Windows amputation The early century assist to the amputation of the wonderful and effective bourgeois window, cutting with the complements that make possible a nuanced control of relations between inside and outside. There are a big amount of studies about the “fenetre en longueur”, and the discussions between Perret and Le Corbusier about the windows shape has been largely analysed, but I don’t know any work considering that derogatory abandonment. Perret Le Corbusier Our study distinguishes three orientations and a breakdown in the consideration that Le Corbusier gave to the window filters looking through the windows he designs for his buildings. - Firstly, until 1929, LC groups the purist villas with large bare steel and glass windows. - There is a jog between the years 1929 and 1933 where observation, travels and problems with customers force him to considerer the solar protection and to start with the brisoleis’ design - A second orientation, the obsession of the neutralizing wall, overlaps slightly with the chronology of the above, and makes crises in the second half of the thirties. The second phase of this orientation extends in the forties and fifties with the penance imposed by the previous errors. - Finally, in the fifties, at age 65, LC really starts worrying for thermal comfort. 1923-29 Villas of naked windows All villas from this era are conceived as manifestos, such as monuments engendered by an illusion, the purism of strictly pictorial source. With the ”fenetres en longueur" or large rectangular stained glass windows the only concern of the architect is the drawing of cold formed steel carpentry. Le Corbusier in his late thirties is a self-taught who "scorns what unknowns". In this case of the tradition of comfort home, he thinks he has nothing to learn from the bourgeois window. His interest seems limited to light, but in these interior spaces he only cares about their hygienist and quantitative components: much more light and if possible reaching all corners. The metalwork draws beautiful geometric compositions but the absence of filters shows the least concern for the comfort. He knew blinds, he had used them in Pessac, but consided them unimportant and probably very annoying for the minimalist composition. The case of the Ville Savoie is paradigmatic. The great window is formed by two large sliding glass doors opening face the terrace has a southeast orientation. His office had provided, at least there, a roller blind. The detail was ready, or better a succession of them but the first budgetary squeezes made that only protection disappear, the unique in all of the “purist villas”, and the living room was dazzled by the Sun, wrapped in an excess of light and overly sensitive to the winter cold. 1928-33 Critical years “In the autumn of 29 LC abandoned, almost overnight, his faith in the destiny of purism in the interests of polymorphous sensuality which would brighten up his art with an unmatched plastic exuberance”. LE CORBUSIER Kenneth Frampton Ed. Akal Arquitectura Madrid 2000 (París 1997) - pág. 75 But the damage was already done; architects half around the world had taken this geometric minimalism as a guide. There is a crisis in treatment of gaps. Three external events may have driven the transformation of their facades: - The trip to Barcelona and Morocco - The pressure from disgruntled customers - The technical and economic impossibility of neutralizing wall . Le Corbusier visits Barcelona from 15 to 17 May 1928. In a sketch (4.7) LC draws the front patio with its galleries and writes: “interieur à Barcelone: Tout en verre avec volets roulants" (Carnet C11, 1928) The Clarté building originally had enormous roller blinds. It is possible that the handling difficulties lead to the placement of different types of awnings only after a year. “It is obvious that by 1930 he has becoming concious of what he had done, what environmental qualities had been mislaid in his attempts to abolish de load-bearing wall. He was to discover, now, any number of good reasons ‘to fill this space up again when it has been given to me empty.’ […] To fill it up with curtains to exclude sun and staring eyes, […] or to start thickening up the glass membrane with sun-breakers on the extrerior […]” THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE WELL-TEMPERED ENVIRONMENT Reiner Banham Ed. Architectural Press, London 1969 - pag 155 These quote mixes solid and holes virtues and not explicitly recalls the traditional window, but it is clear that all that the bourgeois window had was missing in the “pan de verre”. The misunderstanding continue a couple of decades because LC formally adopted brisoleil spectacular but does not solve the exact adaptation to each situation, does not allow the user intervention and takes no comfort beyond sunscreen. Housing for the Plan Macià in Barcelona (1932) fitted with a large sun protection louvers as moving brisoleils. The obsesion for neutralizing wall “Reason dreams produce monsters” Some thoughts may explain Le Corbusier scorn for traditional filters. The architect, little knowing of the builders tradition, faces problems with abstract thinking that shuns the case and looks for the concept. That mentality leads him to reject different solutions for each climate and place to propose a new general solution: "Every country builds houses for its own climate. In this time of international penetration of scientific techniques, I propose: a single building for all nations and climates, the house with the exact breath "PRECISIONS Le Corbusier Ed Apostrophe Barcelona 1999 Collection: Poseidon - page 85 Le Corbusier is already used to build forms based on the expressive possibilities of a building systems that did not yet exist. Why not building a simple windows to be reasonable when ready neutralizing windows?. His elementary idea involves wrapping buildings with a double skin of glass, inside which injects an air at the precise temperature to reach desired comfort without significant losses. The solution does not take into account the thermal losses through the outer pane of glass, defect that made three or four times more expensive than air conditioning systems that those used in the United States then. "This development had been assessed in 1930 by the American Blower Corporation who concluded that the system consumed four times more energy than air conditioning systems already on the market at that time”LA CASA ERRÁZURIZ DE LE CORBUSIER Y PIERRE JANNERET: BASES PARA UN PROYECTO EJECUTIVO Claudio Vásquez Zaldívar UPC 2007 – pág 800 Double glazing in Maison Jeanneret In the Villa Schowb in 1916, LC builds up a high double glazed, in which central space introduced, apparently, a heating pipe. It is the closest Le Corbusier will be from the neutralizing wall. THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE WELL-TEMPERED ENVIRONMENT Reiner Banham Ed. Architectural Press, London 1969 – page 61 "According to a technique which long before had become standard in the construction of factories of clocks, the Villa Schwob is equipped with double glazing and heated by a forced air system with pipes embedded in the walls“LE CORBUSIER Kenneth Frampton Ed. Akal Arquitectura Madrid 2000 (París 1997) - page 16 Still in two later projects constructed large double glazings, but the space between them seems occupied by gardening elements as if it was a greenhouse. Project of duoble glazing in maison Guiette in Bélgica 1926. First version non built. fig V-84 Images from Claudio Vásquez Zaldívar UPC 2007 – page 802 y 806 But actually LC never built a neutralizing wall. The projects for Soyuz Center included one, but was not build. The amazing thing is that with that contempt of "transitional" techniques limitations, is willing to design large simple windows where it is seen a clear need for a neutralizing wall. He prefers to save the image of the future than making a minimal concession to habitability. This is the case of the Cité Refuge and Swiss Pavilion where reality forces him to be confined to a single glass wrapping which makes uncomfortable its occupants life. Studio behind the huge window Swiss Pavilion(above) and main façade of the Pavilion (left). The Cité Refuge, the closest building to his outlandish ideas, front glasses were fixed and ventilation was entrusted to a mechanic system, who was always insufficient. His occupants life, those called "refugee" is hardly describable. Le Corbusier went on to suggest using a white mole to test the suitability of the environmental conditions. This fact reveals his lack of understanding towards the reaction of users, especially mothers with children stuffed into the tiny cabins. The painful penance Deprotection of the facades of all holes forced more or less radical interventions that Le Corbusier never fully accept, and that lasted the rest of his life. The villas provoked widespread protests over construction problems and lack of comfort. At Stern House, the South front windows show no sunscreen in the original photos. Apparently a few years after the shutters were added, as the picture shows. (probably in 1936, because of his change of ownership) In these years of transition, Le Corbusier put awnings on some of his buildings. We have already mentioned the ones on Clarté building, added soon after its construction. In 1948 LC is offered as an advisor for the restoration of the Cité Refuge whose facade had been completely destroyed. Their concerns are purely aesthetic. Repeated protests by officials and passengers, even the allegations after first occupation have not affected him. However, he is forced to form three horizontal bands on each floor, the lower will be opaque, the average fixed glass and the top operable glass. LA CITÉ DE REFUGE DI LE CORBUSIER Brian Brace Taylor Officina Edizioni, Roma 1979 The addition of a small brisoleil will be practically useless.