- whetherothers are learningabout her own representationsof it. triarchal oppression working within characterwhen she appearstoo interested traditional architectural representation. in them."' In the dichotomiesbetween the There is a dichotomy inherent within flaneur and the women in Alberti's trea- Le Corbusierand the Problems the work of Le Corbusier that dialectically tise, scopophilia (pleasurein looking) can in Representation pairs the figurative work (drawings, photo- shed some light as to the problems in- graphs, sculptures, etc.) in contrast to the volved in the look. For Sigmund Freud, Beatriz Colomina refers to the photo- architectural production. This juxtaposition the act of seeing objectifiesthe person ob- graphs of Le Corbusier as representinga similarly can be read as the clash between served by subjectinghim or her to a curi- new reality about the ways in which he the irrationalunconscious of the former and ous and controlling gaze. This gaze, used them, not only to represent, but the rational consciousness of the latter. generally associated with sexual pleasure rather,as modernadvertisement had done, Through this pairing, however, it is also and stimulation through sight, portraysa to construct a text. For Le Corbusier,the possible to analyze the work in terms of the double standardin its social context. The photographsof architectureand machines universalizing aspirations of a utopian mod- male flaneuris expected to use the gaze as that he included in many of his publica- ernism that placed a tremendous stress on he travelsthrough the city. For the women tions helped him assess a portrayalof his the purity of the visual signifier. An investi- in Alberti's treatise, however, looking is own architectureand his relationto it. The gation into this quality of the work by Le regarded as perverse and irreconcilable photographs that Le Corbusier used in Corbusier elucidates what Jacqueline Rose behavior for a "lady of unblemished Versune Architectureand in L 'Architecture refers to as the sexuality in the field of vi-

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This content downloaded from 152.118.24.10 on Tue, 17 Mar 2015 06:57:47 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions ernist avant-garde, whose means of artis- prejudices can be seen as influencing the tic dissemination consisted primarily of work that he produced. In Le Corbusier's elements of the mass media, the transfor- drawings, paintings, and sculpture, we can mation of conventions through which ar- see three things that are of interest regard- chitecture and its images were transmitted ing his portrayal of his relationship to was altered to suit the systems of mass pro- women. The first is his inability or lack of duction and mass dissemination of infor- desire to portray women, indicating his mation. This transformation profoundly opposition toward the feminine. In much altered the course of architecture and, be- of his work, we can find a masculinization cause of his abilities to manipulate this of women (as in Nude Female, 1931 [draw- newly formed medium, of the reception of ing 65 from Le CorbusierSecret (LCS)]).'5 Le Corbusier himself. Nevertheless, the im- These women are portrayed as large and pact that this had on architecture trans- muscular, and their stereotypical long hair formed the way that we now see, learn, and hides what appear to be male faces. The create architecture-that is primarily based fact that they are women is revealed by the on images. A critical engagement with the titles of the pieces and by the exaggerated figurative work therefore immediately be- breasts. We also find, in his earlier work, a gins to inform the architectural work. The lack of portrayal of the otherness, women's semantic purity of the architectural genitals, which becomes problematic by signifier, as Le Corbusier would describe presenting us with an unconscious fear of the arrangement of forms that made archi- what is not there and, ultimately, what tecture, would inform the purist qualities that absence represents. In this early work, 1. Le Corbusier,Nude Female, 1931. ? 1995 ArtistsRights Society(ARS), N.Y./SPADEM, Paris. of the villas as being completely self-refer- until about, 1940, the positioning of ential. Through investigations into the women in the pictures prevents Le sion, showing that the "image [can be held] irrational and subjective quality of his un- Corbusier from having to deal with accountable for the reproduction of norms" conscious artistic work, however, psycho- woman's "lack" of a phallus (as in Two and that the scrutiny of the image "adds the analytic theory can be mobilized to analyze Women, 1932 [plate 17 from A Marriage of idea of a sexuality that goes beyond the issue the particular and limiting opposition be- Contours(AMC)]'6 and Two Nude Women, of content to take in the parameters of vi- tween male/architect and female that the 1928 [drawing 15 from LCS]). In his later sual form (not what we see but how we see rational and objective quality of the archi- work, we find not only that he portrays it)."'3 The figurative work provides us with tecture, seen to be devoid of meaning, this "lack," but that he portrays it in a very the articulation of a particular language of maintains. This investigation similarly can graphic manner-illustrating the vulva patriarchy that is present within his repre- describe the persistence of the typical fe- and its void (as in Woman with Candle and sentation of architecture. By studying such male patriarchal oppression present w;thin Two Figures, 1946 [plate 30 from AMC]). representation, we find, on the one hand, his architectural production. The earlier work perhaps is introduced by the reproduction of the language or ideol- a fear of the feminine otherness and thus a ogy of patriarchy. This is achieved through fear of castration, and in the later work, a series of particularlygendered conventions Le Corbusierand Women the otherness is fetishized to remove this that position women, both as users and cre- fear and show it as an anatomical occur- ators, within the margins of artistic or archi- Le Corbusier saw women as inferior and rence.17 These images reveal two things. tectural production. On the other hand, the disregarded them in his architectural pro- First, these portrayals and their disruption photographs, through their manipulations, duction. For example, when Charlotte of traditional modes of representation echo the predominant system of architec- Perriand approached Le Corbusier about point to a possible relationship between tural representation. joining his team as a furniture designer, he the author's sexuality, or his imaginary Because of the position that Le immediately replied, "We don't embroider conception of it, and its representation in Corbusier occupied in the emerging mod- cushions in my studio."'" This and similar the field of vision. This inability to repre-

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This content downloaded from 152.118.24.10 on Tue, 17 Mar 2015 06:57:47 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions sent can be equated to Freud's analysis of Leonardo da Vinci, who was unable to represent the sexual and can act, lead to the I < conclusion that Le Corbusier's drawings allow us to "deduce the repression of li- bido-a repression that [can throw] the '4) great artist and investigator into something approaching confusion."1" The second thing that these images reveal is what Laura Mulvey described as the artistic fetishization of the female body. Le Corbusier, like the artist Allen Jones, whom Mulvey discusses, does not actually show the female genitals; they are "always concealed, disguised, or supplemented in ways which alter the significance of female sexuality."'9 In the images mentioned above, the candle continually oscillates between the itself and its dis- genital phallic -roo traction. The flame of the candle becomes, 2. Le Corbusier,Two Nude Women at the Table,nod. ?)1995 in place of the phallus, a representation of the scar, violence, and fear of castration; yet, it serves to displace this fear, as "traditional" fetishistic objects do, through the overvaluation of a mediating substitute.20 Through their placement in his work, Le Corbusier visually objectifies women by submitting them to (unreturn- able) voyeuristic gazes, making them into (R) 194AtssRgt oit ..SAEPrs objects of male desire. In many cases, the drawings suggest a voyeuristic view of women in which the point of vision sug- gested by the drawings implies an abnor- mal positioning of the artist-in many cases as if he were hidden (as in Two Nude Womenat the Table, n.d. [drawing 54 Corbusiers o nget(wih C.Ar t Peri.. chi"s from LCS], or Two Women, n.d. [drawing 13,L r R s e R / D P 47 from LCS]). In other cases, he portrays . the women caught "in the act" by his voyeuristic activities (as in Woman and Leaf, 1946 [plate 14 from AMC]). The gaze of Le Corbusier, in these, dominates these women by finding them in the act of doing something "perverse"and by the position that he occupies in order to be the subject of the gaze. This objectification of

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This content downloaded from 152.118.24.10 on Tue, 17 Mar 2015 06:57:47 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions subjection. The sculpture Le Petit Homme (1944) portrays a small man whose penis around the "the little SN wraps him; title, man," is a French vernacular expression for the penis. This sculpture, as a libidinal subconscious representation, give us a glimpse of Le Corbusier's image of himself.24 Simi- larly, many of his drawings and paintings portray the men as dominating women. L Zeynep Celik, for example, argues that Le Corbusier's depiction of Algiers in the cover sketch for Podsie sur Alger as a goat- headed well-endowed woman caressed by a . hand, perhaps that of the architect, shows ..•• ... the mastery over the feminized body of the colonialized territory-the prostitute and the conquered.25 In Composition, 1959 (drawing 170 from LCS), containing a Ift similar motif, we find a naked woman with the backdrop of the city, seen depicted from a boat, as would have been the case with Algiers, awaiting the arrival of the colonizer. The colonizers are portrayed as bulls, a traditional metaphor for masculin- 4. Le Corbusier,Composition, 1959 ? 1995 ArtistsRights Society(ARS), N.Y./SPADEM, Paris. ity and virility, and the open door behind the woman signifies her as welcoming their women by the male gaze is clearly evident was precisely what Olympia did not pos- arrival. Another set of paintings and in the photograph of Charlotte Perriand sess. She failed to occupy a place in the dis- sketches portrays women in relationship to on the Le Corbusier and Perriand chaise course on woman [of the nineteenth traditional fetish objects-in one case, longue, where she is made into an acces- century]."22Although Perriand is arranged ropes (as in Two Bathersand Dog, ca. 1931 sory of the furniture. By allowing the skirt with the correct amount of distance and [plate 13 from AMC]). This depiction por- to flow downward, her legs are revealed height (not as close or as high in relation trays a need to be able to control women, and thus fetishized and shown as objects of to the viewer as Olympia), she appears to on one hand, and emphasizes, on the other desire. However, most important, Perriand reveal herself to the viewer in an unknow- hand, the role of the fetishistic object, never acknowledges the viewer.21 Unlike ing way by the natural falling of the skirt. which serves subconsciously as a sadistic Manet's Olympia, the photograph does not In contrast, Olympia appears to object to punishment for the lack of the phallus.26 depict an opposing gaze confronting the her viewing and hides herself from us photographer, but rather shows a voyeur- while, at the same time, she dares us and istic scene: the unknowing woman and the confronts our look. The photograph of Le Corbusier:Photographs photographer, and audience, that looks at Perriand offers us, as in the traditional of a MaleArchitecture her. If we compare both, we see in Olym- nude paintings, an "infinite territory on pia a recalcitrance about the traditional which spectators are free to impose their Issues similar to the ones previously men- representation of a woman who not only imaginary definitions."23 tioned in relation to the paintings and confronts and resists our gaze, but one Finally, we can see that Le Corbusier's drawings can be found in many of the who "turns, inevitably, on the signs of portrayal of men reinforces stereotypes and photographs attributed to or composed by sexual identity .... [For] sexual identity attitudes about male virility and female Le Corbusier. By presenting a single view-

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This content downloaded from 152.118.24.10 on Tue, 17 Mar 2015 06:57:47 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions point, the camera or photograph implies a the front facade, usually the one with the constructed look that can be related to main entrance to the building, as the main scopophilic drives as well as to the desires facade. This picture, obviously one of im- of the subconscious. We find that Le portance in L Architecture Vivante because Corbusier's photographs show the impor- of its size and prominence in the book, fo- tance of men and the masculine in archi- cuses specifically on the side that houses I.. tecture through the positioning of women the cars. In this case, Le Corbusier has "muFn '?? within their socially constructed "rightful gone against traditional representation and place" in the house, showing the (male) portrayed the most important aspect of the gaze as one of the driving forces that con- villa: the machines. The priority for Le trol his architecture.27 Corbusier is to show where the machines 5. Side elevationof the VillaSavoye, from L'Architecture Vivante Le Corbusier constantly asserted that will be located, and by doing so, he disre- (EditionsAlbert Morance, 1931). ? 1994 ArtistsRights Society the house was a machine for living. The gards the living occupants of the house. (ARS),N.Y./SPADEM, Paris. reference of the machine was used not only Similarly, the picture that "synthesizes" his for the house, but also for painting and life architecture, the first plate in L Architecture In many of the photographs, Le itself. His own carefully constructed im- Vivante, is of an airplane; the caption Corbusier places women in their socially age, for example, was that of a "machine" claims that architecture-and, by implica- created space. In one of the interior photo- or a mass-produced human being: He al- tion, the machine-is not simply a lan- graphs of the Maison Cook, the woman is ways wore a black suit, white shirt, and guage of forms, but rather is something placed in the kitchen by virtue of her hat "owl" glasses. There is no doubt that the that must stand in harmony between na- being left there. Similarly, the male, or machine also became the generating ele- ture and human creation. In this case, the public, spaces in the Villa Savoye are de- ment in Le Corbusier's architecture. The machine dominates nature, however. The scribed and inhabited by the fragments that curvilinear shape on the ground level of airplane, according to Freud, represents are left behind by the men in the photo- the Villa Savoye, for example, was ob- the male organ, not only by its shape, but graphs-be it a hat and coat or a hat and tained as a result of the maximum turning also by the means that "enable it to rise in cigarettes or even a machine. We never see radius of a car. This insistence on the ma- defiance of the laws of gravity."30 This a purse or a lipstick left as a forgotten ob- chine can be equated with the phallus and domination of nature is also depicted by ject in the "public" spaces. In another pho- masculinity. The machine, in Freudian Le Corbusier through the siting of the tograph of the Villa Savoye, a woman is terms, represents all that is male: activity buildings themselves as removed from na- shown entering the house from the back, or and power. By claiming that his houses ture-as phallic fetishized objects in the servants' entrance.31The woman is thus rel- were machines, Le Corbusier, therefore, landscape-yet the relationship that they egated to the role of servant, yet Le assigned to them a gendered distinction as have with nature is one of visual control. Corbusier assigns to the male the primary male, because a "regular" house would be This is most evident in the Villa Savoye, entrance by the fact that he has left his pos- passive by nature and therefore female.28In where the windows frame the landscape sessions on the table right next to it. The some of the photographs, man is specifi- and allow man, in a mechanical or photo- photographs of these buildings suggest a cally translated by Le Corbusier as a ma- graphic way, to analyze and therefore con- temporality of the man as he traverses the chine. The small modeling figurine that trol it visually. Even objects that are clearly spaces of the houses, but the viewer is not inhabits the Maison Cook, for example, is contextualized-for example, the photo- allowed a glimpse of him, only the remain- the machine that inhabits these spaces and graph of the Villa Shwob in L'Espirit ders and hints that the viewer has just the one that also points or focuses our gaze Nouveau or the photograph of New York missed him, as the open door in the to the windows, corresponding to, accord- in the "Architectureor Revolution" chapter kitchen of the Villa Savoye shows.32 ing to Colomina, the mechanical eye of the of Vers une Architecture-are decontextu- The photographs of the kitchens in film camera.29Another photograph shows alized to show the machine's importance the Villa Savoye and the Villa at Garches one of the Villa Savoye's side facades, la- over nature and to reinforce the fact that are two of the most enigmatic photographs beled as the main facade, deviating from man (phallus) is superior to and dominates that contain the fragments of the user. traditional architectural representations of woman (nature). Their careful setup and the deliberate

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This content downloaded from 152.118.24.10 on Tue, 17 Mar 2015 06:57:47 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 7. Entryhall of the VillaSavoye, from L'Architecture Vivante (EditionsAlbert Morance, 1931). ? 1994 ArtistsRights Society (ARS),N.Y./SPADEM, Paris. 6. Page fromL'Architecture Vivante (Editions Albert Morance, 1927), depictingthe juxtapositionof the libraryand the kitchen of the MaisonCook. ? 1994 ArtistsRights Society (ARS), N.Y./ SPADEM,Paris. placement of the objects, the loaf of bread, and the fish, are obvious signs that they were carefully placed and not necessarily scenes from everyday life. The kitchens are completely devoid of any life with the ex- ception of these objects. These photographs, as within pornographic depiction, use fetish objects that allow the viewer to enter safely into the feminine space, architectural or visual, by disavowing the threat or the memory of castration. In both pho- the main elements-the bread, tographs, 8. Rearelevation of the VillaSavoye, from L'Architecture Vivante the fish, the creamer, the teapots-serve a (EditionsAlbert Morance, 1931). ? 1994 ArtistsRights Society (ARS),N.Y./SPADEM, Paris. fetishistic function by their shape and their character. The teapot, for example, can be said to represent the phallus through the ground, which to Colomina signifies the Throughout many of the photo- shape and placement of the nozzle. The passage of the man through the space, graphs, the male gaze, used to position and fish is a standard metaphor, according to symbolizes the female genital orifice, control women, can be seen as the creative Freud, for the male organ. The fan, as a which can only be opened by the male force behind the architecture. One of the machine, contains the element of activity key.33 In Le Corbusier's eyes, modern ar- more problematic photographs is of the and control over nature, and therefore rep- chitecture or his own architecture, is the Immeuble Clarte. In it, we see a woman in resents man. The open door in the back- realm of men. the interior of the house looking at what

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This content downloaded from 152.118.24.10 on Tue, 17 Mar 2015 06:57:47 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions appears to be her husband on the exterior, denoting the spaces of femininity and masculinity as discussed by Pollock. However, there is a third figure: a voyeur, hidden in the shadows and intently looking at the woman. He objectifies her, and she does not return his gaze. The third figure creates a voyeuristic space that resembles Robert Doisneau's Un Regard Oblique (1943); the woman becomes the object of the "joke" played by the photographer, the voyeur, and her husband.34As in Doisneau's photograph, Le Corbusier's photograph places the real scopophilic power in the margins. The woman, whose look is concealed from the viewer, becomes the object of the voyeur's vision. The male gaze, as in Un Re- gard Oblique, is the centered focus of the that it comes from 9. Kitchenof the VillaSavoye, from L'Architecture Vivante photograph, regardless (EditionsAlbert Morance, 1931). ? 1994 ArtistsRights Society the margins. Mary Ann Doane, who elabo- (ARS),N.Y./SPADEM, Paris. rates on Doisneau's photograph, argues that by negating and framing the woman's gaze, the spectator's pleasure is created. The woman becomes the butt of a "dirty joke." In both photographs, according to Freud's standards, the joke is played by the fact that "the object of desire-the woman-must be absent and a third person (another man) must be present to witness the joke . . . the person to whom the smut is addressed.""35 For the joke to work, the third spectator al- luded to is the viewer of the photograph and this person must be male. The joke in both photographs operates "as the struc- tural exclusion of woman."36 This power of the privileged male viewer over the woman reinforces what was found in Le Corbusier's drawings and paintings. The architecturalpromenade in the Villa Savoye can similarly be read as an element that serves to objectify woman as she traverses space. In the movie L'Architecture d'aujourd'hui, directed by Pierre Chenal in collaboration with Le Corbusier, we see a 10. Kitchenof the Villaat Garches,from LArchitecture Vivante woman the Villa (EditionsAlbert Morance, 1929). ? 1994 ArtistsRights Society walking through Savoye. (ARS),N.Y./SPADEM, Paris. Colomina describes the sequence:

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This content downloaded from 152.118.24.10 on Tue, 17 Mar 2015 06:57:47 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions ... And it is there [the inside of the house], halfway through the interior, that the woman appears in the screen. She is already inside, already con- tained by the house, bounded. She opens the door that leads to the terrace and goes up the ramp towards the roof garden, her back to the camera. . ... Her body is fragmented, framed not only by the camera but by the house itself, behind bars.... The woman continues walking along the wall, as if protected by it, as the wall makes a curve to form the solarium, the woman turns too, picks up a chair, and sits down.... But for the camera, which now shows us a gen- eral view of the terrace, she has disap- peared behind the plants. That is, just 11. Exteriorbalcony of the ImmeubleClarte, from L'Architecture Vivante(Editions Albert Morance, 1930). ? 1994 ArtistsRights at the moment when she has turned Society(ARS), N.Y./SPADEM, Paris. and could face the camera (there is nowhere else to go), she vanishes.37

As we have seen previously, the camera acts as a voyeur, following a woman whose gaze never confronts us and who therefore never acknowledges the viewer. She is objectified by the camera. The architectural promenade, as described by this film, becomes something like a fashion ramp on which the woman is to be seen "parading her goods"-her body as an object of desire-as she travels through the spaces of the house. Every level of the house is allowed a view of the ramp. The woman, Colomina claims, is framed by both the camera and the house, in particular, the mullions of the windows. The fragmentation of the female body in the film-in section by the floor slabs of the house and in elevation by the window mullions-shows a sadistic objectification of the woman. In both cases, the image and fragmentation created by the house display and make into 12. Stillfrom L'Architecture d'aujourd'hui, 1929, directedby fetish the mutilated female PierreChenal (with Le Corbusier).? 1995 ArtistsRights Society a "punishing" (ARS),N.Y./SPADEM, Paris. body. This is not only a fragmenting and

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This content downloaded from 152.118.24.10 on Tue, 17 Mar 2015 06:57:47 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions punishing dislocation, but also one that can be seen as an objectivizing one. By placing the woman behind a grid of measurement of the house and mullions (as Albrecht Diurer had done in his 1525 woodcut of an artist drawing a reclining model), Le Corbusier has placed the woman in a visually controlled position. The fenetre en longueur similarly becomes the controlling device of nature by suggesting that the image the viewer sees is framed by a rhythmic grid, which Colomina has interpreted as "the architectural correlative of the space of the movie camera."38 By the same token, however, the fenetre en longueurcan be read into, from the outside in, as in the photograph of the Immeuble Clart6, where it serves to frame for analysis the inhabitant of 13. Studyat the MaisonChurch, from L'Architecture Vivante the house who, in this case, is a woman. In (EditionsAlbert Morance, 1930). ? 1994 ArtistsRights Society contrast to this, the section of the film on (ARS),N.Y./SPADEM, Paris. the Villa at Garches shows the architect himself walking through the house. We see him drive up to the house, walk through its becomes the spectacle that guides us window. The camera unaided, and there- spaces, and ignore the daily occurrences of through the house, whereas the man creates fore the architect as camera and machine it. As soon as we see Le Corbusier's face in and moves the narrative.We see the impor- for seeing, has provided this image. Le this segment, we see him as a film character tance that he has through his arrogance and Corbusier has looked at himself in the playing his part, which, according to the the way that he majestically traverses the Lacanian mirror and the Other that he has system of visual relations, posits the impos- spaces of the house. Le Corbusier becomes found is what he desires to be: a machine. sibility of our voyeurism."9 In this case, we the hero of the narrative;he is the one who This is no ordinary machine, however; it is see Le Corbusier playing the traditional has given life, through his genius, to an idea a machine for seeing. A machine that con- role, within the economy of filmmaking, as that has become the architecture we now trols through its gaze by paralyzing time. the mover of the narrative whereas the admire. Le Corbusier reinforces his role as the woman in the Villa Savoye can be seen as The manifestation of these ideas-of privileged viewer by becoming the em- constituting a resistance to narrativization. man as machine, man as voyeur or privi- bodiment of seeing. As Christian Metz Teresa de Lauretis writes that: the descrip- leged viewer, and Le Corbusier's own asso- points out, he does not identify with the tion of plot construction is established "on ciation with both-can clearly be seen in a image itself because the primary identifica- the single figure of the hero who crosses the photograph of the Villa Church. In it, we tion has already taken place in his child- boundary and penetrates the other space. In find the standard remains that denote the hood, but rather he identifies with the so doing the hero, the mythical subject, is male qualities of the architecture: the hat process itself: the all-perceiving subject.42 constructed as human being and as male; he and the open books (perhaps referring to According to Jacqueline Rose, this identifi- is the active principle of culture, the estab- men as knowledgeable or academic).41The cation begins the construction of the lisher of distinction, the creator of differ- picture, however, reveals the traces of the imaginary ego: ences. Female is what is not susceptible to architect himself as the one who frames the transformation, to life or death; she (it) is image and through whose eyes we see the [Placing at the point of identification an element of plot-space, a topos, a resis- room. This is the camera that we see re- in the mirror, which sets up the ego tance, matrix, and matter."40 The woman flected in the mirror next to the picture as an imaginary instance,] a specific

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This content downloaded from 152.118.24.10 on Tue, 17 Mar 2015 06:57:47 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Urbild or construct, therefore, which operatingwithin the architecturalsystem. naissanceFlorence, Rende Neu Watkins (Colombia: from then on functions as the in- The dangerof this, of course,lies in the re- Universityof South CarolinaPress, 1969), p. 207. stance of the command- of the and ideolo- 9. Ibid., p. 210. Imaginary, production stereotypes 10. Ibid. ing both the illusionary nature of the gies created through a patriarchalsystem. 11. Beatriz Colomina, "Le Corbusier and relationship between the subject and This becomesespecially problematic when Photography,"Assemblage 4 (1987): 18. the real world, and the relationship women themselvescontinue these modesof 12. In this case, for example, I concentrated on Le Corbusier's L Architecture Vivante between the subject and the identifi- self-identification and representation,re- (Le Corbusier and P. Jeanneret, Editions Albert cations which form it as "I." The maining within the establishedcodes and Moranc6), in particularthe early from confusion at the basis of an canons of architectural photographs "ego-psy- representation, 1927-1931, four to eight yearsafter Versune Archi- chology" would be to emphasize the without giving a second thought to their tecture. relationship of the ego to the percep- originsand theirimplications. 13. JacquelineRose, Sexualityin the Field of Vision 231. tion-consciousness system over and (London:Verso, 1986), p. 14. Mary McLeod, "Furnitureand Feminin- against its role as fabricator and fabri- ity,"Architectural Review (Jan. 1987): 43. to the cation, designed preserve Acknowledgments Nevertheless,Le Curbusierdid hire Perriand subject's precarious pleasure from after seeing her work at the Salon d' Automne of and 1927. impossible non-compliant real.43 I wish to thank Ewa K. Lajer-Burcharth, 15. Le CorbusierSecret (Berne: Mussee can- Michael Hays, D. Michelle Addington, tonal de Beaux-Arts,1987). The mirror into which we see pro- and an anonymousreader for their insight- 16. Richard Ingersoll, Le Corbusier:A Mar- vides Le Corbusier with a coherent image ful comments on earlierdrafts of this pa- riageof Contours(New York:Princeton Architectural for self-identification. This view of his per. I especiallywant to thank Denise Ivy Press, 1990). identification with 17. It is to note that ca. imaginary an object for Dea, without whose criticismsand interesting Woman, insights 1940 20 from shows a red seeing and its machine qualities again this (plate AMC), violent paperwould not have been possible. mark over the woman's This mark can be to their in his work. genitals. points importance read as the violent and sadistic feature of castration In conclusion, the work of Le that Le Corbusierplaces on her. This drawing,in my Corbusier reveals, the marksthe in Le Corbusier'sdraw- through drawings, Notes opinion, change paintings, photographs, and built work the ings from an aversion to women's genitals to an overfetishization of them. It is also to problems that he encounters in the repre- interesting 1. I referhere to male architectsas the "tradi- note that in Le Corbusier'slife, 1940 marksthe sentation of the feminine, his aversion to- pro- tional"gender for the profession. fessional separation between Le Corbusier and his ward it, and the "fear"that it to represents 2. Griselda Pollock, "Modernity and the cousin, PierreJeanneret. According to Perriand,the him. Having its basis on a patriarchal sys- Spacesof Femininity,"in Visionand Difference(New two complemented each other perfectly; Le tem, the work reinforces the standards and York:Routledge, 1988), p. 56. Corbusierand Jeanneret,she concluded in an inter- 3. Ibid., 66. view, "should not be It should also be rules set up by that system about the place p. separated." 4. 68-69. For the noted that also marksthe outbreakof the war and behavior of and toward women in soci- Ibid., pp. Pollock, paint- 1940 ings by Cassatt and Morisot show, in many in- and Le Corbusier'smove from Paris. an of the decisions Le ety. Through analysis stances, a clear distinction between the spaces of 18. Sigmund Freud,"Leonardo Da Vinci and Corbusier has made about the depiction of masculinity and femininity through the use of a Memory of His Childhood (1910)," in The Stan- his architecture, we can see not only that it boundarydemarcation devices that separatethe inte- dardEdition of the CompletePsychological Works of rior or feminine from the exterior Vol. trans. is specifically gender-based, but also that it space, realm, SigmundFreud, II, James Strachey(Lon- or masculinerealm. don: maintains the traditional modes of space, Hogarth Press, 1957), p. 72 (footnote). For patriar- 5. Ibid., p. 67. more on this, see Rose, in the Field Vi- chal the Sexuality of oppression through representation 6. Jules Michelet, La Femme,quoted in Pol- sion, pp. 225-233. Something similarto Leonardo's of woman as spectacle, through the stereo- lock, "Modernityand the Spacesof Femininity,"p. 69. inability to portraythe sexualact can also be seen in typical gendered divisions of space as male 7. This division was stated earlier in Le Corbusier'sdrawing of GroupSex, 1934 (drawing in which he describesthat 94 from In this case, as with the de- or female, and through the continuation of Xenophon's Oeconomicus, LCS). Leonardo, the god had "directlyprepared the woman's nature piction of the sexual act is inaccurate.The protago- utopian ideals about the role of the archi- for indoor works and indoor concerns" (VII, line nists are portrayed as uncomfortable and undesired/ tect and architecture. By using these photo- 22). Later,the role given to women by the god is to undesirable. Looking toward the viewer with anger, graphs as precedents for contemporary guardthings broughtinto the house (VII, line 25). the man penetrating the woman does so through works, nevertheless, these issues continue 8. Leon Battista Alberti, The Family in Re- what would appear to be the anus. In both cases, this

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This content downloaded from 152.118.24.10 on Tue, 17 Mar 2015 06:57:47 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions failurecan be seen as the failureto representsexuality containing some elements with phallic significance); mesticVoyeurism," in BeatrizColomina, ed., Sexual- in the field of vision by two people who would have and last, woman as phallus(with elementsthat trans- ity and Space (New York: Princeton Architectural been extremelygifted and qualifiedto do so. form her into the phallic image). Mulvey, "Fears, Press, 1992), pp. 98-100. 19. LauraMulvey, "Fears,Fantasies and the Fantasiesand the Male Unconscious,"pp. 7-10. Le 33. Freud, "Symbolismin Dreams,"p. 158. Male Unconscious or 'You Don't Know What Is Corbusier'simages clearlyfall into Mulvey's second 34. It seems interestingto me that Colomina Happening Do You Mr. Jones?'," in Visual and category. completelydisregards this portion of the photograph Other Pleasures(Bloomington: Indiana University 27. In this paper, I concentrate on the early in her articlein Sexualityand Space,even though the Press, 1989), p. 7. work of the grandstravaux of the twentiesand the early photograph appears with the "voyeur" in 20. The candle can also serve as an abject thirtiesbecause I feel that the earlyrepresentations of L'Architecture Vivante and in L'Architecture symbol to Le Corbusierof women's genitals.In Pow- his work are the most "freeflowing," unconventional, d'Aujourd'hui,Dec. 1933, volume 4. The cropped ers of Horror(New York:Columbia UniversityPress, "pure,"and "uncontaminated"by experience. photo that Colomina used appearedlater in the first 1982), p. 169, Julia Kristevadescribes through the 28. According to Freud in his essay "Femi- version of the Le Corbusier Oeuvre Complete de literatureof Louis-FerdinandCdline, the horrorand ninity," when the girl discovers the anatomical dis- 1929-1934 (Zurich:Editions H. Girsberger,1935). abjectionby Celine of what she terms a decayedand tinction between the sexes, she looses the enjoyment 35. Mary Ann Doane, "Film and the Mas- derisive femininity in the image of a candle: of her phallic sexualityand thereforerejects her mas- querade,"in FemmesFatales (New York:Routledge, "Women,you know, they wane by candle-light,they turbatorysatisfaction. With this renunciation,a cer- 1991), p. 30. spoil, melt, twist, and ooze!"... The End of tapersis tain amount of activity is also abandoned, which, 36. Mary Ann Doane, "MasqueradeRecon- a horriblesight, the end of ladies, too." according to Freud, leads the girl into passivity.To sidered,"in FemmesFatales, p. 40. 21. By this photograph,Le Corbusierclearly Le Corbusier,the machine is clearly the territoryof 37. Colomina,"The Split Wall," pp. 103-104. shows that the woman is in no way his artisticcoun- the male and a representationof masculinevirility by 38. Colomina, "LeCorbusier and Photogra- terpart,even though she may have been the force be- its inherentqualities of powerand activity. phy," p. 21. hind his furnituredesigns. She is relegatedthe role of 29. Colomina, "Le Corbusierand Photogra- 39. It is interesting that one review of the woman in the traditional sense of the word by Le phy," pp. 18-21. film in 1931 sees the reinforcementof the film as de- Corbusier-the object of the male gaze and his supe- 30. Sigmund Freud, "Symbolism in noting Le Corbusier's theories or goals that the riority over her. In this photograph, she abandons Dreams," in StandardEdition, Vol. 5, trans. James house is a machine for living as an airplanewould be her position as furnituredesigner to become the ob- Strachey(London: Hogarth Press, 1957), p. 155. See a machine for flying. See PierreChenal: Souvenirs du ject of male desire. also StandardEdition, Vol. 5, p. 357. Cineaste(Paris: Editions Dujarric,1984), pp. 32-33. 22. Timothy J. Clark, "Preliminaries to a 31. This almost inconspicuous detail, barely 40. Teresa de Lauretis,Alice Doesn't: Femi- PossibleTreatment of Olympiain 1865," Screen21/1 visible, appearsto be a mistakeor an impromptuoc- nism, Semiotics,and Cinema, quoted in Mary Ann (1980): 32. currence in the photograph. But knowing Le Doane, The Desire to Desire(Bloomington: Indiana 23. Ibid., p. 36. Corbusier's experience with cropping, decontextu- UniversityPress, 1987), p. 6. 24. Ingersoll,Le Corbusier,p. 13. alization,and so on and his involvementin the setup 41. Whereas, in a different reading of the 25. Zeynep, Celik, "Le Corbusier, of the photographs, this hardly seems accidental. kitchen, the elements in it show the domesticity of Orientalism, Colonialism," Assemblage 17 (1992): Given the fact that thereare at least two photographs women. 71-74. of the same view, probablytaken on the same shoot, 42. ChristianMetz, TheImaginary Signifier: 26. Mulvey, in relationship to Allen Jones, and that both depict the same scene (a woman, dif- Psychoanalysisand the Cinema,trans. Celia Britton, claims that there are three aspects of fetishistic im- ferent in each case, entering through the back door) et al. (Bloomington: Indian UniversityPress, 1975- ages:first, the woman with phallic substitute("tradi- signals that this was obviously set up, planned, and 82), pp. 45-52. tional,"fetish image);second, woman minus phallus, definitelynot accidental. 43. Rose, Sexualityin the Field of Vision,p. punished and humiliated (sadistic fetishism, still 32. BeatrizColomina, "The Split Wall: Do- 171.

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