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Home , Le Corbusier, Villa Fallet

The Vernacular, , and Author(s): Francesco Passanti Source: Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol. 56, No. 4 (Dec., 1997), pp. 438- 451 Published by: University of California Press on behalf of the Society of Architectural Historians Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/991313 Accessed: 25/08/2010 15:50

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http://www.jstor.org The Vernacular,Modernism, and Le Corbusier

mountains, to the ancient of Tirnovo, to FRANCESCOPASSANTI, Cambridge, Massachusetts Bulgarian capital Adrianopolis and Istanbul. om the 1930s to the 1960s, modernist architects showed a On the Danube boat in Hungary, Le Corbusier asked the F clear concern with the vernacular, as witness the work of captain to indicate "un village rest&dans son &tatintegral," a in Finland, Franco Albini in Italy, and Aldo van village untouched by the Western industrial civilization that he Eyck in Holland, or the publication of Bernard Rudofsky's himself came from.4 In the town of Baja he found some Architecturewithout Architects (1964) by the Museum of Modern traditional pottery and commented on "the village potter, Art in NewYork. Le Corbusier's connections to the vernacular whose fingers blindly obey the orders of a centuries old cover an even longer span: he received his early education tradition"; "it is the fingers of these potters that work, not their within a regionalist movement, used vernacular rubble walls in spirit, not their heart."5 his Mandrot in the 1930s and brick vaults in the Jaoul About gypsy musicians at a wedding in he wrote: houses in the 1950s, and showed a continued interest through- "Our beautiful Danube becomes a deity in the song and play out his career. of the Gypsies.... Standing, the chief, a popular bard, sings It is thus natural to ask what role the vernacular played in the song of his people. He invents some phrases, following the the modernist of the , although ships rather emotion that shakes him, but the elements of his song are than folklore come to mind when looking at buildings like the ancient,"and "the Gypsies let the race speak, the great nation Villa 1, and the of this of the from centuries Savoye (Figures 2), although style dead, through songs back.'"6 architecture, variously referred to by the terms "machine Throughout the trip he looked at typical local houses. aesthetic" and "International Style," has been contrasted with In Hungary he noted their plan arranged around a courtyard; traditional vernacular by friends and foes alike. In fact, Le in Tirnovo he noted their living room whose window, more Corbusier's introduction of rubble walls in his Villa Mandrot at wide than tall, reached from wall to wall. In Romania Le Pradet in 1929-1932 is considered indicative of a major and Tirnovo he was struck by the bright color scheme of turning point in his career.1 the houses, repainted twice a year in brilliant with In this article I will limit the question to Le Corbusier and accents of sharp blue, and he commented: "When the blood is focus on two paradigmatic moments: a trip through the Bal- young and the spirit healthy, normal sensualism affirms its kans in 1911 which was probably the central experience of the rights."7 vernacular in his youth, and his design of that modernist icon, It should be noted that, in these places, Le Corbusier the at Poissy in 1928.2 The emphasis will be on the sought not his own vernacular, but that of other people. In process by which Le Corbusier constructed a modernist con- today's parlance, he sought the other,a pure and natural man, cept of architecture and on the question: What role did the in contrast to a Western man corrupted by the turmoil of the vernacular play in that process? The term "vernacular" will be nineteenth century. Le Corbusier's belief in some "original" used in its most generic sense, embracing ethnic, folk, region- purity was common for the period.8 It also reflected the alist, primitive, etc. influence ofJeanJacques Rousseau's ideas on his education, as The Balkan trip, undertaken when he was twenty-three recently highlighted in a book by Adolf Max Vogt.9 years old, was part of a longer tour from Vienna to Istanbul, But if Le Corbusier had hoped to find some intact and Athens, and -a tour which Le Corbusier called his organic vernacular culture, he was painfully aware of witness- Voyaged'Orient.3 In the first part of the tour, particularly de- ing a disappearing one instead. In after the Balkan voted to vernacular things, Le Corbusier took a boat down the tour, he noted that pottery had fallen out of use: people Danube from Vienna to and Belgrade, then traveled preferred ten-liter metal cans (recycled petroleum cans), which land Serbia to by through Bucharest and finally, over the do not break; and he commented that "peoples don't stop at

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FIGUREI: Le Corbusier,Villa Savoye, Poissy, 1928-193 I poetic dreams."'10In Italy, at the end of the trip, he lamented tarity, and sought these in vernacular or ancient settings like similarly that progress was so ugly, in West and East, and that the or , or in examples of functional minimal- "there is nothing left of original things.""' But he concluded ism like railway sleeping , ship cabins, and airplanes.14An that the solution to the ravages of modernization should not argument can be made that Le Corbusier owed this interest to be sought in the example of premodern cultures, because they Rousseau's ideas on the natural life: the more basic and are even more vulnerable than our own.12 paradigmatic, ancient or vernacular a solution is, the closer it On the basis of this brief sample of observations we may ask gets to being "natural" and "original."'15 In this sense, one what was the significance of the Balkan vernacular for Le could talk of the vernacular as a reserve of "original" architec- Corbusier. Like all architects Le Corbusier learned from prece- tural solutions. dent, and during his travels he noted architectural solutions But in fact, during the Hungarian and Balkan part of the for later use. Thus, the Tirnovo window can be seen as the trip Le Corbusier was not particularly intent on recording source of his fenitre en longueur, the ribbon window which architecture. His notes about Balkan houses are skimpy, com- would become one of the defining features of modernist pared with the attention that he lavished on Pompeian houses architecture; and the Hungarian courtyards, which he called in a later part of the trip. The real emotion, in his Balkan "summer rooms," can be seen as leading to the enclosed notes, concerns people and the relationship of people and terrace of Villa Savoye.13 their artifacts. It is through this relationship, more than the In learning from precedent, throughout his life, Le Cor- borrowing of specific architectural solutions, that the Balkan busier was particularly interested in solutions of great elemen- experience affected Le Corbusier's modernism.

PASSANTI:VERNACULAR, MODERNISM, AND LE CORBUSIER 439 "0,-"Om4w"W"*wJIM

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FIGURE2: LeCorbusier, Villa Savoye, terrace FIGURE3: Le Corbusier,Villa Savoye, entrance hall

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440 JSAH / 56:4, DECEMBER1997 To approach the issue concretely one may examine the Villa designed expresslyfor VillaSavoye. But together,they add up Savoye, and in particular its entrance hall (Figures 3-5). One to a ceremonial entry. One is inside, yet not reallyinside the arrives by , gets out under the main box on pilotis, and one house; the ramp, like some inclined , reinforces the finds oneself in the hall. I will focus on three elements. The sense that one has not yet arrived and evokes ceremonial first is the glazing which defines the space: an industrial ramps in the courtyardsof medievalor ancient compounds, glazing, as in factories and greenhouses. The second is the ramps made to be ascended on a horse or a litter; the ramp: an ordinary industrial ramp, like those found in facto- washbasin,in this halfwaysituation, suggests the ablutionsof ries. The third is the washbasin: an industrially produced a ritualentry, for example in a mosque or a church.16 object, of the sort found in any bathroom. Also, the placementof the columns is carefulbut not fussy: These are all ordinary elements, "found" elements, not they are not designed to form a decorativemotif, but seem to

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FIGURE4: Le Corbusier,Villa Savoye, entrance hall

FIGURE5: Le Corbusier,Villa Savoye, entrance hall

PASSANTI:VERNACULAR, MODERNISM, AND LE CORBUSIER 441 VERS UNE ARCHITECTURE 106 DES YEUX QUI NE VOIENT PAS.., 107

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faire mieux que dansouestesl dans la ligne Lea Parthron est ui produit de selectioi applique A un Padversaire parties, d'ensemble et dans tous les dtails. C'est alors rtude pouss e des standart Wtabli.Depuis un si cle d le temple gree organis6 parties. 4alns to us ses 16mets. •j, etait Progrhs. Le standart est nressite d'ordre dans le travail etabli, le de la concurrence imm6- une apporth Lorsqu'un standar est jeu humain. da ablit s es, n pa ar 4iate et violente s'exerce. C'est le match; pour gagner, il faut sur Uestandart s'•tablit des bases certales, non pas arbi-

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FIGURE6: Le Corbusier, pages from the chapter "Lesautos," Versune orchitecture(1923), 106- 107 be there for some commonsense reason. As Le Corbusier touched: men's clothing, shoes, etc.19 For Loos, these were to wrote to a friend in the early 1920s, with obvious pride: "I have urban life what the unpretentious farm was to rural life: in totally lost the taste for the 'motif and I design like any old short, modern vernacular.20Le Corbusier, who absorbed Loos's chap" (je composecomme un vieux bonhomme.)17 ideas in two phases, in 1913 after the voyaged'Orient and then Let us leave aside, for a moment, the larger poetic evoca- again in 1920, extended them to include industrial products.21 tions, and stick to the actual elements from which this place is Muthesius requires a longer discussion. While building put together: as said, ordinary "found" elements of everyday upon Loos's foundation, he was more concerned with indus- life today (in 1928). They have been found in factories, trial mass society and its commodities.22 Particularly relevant is bathrooms, ships, etc. They are standard use-objects, and they his address to a meeting of the Deutsche Werkbund, an are intentionally taken from settings that have not been "de- association of artists and industrialists, held in Cologne in signed" for aesthetic effect. 1914. At that meeting, which Le Corbusier attended, Muthe- Le Corbusier's emphasis on such objects comes from a sius provoked a heated debate by advocating Typisierung(liter- complex discourse about architecture and the decorative arts, ally, typization)-a potent prescription because he used the centered on the concept of Sachlichkeit(factualness), and ambiguities of that German word to conflate two charged developed at the turn of the century in German-speaking discourses and social visions.23 countries.18 Two protagonists of this discourse important for The most explicit and recent of them concerned the evolv- Le Corbusier were Adolf Loos in Vienna and Hermann Muthe- ing structures of industrial society, specifically the cultural sius in Berlin. implications of standardization (one of the meanings of Loos was concerned with the urban bourgeoisie. He found Typisierung)and marketing by brands (Typen), whose unifor- it pointless that decorators and architects try to invent a new mity was expected to promote and embody a new cultural style for this clientele; a style appropriate to modern urban life unity. This discourse had been developed over the previous already existed in those use-objects which architects had not fifteen years by such figures as the sociologist Georg Simmel,

442 JSAH / 56:4, DECEMBER1997 the politician Friedrich Naumann, and the critic Karl Schef- fler. It drew on conceptual structures and reformist concerns from the German academic discipline of political economy, out of which sociology emerged as a discipline in 1909, and ,"pro b ,, whose professors sought a third way between laissez-faire capi- talism and socialism.24 But in visualizing how a unified culture might look, and in the very choice of the root Typ to designate standards and brands, those new facts of modern life, Muthesius implicitly relied on an older and more traditionalist discourse as well- implicitly, because the older discourse had already been inte- grated into the new one ten years before, by two of Muthesius's mentors, Naumann and Scheffler.25 This earlier discourse concerned the stable structures of preindustrial society, with its standard vernacular types (Typen), for example, the Ger- man farmhouse. Its best-known spokesman was the writer Paul Schultze-Naumburg, who in turn drew on the German dis- course on Volkskunstof the late nineteenth century.26 While conscious of changing conditions, Schultze-Naumburg and his friends upheld the continued relevance of traditional types, which should be adapted but not invented anew. They saw these types as solutions perfected anonymously and collec- tively over many generations, representative of their society tt3 precisely because of the anonymity of the process that had embedded the collective identity into the form.27 During the famous debate at Cologne, a Muthesius supporter applied this reasoning to Greek temples, perfected anonymously for 200 years before Ictinus designed the by slightly inflect- ing the type.28 By conflating the two discourses in the term Typisierung, Muthesius bestowed on the products of industry the same ability to embody organic culture that vernacular types were L"~ ??• deemed to thus in of indus- ....~~~g "A•? have, enlisting support expanding trialization concepts originally advanced by those who would rather contain it.29Muthesius dreamt of a modern vernacular- accelerated by intentional Typisierung,but vernacular neverthe- less, "found" in the anonymous developments of modern industrial society. Le Corbusier caught well the range of Muthe- sius's argument and condensed the whole-industry, temples, and all-into two iconic pages of his book Versune architecture

(Figure 6).30 Sachlichkeitis often confused with Zweckmdissigkeit,function- ality. But the discourse on Sachlichkeitwas not driven primarily by a concern with function: it was far more complex, culturalist rather than rationalist. I would argue that a central preoccupa- tion was representativeness,i.e., a matter of character and identity: things describe the identity of a group when they are "facts" produced unselfconsciously by the group, when people do what they have to do, when they worry about use rather than image. FIGURE7: LeCorbusier, , La Chaux-de-Fonds, 1905- 1907 FIGURE8: LeCorbusier, Villa Fallet, detailFIGURE 8: Le Corbusier, Villa Fallet, detail Sachlichkeithad played no role in the early formation of Le

PASSANTI:VERNACULAR, MODERNISM, AND LE CORBUSIER 443 Corbusier, and he absorbed this concept starting only in 1913, new style, even while drawing inspiration from natural elements. after the Balkan trip.31His education had been that of an artist There was indeed a local tradition of splendid farmhouses, and had stressed creativity,within a conceptual framework set by built in the same way for 300 years before industrialization, but and local cultural politics.32These cultural politics L'Eplattenier did not try to reconnect with it (Figure 9).36 are particularlyrelevant to our topic. For the purposes of this article, the position of L'Eplattenier Le Corbusier had grown up in the Swiss Jura, a French- (inventing a style) and the position of Sachlichkeit(finding a speaking area close to the Franco-German linguistic border style that has already emerged anonymously) represent a point within , and at a time when the issue of Swiss of departure and a point of arrival for Le Corbusier, the first cultural identity was heating up.33 In the debate on this issue, before 1907, the second after 1913. Between those points two positions emerged, one based on geography, in the 1890s, came two important experiences in Germany during 1910: his and the other, based on race, after 1900. It was the first of these encounter in Munich with , who inspired the that Le Corbusier absorbed in school from his teacher, the Balkan leg of the voyaged'Orient, and his exposure in Berlin to painter Charles l'Eplattenier.34The proponents of geographic the classicism of , the architect best known for identity argued that all Swiss, German-speaking and French- designing the AEG factories and in whose office Le Corbusier speaking alike, have a fundamental thing in common: they are spent several months.371 I will focus here on Ritter. shaped by the mountains.35 L'Eplattenier's paintings depict William Ritter was a French-speaking Swiss writer, art critic, mountains, and his didactic ambition was to create a regional- and painter from Neuchaitel living in Munich, who would be a ist style and based on the natural characteristics senior friend and mentor to Le Corbusier during the next six of the Jura mountains. L'Eplattenier's influence is visible in years, until well into the First World War.38Two themes were the first house built by his pupil in 1907, the Villa Fallet in La central to Ritter's thinking. The first was his emphasis on roots: Chaux-de-Fonds, where the decoration is based on the motif identity cannot be constructed or willed; it comes from the of rocks and pine trees (Figures 7, 8). history and place into which one is born. Ritter disliked The important point is that L'Eplattenier chose to invent a Americans, urbanized Germans, and Jews, all of them up-

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FIGURE9: Farmhousein the Juramountains near La Chaux-de-Fonds, probably eighteenth century

444 JSAH / 56:4, DECEMBER1997 S ? ?

I TV FIGURE10: Le Corbusier,skyscrapers, from the chapter"Le plan," Vers une architecture, 43 rooted in his eyes.39Accordingly, his art criticism alwaysstarted "found" as the ancestral vernacular, yet issued from the urban from the givens of an artist's situation (ethnicity, cultural cosmopolitan reality of the industrial West, which was winning background, etc.), and then proceeded to analyze the manner out in the world. In short, the Balkan experience prepared Le in which the artist had worked with or against those givens. In Corbusier to absorb, two years later, the particular way in the Swiss debate about identity, he favored the position that which that notion was articulated by Loos, Muthesius, and race determines identity, specifically, that the French-speaking other sachlichtheorists. Swiss have a Latin identity.40 The second theme in Ritter's Regarding style, Le Corbusier had begun to find the notion thinking was his deep attachment to the Slavs, along with an of received cultural forms in Peter Behrens's classicism (classi- interest in peasant life in the Balkans, where he had spent cism, by definition, is a received architectural language, to be several years and collected many vernacular objects.41 learned and not invented).43 Regarding the relationship of Le Corbusier's Balkan trip was informed by Ritter's atti- style and society, he got that notion of received cultural forms tudes. In line with them, Le Corbusier experienced the trip as from Ritter, the inspiration behind the Balkan trip, with his an immersion in cultures grown over centuries, received and insistence that identity is destiny. accepted rather than created and chosen, as the passages quoted earlier record: the fingers of the potter "obey the By the 1920s, when he emerged in Paris as a leading modern- orders of a centuries old tradition"; the gypsies "let the race ist, Le Corbusier had arrived at a point of view quite different speak" through their songs; and so on. from the one he had started from. He had begun within a Not that Ritter was the only source of Le Corbusier's movement seeking to invent a regionalist style; and he had interest in the vernacular; Rousseau has already been men- ended by arguing, with Loos and Muthesius, that modern cul- tioned, and Ritter's attitude was echoed by other writers famil- ture is best described by the work of those anonymous people, iar to Le Corbusier.42But Ritter provided sustained exposure notably engineers, who do not try to invent a new aesthetic. and broad philosophical grounding for the notion that any This conclusion created a problem for somebody like Le real culture is built on previous generations, hence received. Corbusier, who saw himself as a creative artist: what was his Seen in this light, Le Corbusier's experience of the vernacu- contribution going to be? The question had already preoccu- lar in the Balkans had two opposite effects. On the one hand pied German artists and had fueled the Werkbund debate Le (in line with Ritter), it was his first experience of supposedly Corbusier witnessed in Cologne in 1914. In fact, even before organic cultures whose forms are not chosen but received. On Cologne, in a letter of late 1913, written within weeks of the other hand (think of the petroleum cans), the Balkan trip reading Loos, he had envisioned what it would be like to was Le Corbusier's first-and decisive-experience of the design starting from needs instead of aesthetic intent, and had inevitability of Western industrial , seen not as wel- concluded in a sad Ruskinian echo: "That's the huge lamp of come progress but as a tragically unavoidable reality. sacrifice lighting up. And how hard it is to live each hour Taken as a whole, these two experiences opened Le Cor- sacrificing!"44 Eventually, he dealt with the problem in two busier to the notion of a modern vernacular: as integrated and ways, both of them articulated in Versune architecture.

PASSANTI:VERNACULAR, MODERNISM, AND LE CORBUSIER 445 l o"i•!~ ......

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CAPRONi- E XPLORATION La po6-sie n'est pas que dans le verbe. Plus forte est la po6sie des faits. Des objets qui signifient quelque chose et qui sont dispos6s avec tact et talent crient un fait po *ique.

FIGURE I: Le Corbusier, illustrationfrom the chapter "Lesautos," Versune orchitecture,113

The first was to put the focus on geometric formal relation- when he imparted majestic proportions and rhythmic progres- ships, rather than on on the particular shape of things. Thus, sion to his skyscrapers (Figure 10), and when he justified the Le Corbusier defined architecture as the play of volumes proportions of his at Garches through regulating under the light, emphasized the importance of proportions lines.46 This broad emphasis on geometric relationships had a and regulating lines, and stated that the Parthenon soars complex pedigree going back to a modernist emphasis on above other similar Greek temples because of its refined pure form around 1900, to academic artistic theories of the geometric relationships and precise profiles.45 He took this nineteenth century, and beyond them to classical aesthetics.47 approach repeatedly in his designs of the 1920s, for example, The second way in which Le Corbusier dealt with the

446 JSAH / 56:4, DECEMBER1997 problem has already been suggested in discussing the wholistic connection of people with people, and people and larger poetic evocations of the entry hall of the Villa Savoye. techniques.50 There, art is achieved by focusing not on relationships of form Looking backward from the 1920s to Le Corbusier's forma- but on relationships of meaning: a ramp and a washbasin, in a tion, we have seen that, although intense personal experiences place which is inside but not quite so, create a ceremonial like the Balkan trip played a crucial role in forming his notion entry. of a modern vernacular, he did not come to it by himself, but This focus on relationships of meaning had a literary built it upon received discourses. Thus, Le Corbusier's experi- pedigree. It came to Le Corbusier through the French poet ence of the Balkans was informed by certain ideas of tradi- Pierre Reverdy, heir to the symbolist poetry of Stephane tional vernacular, of racial and national identity, that he had Mallarme and, by the end of the First World War, close to absorbed through his friend Ritter. And then, upon the per- cubist painters and Le Corbusier. Reverdy argued in 1917-1918 sonal and ultimately local experience of the trip Le Corbusier that poetry is constructed from elements found in common grafted the sophisticated concepts of Sachlichkeit,developed life and is created when distant realities are brought to- over fifteen years in large European urban centers, concepts gether.aS Le Corbusier said the same a few years later, in the which themselves incorporated ideas about traditional vernacu- caption for the photograph of an airplane cockpit, which he lar and through which Le Corbusier could, in the 1920s, published in Versune architecture(Figure 11). What you see in formulate specific architectural strategies meaningful to a the photograph is the padded edge of a powerful machine; larger urban public. the dials by which you know its performance; the stick by The notion of vernacular in all of these discourses was which you dominate it; the map on which you choose where focused on collective identity, not the variety and quaintness you want to go; the compass by which you know where you are appreciated by picturesque aesthetics, and it embraced all going. In short, the poetic experience of flying an airplane. kinds of artifacts, not just architecture. Around the turn of the Below the picture, Le Corbusier's caption reads: "Poetry is not century, it took on a central role in architectural thinking, just in the word. Stronger is the poetry of facts. Objects that together with classicism, which was about the related theme of mean something, disposed with tact and talent, create a poetic order. At a time of rising mass politics, right and left, such fact."'49 Le Corbusier writes of "la poesie des faits": here, he evocations of collectivity held increasing appeal for reformers has invented, quite consciously, poeticSachlichkeit. of all persuasions, who felt that the nineteenth century had left a legacy of social and artistic disaggregation. To conclude, let us go back to the initial question of this essay: As a conceptual model, this notion of the vernacular was what role did the vernacular play in Le Corbusier's construc- important because it could open architecture to a redefini- tion of a modernist architecture? Its principal role, I have tion. Unlike classicism, which was a closed formal system suggested, was not as a source of architectural motifs, but as a internal to architecture, the vernacular model insisted on conceptual model for a natural relationship between society connecting architecture to something external to it, the iden- and its artifacts, hence between society and architecture; spe- tity of a society; and it further insisted that such connection be a model for the notion cifically, conceptual of modernvernacu- not invented but found. Thus, the vernacular model helped to as the of lar---one naturally issue modern industrial society, open architecture to such "facts" as ships and industrial and as of as the traditional representative it, vernacular of products. On the one hand, this increased openness repre- common parlance had been of earlier societies. sented a difficult challenge for architecture, because it weak- forward in time from the Looking 1920s, this vernacular ened its autonomy as a discipline, hence its continuity and model within modernism a suggests conceptual continuity accountability: with architecture no longer a closed system, it between Le Corbusier's "machine aesthetic" of that decade became more difficult to refine and codify routine design and his "brutalist aesthetic" of the following ones, with its strategies (such as eighteenth-century apartment planning in reference to rural, and manual aes- primitive, building--two ) that could provide standards for teaching and judg- thetics whose contrast has puzzling been a central theme of ment. On the other hand, like all disciplines, architecture has Corbusian literature. The vernacular model was a constant, always been open to influences from other disciplines or the for a natural and articulating persistent hope organic cultures (think of the Italian influence on France during the modern and for a natural of modern society, relationship sixteenth century), and this openness had been growing expo- and architecture. As society Mary McLeod has shown, what nentially since the eighteenth century because of travel and was the sense of where to seek the of changed fulfillment such changes in technology, economy, and society. In the face of hope. During the 1920s Le Corbusier it in the rational- sought this accelerated change, the vernacular model provided a way ist and abstract organization of industry and in its products; to master the process: as we have seen in the case of Le later, disillusioned by them, he sought it in a more direct and Corbusier, it provided a conceptual structure for integrating

PASSANTI: VERNACULAR, MODERNISM, AND LE CORBUSIER 447 the new ideas and "facts" into the discipline of architecture, chastes, les coeursjusqu'ici simples et croyants, les artsjusqu'ici normaux, sains et naturels" (ibid., 121-122). and for broadening its vocabulary and responsibilities.51 12The passage "le public ... naturels," quoted in the previous endnote, continues thus: "Ce quej'ai vu en route m'enlive Ajamais tout espoir en la For StanfordAnderson candeur des races neuves etje porte toutes mes esperances sur ceux qui, ayant commenc6 A l'alpha, sont d6ja bien loin, et connaissent beaucoup. C'est pourquoi je pense qu'il n'y a pas A r6agir. Car l'6puration est une n~cessit6 Notes vitale, et, comme on fuit la Mort, par simple d6sir de vivre on A 1 reviendra,---oui, This essay was first presented as a lecture in the workshop "Modern la sant6 de cette 6poque, sant6 adequate Anos contingences, et, deli, Ala Culture and the Ethnic Artifact," held at the Internationales Forschungszen- beaut&6."(Le Corbusier, Voyage,122.) In this passage, the term "races neuves" trum Kulturwissenschaften in Vienna, 28-31 August 1996, and organized by refers to premodern cultures, which are still virgin, chaste, and simple, to use Akos Moravinszky of the Eidgenossische Technische Hochschule in Zfirich. I Le Corbusier's terminology. And the phrase "ceux qui, ayant commenc 6 a thank Professor Moravinszky and the workshop participants for stimulating l'alpha, sont d6ja bien loin" refers to urban culture and . discussions. I also thank Mardges Bacon, Sarah Ksiazek, Harvey Mendelsohn, 13Other examples are Le Corbusier's Maison Citrohan (1921), an individual and Christian Otto, who read drafts of this article and made useful suggestions. house type based on Parisian artists' lofts and cafes, and his Immeuble Le Corbusier ridicules regionalism in Versune architecture(Paris, 1923), 189, (1922), an ideal apartment complex in which the unit type is based on the cells in the chapter "Maisons en s~rie." In , foes of the modernist Weissen- of Carthusian monasteries. hof housing settlement(1927) ridiculed its non-German character and dis- 14Thus, Le Corbusier claimed that the arrangement of one of his houses at played vernacular elements in their counterdemonstration, the Am Kochenhof the Weissenhof exhibition of 1927 had been derived from railway sleeping cars: settlement(1933): see Richard Pommer and Christian Otto, Weissenhof1927 Le Corbusier, "La signification de la cit6jardin du Weissenhof," LArchitecture and theModern Movement in Architecture(Chicago and London, 1991), 153-157. vivante (spring 1928): 9-15. And while traveling to in 1959 he carefully Le Corbusier's stylistic turn around 1930 is an issue in every major monograph recorded some internal arrangements in his airplane, for later use in bath- on him, for in Curtis, Le Ideas and Forms rooms and kitchens: Sketchbook P59 in Le Le Corbusier 4 example, WilliamJ. R. Corbusier: (New Corbusier, Sketchbooks, York, 1986), where chapter 9 is titled "Regionalism and Reassessment in the vols. (NewYork, 1981-1982), 4: 457. 1930s." 15Vogt, Edle Wilde. The book as a whole argues for the importance of 2The principal publication of Le Corbusier's work is his own Oeuvrecomplmte, Rousseau in Le Corbusier's education at home, in kindergarten, and in 8 vols. (Zurich, 1929-1970). For an overview of his career the standard remains elementary school. Pages 229-235 in particular deal with Le Corbusier's father, Stanislaus von Moos, Le Corbusie, Elemente einer Synthese (Frauenfeld, 1968), an early and enthusiastic mountain climber who built two alpine huts, i.e., basic revised edition Le Elements a Mass., shelter for extreme conditions. entries of Le English Corbusie, of Synthesis (Cambridge, By analyzing diary Corbusier's 1979). For an overview of Le Corbusier's early years see the recent book by father, Vogt shows that he viewed those conditions as a Rousseauian return to H. Allen Brooks, Le Corbusier'sFormativeYears (Chicago, 1997). The literature by "natural" life. Vogt's point is important because it can easily be extended to Le and on Le Corbusier, too vast to list here, can be found in two bibliographies: Corbusier's interest in functional . Darlene Brady, Le Corbusier:An Annotated Bibliography(New York, 1985); and 16The ceremonial aspect of the Savoye ramp is noted in von Moos, Le Christopher Pearson, "A Selected Bibliography of Works on Le Corbusier Corbusier(1979 ed.), 88 (see n. 2), and connected to Renaissance and baroque Published in the 1980s," Bulletin ofBibliography51 (March 1994): 31-52. examples. A medieval precedent is suggested in JfirgenJoedicke, "Die Rampe 3Le Corbusier, Le Voyaged'Orient (Paris, 1966: cited subsequently as Voyage), als architektonische Promenade im Werk Le Corbusiers," Daidalos 12 (June trans. Journey to the East (Cambridge, Mass., 1987). His sketchbooks from the 1984): 104-108. trip are published as Le Corbusier, VoyagedOrient, Carnets (Milan and Paris, The importance of the ramp at the Villa Savoye is not diminished by the 1987: cited subsequently as Carnets). Other important documentation can be spiral service staircase to its left. The ramp is directly in front of the entrance, found in Giuliano Gresleri, Le Corbusie, Viaggioin Oriente(Venice, 1984). while the staircase is to the side and "shows its back" to the entrance; and the 4 Le Corbusier, Voyage,19. The captain suggested the town of Baja, some 100 presence of this subordinate and duplicate itinerary only emphasizes the kilometers south of Budapest along the Danube. ceremonial quality of the ramp. It should also be noted that the exposed spiral 17. Ibid., 16, staircase was not part of the initial concept, and that it appeared when the 6 Ibid., 43. 42, project was scaled down for budgetary reasons: in the first and grander project 116-117. 7Ibid., 21, 55, for the Villa Savoye, the service staircase was entirely hidden, as shown in Le 8Particularly since the publication of Edward Said's Orientalism(New York, Corbusier's Oeuvrecomplte, 1: 186. we are more aware of the 1978), manipulations and epistemological difficulties Catholic churches have basins of holy water near the entry doors, and lurking in any search for origins, or in any from an For a recent have ablution fountains: for distancing other. mosques example, Hagia Sophia, visited by Le anthropological perspective see James Clifford, The Predicament of Culture: Corbusier, had one in the ceremonial court outside. Twentieth-CenturyEthnography, Literature, and Art (Cambridge, Mass., 1988). It should also be noted that Le Corbusier intended the wash basin to have a on Le Corbusier's for Zeynep (elik, focusing projects in the 1930s, finds more prominent location than the one it eventually received, partially hidden colonial overtones in his interest in the non-Western world; but Sybel Bozdo- by a column. In the first and grander project for the Villa Savoye, the basin was on the d'Orientof comes to the gan, focusing Voyage 1911, opposite conclusion: framed by a sculptural curved screen. In the final reduced project the basin is "Le 17 Zeynep (elik, Corbusier, Orientalism, Colonialism," Assemblage (April placed in front of the column, as the published plans show. to the 1992): 59-77; Sybel Bozdogan, '•Journey East: Ways of Looking at the 17 Le Corbusier to William Ritter, 21 June 1922. Bern, Schweizerische Orient and the of Question Representation," Journal of ArchitecturalEducation Landesbibliothek, Ritter Nachlass; copies at the Bibliothbque de la Ville in La 41 61. For our the issue of colonialism is (summer 1988): 38-45, purposes here, Chaux-de-Fonds and at the in Paris. since most of the vernacular and modernist marginal, architecture in question 18 Three points about terminology are important here. First, the literal will be European. It would be more interesting to explore, along similar lines, translation of the word Sachlichkeitis"factualness," but in German the word has the of notion of the Western and older implications any vernacular, not, and a range of colloquial meanings that must be rendered by a number of English but that would contemporary; go beyond the limited scope of this article. terms: "factualness," "matter-of-factness," "sobriety," "objectivity," "realism," Adolf Max 9 Vogt, Le deredle Wilde(Braunschweig, 1996). "functionality," "practicality," "pragmatism." In the context of modernist Le Corbusie,118-119. 10 Corbusier, Voyage, architecture, the terms most used have been "sobriety" and "objectivity." I find " Le Carnet the is Le Corbusier, Carnets, 4, 69; emphasis Corbusier's. About the term "factualness" most precise because it explicitly incorporates the root the Balkans and notre est-il laid? Turkey: "Pourquoi progras Pourquoi ceux qui "fact," Sache,a word that is often used alone in the writings of German theorists ont encore un aiment-ils de nous le mauvais?" sang vierge prendre plus (Le of the concept such as Karl Scheffler. The various meanings of the term are Corbusier, And about the West: "le Voyage,170). public... n'y comprend plus listed in Stanford Anderson, "Style-Architecture and Building-Art: Realist II a en lui rien.. aussi, l'6pouvantable germe qui s'en va ruinant dans les pays Architecture as the Vehicle for a Renewal of Culture," in Hermann ... Muthesius,

448 JSAH / 56:4, DECEMBER1997 Style-Architectureand Building Art, intr. and trans. Stanford Anderson (Santa Theory and Mass Culture Before the First World War (New Haven and London, Monica, Calif., 1994), 38, n. 10. 1996), 121-150; 241, n. 8 for bibliography. On the effect on Le Corbusier of Second, for the sake of simplicity I use the term Sachlichkeitasan umbrella to the 1914 debate see Winfried Nerdinger, "Standard und Typ. Le Corbusier designate a broad cultural discourse extending from the 1890s to the First und Deutschland, 1920-1927," in Le Corbusierund die Industrie (see n. 21), World War. While the concept of Sachlichkeitwas arguably the most common 44-53. and early denominator in that discourse, other concepts such as those of type, 23 The full text of Muthesius's speech is found in Deutsche Werkbund, style, and culture, provided focus as well. Which one of these terms best : Die Werkbund-Arbeitder Zukunfi und Aussprachedariber. . . designates the whole discourse remains an open question. Friedrich Naumann: Werkbundund Weltwirtschaft... 7. Jahresversammlungdes Third, before the First World War, Sachlichkeitwas invoked by both tradition- Deutschen Werkbundes... in Kl1n (Jena, 1914), which also includes the "theses" alists and modernists. Naturally, it was the latter use of the concept that and "countertheses" which preceded the speech, and the discussion that provided the springboard for the modernist generation after the war, and that followed. Extensive extracts are found in Julius Posener, Anfiinge desFunktiona- captured the attention of historians of modernist architecture (including lismus (Frankfurt, 1964), 199-227, and in Munich, Die Neue Sammlung, myself). But it was precisely the traditionalist-modernist tension it accomodated Staatliches Museum ffir angewandte Kunst, ZwischenKunst und Industrie, Der that made this concept so fertile, as will be suggested below. DeutscheWerkbund (Munich, 1975), 85-115. 24 On Sachlichkeitsee Harry Francis Mallgrave, "From Realism to Sachlichkeit This whole discourse is admirably articulated in Schwartz, Werkbund:pages the Polemics of Architectural Modernity in the 1890s," in Otto Wagner,Reflec- 75-81 deal with the history of the disciplines of political economy and tions on the Raiment of Modernity,ed. Harry Francis Mallgrave (Santa Monica, sociology, and pages 121-146 deal specifically with the issue of type and with Calif., 1993), 281-323; Stanford Anderson, "Sachlichkeitand Modernity, or the evolving meanings of the German words Typ,Typus, and Typisierung,but the Realist Architecture," ibid., 323-362; Anderson, "Style-Architecture"; and whole book is important to grasp the larger cultural implications of the debate. Mitchell Schwarzer, GermanArchitectural Theory and the Searchfor ModernIdentity Particularly important as a precedent to Muthesius's speech was Friedrich (Cambridge, 1995), passim. Naumann's "Kunst und Industrie," Der Kunstwart 19, Heft 2 (1906): 66-73, On the relevance of the concept for modernist architecture, the seminal 128-131. Writing about the marketing of industrial products, Naumann spoke essay remains William Jordy, "The Symbolic Essence of Modern European of "types or brands" ("Typen oder Marken") thus connecting the word Typus Architecture of the Twenties and Its Continuing Influence,"JSAH23 (October or Typto industrial mass production. The most apt English term for "Marken" 1963): 177-187, which identifies "symbolic objectivity," i.e., symbolic Sachlich- is "brands" (used in Schwartz, Werkbund,128), but the full range of meanings is keit, as a central conceptual structure of modernist architecture. See also Fritz best conveyed by several English expressions together: "brands," "trade- Schmalenbach, "The term Neue Sachlichkeit,"Art Bulletin 22 (September 1940): marked products," "trademarked models." 161-165 and Rosemarie Haag Bletter, introduction to Adolf Behne, The 25 See n. 29. Modern Functional Building trans. Michael Robinson (Santa Monica, Calif., 26 The pardigmatic text is Paul Schultze-Naumburg, Kulturarbeiten,9 vols. 1996), 1-83. (Munich, 1901-1917). On Schultze-Naumburg see Norbert Borrmann, Paul 19Loos developed this argument in various articles of 1897-1900, later Schultze-NaumburgMale, Publizist, Architekt, 1869-1949 (Essen, 1989). Since gathered in his book Ins Leeregesprochen, 1897-1900 (Paris and Zfirich, 1921; 1897, Schultze-Naumburg had collaborated with Der Kunstwart, a periodical reprint Vienna, 1981). He further articulated the same argument in "Architek- founded by Ferdinand Avenarius ten years earlier, and an important forum tur," DerSturm42 (15 December 1910), later translated as "L'Architecture et le from its inception for the discourse about Volkskunst.Schultze-Naumburg's style moderne," Les Cahiers d'aujourd'hui 2 (December 1912): 82-92, and in reliance on the adaptation of traditional types would, in turn, underlie the " und Verbrechen," first published in French as "Ornement et iconic house designs of Heinrich Tessenow. crime," Les Cahiersd'aujourd'hui5 (June 1913): 247-256; both essays were later It should be noted that Schultze-Naumburg was opposed not to industrializa- in republished German in his book Trotzdem,1900-1930 (Innsbruck, 1931; tion per se, but to its cultural ravages, as pointed out by Christian Otto, reprint Vienna, 1982). "Modern Environment and Historical Continuity: The Heimatschutz Dis- 20 Loos, "Architektur." Loos does not use the expression "modern vernacu- course in Germany," Art Journal 43 (summer 1983): 148-157. Naumann, but the sense of his lar," essay clearly supports it. Scheffler, and Muthesius shared that concern but differed in their analysis of 21 in Nothing Le Corbusier's correspondence suggests that he knew about cause and cure and, ultimately, in their political agendas. Loos at the time of the Balkan trip, although Loos's "Architektur" was 27 For example, in 1897 Alfred Lichtwark praised the "Typus" of traditional in Der Sturm in published Berlin while Le Corbusier was there. In fact, just Hamburg houses, developed during the Middle Ages around the needs and before the on the Danube at the boarding ship beginning of the trip, in a ways of life of shipmasters and fishermen, and then formalized by classicism missed Le Corbusier sketched poignant encounter, a shop window on the during the eighteenth century: Alfred Lichtwark, "Das alte Hamburger Haus" Viennese Graben that his caught attention: it was the Knize store by Loos, not and "Schiffer- und Fischerhdiuser,"later incorporated into his book Palastfenster finished Carnet Le yet (Le Corbusier, Carnets, 1, 56-57). But Corbusier casually und Fliigelthuiir(Berlin, 1899). And in 1904 Schultze-Naumburg wrote that annotated the sketch "a nice store on very the Graben"; he did not seem to people in earlier times "were wary of improvising quickly on their own what know who Loos and this should not as was, surprise us, Loos's architecture and can only be the cumulative work of generations: creating the type, which the had been little and in Viennese writings published mostly publications not artist must fully master in order then to deviate from it according to the specific accessible to Le Corbusier. In easily late 1913 he read two of Loos's articles in task" ("hidteten sich davor, kurzer Hand aus Eigenem heraus das leisten zu French translation, as we know from his correspondence: these were "Architek- wollen, was nur die Arbeitssumme von Geschlechtern sein kann: das Gestalten tur" and "Ornament und Verbrechen" (see n. 19). There is no record of des Typus, den der Kfinstler auswending beherrschen muss, um ihn dann des further contact until when Le Corbusier met in 1920, Loos Paris and began Einzelaufgabe entsprechend abzuwandeln"): Kulturarbeiten,vol. 3, Dirfer und to come to terms with his On seriously thinking. Le Corbusier's debt to Loos Kolonien (Munich, 1908; first edition 1904), 32. see Stanislaus von Moos, "Le Corbusier und in Stanislaus von Loos," Moos, ed., The notion that types emerge anonymously went back to Gottfried Semper, Nouveau. Le Corbusierund l920-1925 L'Esprit dielndustrie (Berlin, 1987), 122-133. a source whom Muthesius mentioned explicitly in his speech "Wo stehen wir" 22 Muthesius as theorist see Hermann On Hans-Joachim Hubrich, Muthesius, (1911), as noted by Schwartz, Werkbund,123. Semper stressed that types arising die Schriftenzur Kunstgewerbe,Industrie in der "Neuen from use and function Architektur Bewegung" (Ber- (for example, the type of a cup) are independent from lin, Posener, Berlin zu einer neuen Architektur 1981);Julius aufdem Wege (Munich, time and place: Semper, KleineSchriften, ed. Manfred and Hand Semper (Berlin with recent 1979), 525-547; Anderson, "Style-Architecture" bibliography. On and Stuttgart, 1884), 269. Schultze-Naumburg used the same argument for the German Werkbund see The German Joan Campbell, Werkbund:The Politics of more nationalistic purposes, focusing on more complex types characteristic of Reformin theApplied Arts (Princeton, 1978). On Muthesius's position about type specific German situations. and the 1914 debate at Cologne see Stanford Anderson, "Deutsche Werkbund- 28Walter Riezler, statement during the discussion at Cologne. Full text in the 1914 Debate: Hermann Muthesius versus van de Henry Velde," in Ben Deutsche Werkbund, Werkbund-Arbeitder Zukunfi. Excerpt in Neue Sammlung, Farmer and to Hentje Louw, eds., Companion ContemporaryArchitectural Thought ZwischenKunst und Industrie, 105-107. (London, 1993), 462-467, and Frederic J. Schwartz, The Werkbund,Design 29As already suggested, by conflating the two discourses Muthesius was

PASSANTI: VERNACULAR, MODERNISM, AND LE CORBUSIER 449 building on the thinking of his mentors Scheffler and Naumann, who had Marc Rydlo, "Helvetus Peregrinus: William Ritter et la Slovaquie," Hispo already coopted a traditionalist and ruralist concept to support an industrial (Bern) (October 1989): 7-20. My point of departure has been the substantial urban argument, for example in 1901 and 1904, when they had pointedly used collection of works by Ritter kept at the Bibliothbque de la Ville, La Chaux-de- two words dear to the traditionalists, Volkskunstand Volksti4to advocate an Fonds. urban and industrial material culture. Karl Scheffler, "Volkskunst," Dekorative 39Ritter's is particularly obvious in his novel FilletteSlovaque. Le Kunst 4/4 (January 1901) in Die Kunst 4 (1901): 140-144; Friedrich Naumann, cycle de la nationaliti (Paris: Mercure de France, 1903), and in his article "Die Kunst im Zeitalter der Machine," Der Kunstwart 17 (July 1904). Scheffler "Magyars, Roumains etJuifs," Demain () 1/19 (2 March, 1906): 10-13. came back to this theme repeatedly in the first years of the century; Naumann His antagonism toward urbanized Germans and Americans can be inferred embedded it in the notion of type with his "Kunst und Industrie" of 1906 (see from Le Corbusier's correspondence with him. 40 n. 24). This position was articulated by the review La VoileLatine, published in 30 Le Corbusier, Versune architecture(Paris, 1923), 106-107, in the chapter from 1904 to 1910: on it see Clavien, Helvitistes.Ritter had a somewhat titled "Des yeux qui ne voient pas... III: Les autos." This chapter was first testy relationship with the review but shared its basic attitude, and a few months published as an article two years earlier in L'EspritNouveau 10 (summer 1921). before Le Corbusier's grand tour he recommended to him a book by the most Without raising the question of its prewar German sources, Thilo Hilpert has extreme of the review's collaborators, Alexandre Cingria-Vaneyre's Les En- already noted Le Corbusier's conflation of industrial and traditional ideals into tretiensde la villa du Rouet (Geneva, 1908), which used the racial theories ofJ. A. an "industrial folklore;" Thilo Hilpert, Le Corbusier1887-1987. Genius. Atelier de Gobineau to support a Mediterranean identity for French-speaking Switzer- derlIdeen,Laboratory of Ideas, Laboratoiredes Ides (Hamburg, 1987), 19, 194. land. On this book see Paul Venable Turner, The Education ofLe Corbusier(New 31 Le Corbusier had certainly been exposed to the ideas of Karl Scheffler York, 1977), 83-91. and Peter Behrens while working for the latter in Berlin in 1910-1911; as 41 Earlier in his life, Ritter had spent time in Bucharest, and had written mentioned in note 21, he could conceivably also have heard of Loos. But extensively about the Romanian painter Nikoulae Grigoresco. He had also nothing in Le Corbusier's letters and notebooks of that time suggests an written numerous articles about the artistic and political situation in Bohemia, interest in sachlich ideas, other than Behrens's classicism. At that time, Le Hungary and Rumania; and he had especially addressed the situation of the Corbusier was concerned with other issues. His tone changed only in 1913 after Slovak minority in articles and two novels, Fillette slovaque (see n. 39) and a trip to Germany, the probable acquisition of the Jahrbuch des Deutschen LEntitement slovaque (Paris, 1910), the latter read by Le Corbusier before his Werkbundesfor 1913, and reading the two articles by Loos in French translation. trip. By early 1914, articles and letters by Le Corbusier show that he was quickly 42At the time that he met Ritter, Le Corbusier was reading extensively while absorbing the new ideas. preparing a manuscript about , "La Construction des villes." His 32Brooks, Formative Years, 23-91. On the importance of Ruskin in his notes mention Paul Schultze-Naumburg, the German theorist and preservation- formation see especially Patricia May Sekler, The Early Drawings of Charles- ist whom we have already encountered. Le Corbusier also mentions Georges de EdouardJeanneret (Le Corbusier)1902-1908 (New York, 1977). Le Corbusier's Montenach and probably read Guillaume Fatio and LUandre Vaillat, three original name was Charles-EdouardJeanneret: he began using the pseudonym preservationists who wrote about Swiss vernacular architecture. All of these Le Corbusier in 1920. authors held ideas in line with those of Ritter, though Le Corbusier (a novice in 33 Alain Clavien, Les Helvitistes;Intellectuels et politique en Suisseromande au dibut their field) seems to have been interested mostly in technical points. Le du sicle (Lausanne, 1993). I thank Fran7oise Frey, the former curator of the Le Corbusier would rehash the ideas of Ritter and of most of these authors in an Corbusier collection at the Bibliothbque de la Ville, La Chaux-de-Fonds, for article written without much conviction for a popular audience in the summer this suggesting important reference to me. of 1913: Charles-EdwardJeanneret, "La Maison suisse," Les Etrenneshelvitiques 34On L'Eplattenier see Sekler, Early Drawings, 1-47 passim, and the exhibi- (1914): 33-39. On Le Corbusier's manuscript about urban design see Brooks, tion Charles 1874-1946 Formative 200-207. Le Corbusier's catalogue L'Eplattenie, (La Chaux-de-Fonds, 1974). Years, manuscript has recently been pub- 35 Clavien, Helvitistes, 13-56. lished as Charles-EdouardJeanneret Le Corbusier, La Constructiondes villes, ed. 36 Brooks, Formative Years,185-191; Schweizer Baudokumentation, Bauern- Marc E. A. Emery (n.p., 1992). 43 hduser der Schweiz (Blauen, 1982), 1-12 with bibliography. Le Corbusier ad- Behrens's classicism was itself part of the same sachlichinterest in modern mired the farms of his region, and twice lived in them, during the winter of vernacular, because it was specifically inspired by German architecture around 1909-1910 and then again in 1911-1912, during the year following his 1800, when the German bourgeoisie first attained a high level of self- Balkan/Mediterranean tour. His reason for living in these isolated buildings consciousness. German critics contemporary with Behrens, like Alfred Licht- had more to do with lifestyle than architecture. Architecturally, his serious wark, Paul Schultze-Naumburg, Karl Scheffler, and Paul Mebes, saw classicism interest began only in the second sojourn, and it reflects the changes in attitude around 1800 as a sort of bourgeois vernacular. But little in Le Corbusier's occasioned the discussed by tour, later in this article. Brooks makes the letters suggests that he understood this implication of Behrens's style while he in his late important point that, work, Le Corbusier came back to his experi- was working for him: his attention was focused on learning the formal disci- ence of these farms, transforming their funnel-shaped hearths into the assem- pline of classicism, an architectural language very different from that of the bly spaces of the Assembly building in (1951-1962) and of the Arts and Crafts aesthetic in which he had been educated. On the return to church in (1960-1965). classicism in early twentieth-century Germany see Stanford Anderson, "The Le 7 About Corbusier's stay in Germany during 1910-1911 and, more in Legacy of German Neo-Classicism and Biedermeier: Behrens, Tessenow, Loos about the influence of on Le general, prewar Germany Corbusier see the and Mies," Assemblage15 (October 1991): 62-87. listed here in order of following, publication: Winfried Nerdinger, "Le Cor- 44 l'6norme lampe de sacrifice qui s'allume. Et combien il est dur de busier und Deutschland. Genesis und "Voillt Wirkungsgeschichte eines Konflicts, vivre chaque heure en sacrifiant!" Le Corbusier to , 21 Arch+ 1910-1933," 90/91 (August 1987): 80-86, 97; Werner Oechslin, "Alle- December 1913, in Le Corbusier'a copybook, Bibliothbque de la Ville, La confluences et magne. Influences, reniements," in Paris, Centre Pompidou, Le Chaux-de-Fonds, LCms89. une encyclopddie(Paris, 1987), 33-39, or, in German, "Le Corbusier 45Le Corbusier, Versune architecture,16, 48-63, 161-182: the defini- Corbusie, famous und Deutschland: 1910/1911," in Werner Le Corbusierim Oechslin, ed., Brenn- tion reads, in full: "L'architecture est le jeu savant, correct et magnifique des an der punkt. Vortrage Abteilungfiir ArchitekturETHZ (Zfirich, 1988), 28-47; volumes assemblks sous la lumibre." Le Corbusier came back to the theme of Rosario De Simone, Ch. Germania E.Jeanneret--LeCorbusierViaggioin 1910-1911 proportions later in his life, with his book Le essai sur une mesure Stanislaus van "Der Fall Le (Rome, 1989); Moos, Corbusier. Kreuzbestliubun- harmonique d l'&chellehumaine applicable universellementModulo,d l'architecture(Paris, gen, Allergien, Infektionen," in Vittorio M. Lampugnani, ed., ModerneArchitek- 1942). tur in Deutschland, 1900 bis und Neue Sachlichkeit 1950. Expressionismus (Stuttgart, *4On Le Corbusier's skyscrapers see Francesco Passanti, "The Skyscrapers and Formative 1994), Brooks, Years,209-253. of the ," Assemblage4 (October 1987): 53-65. On the 38There is no good biography of Some useful information can be Ritter. proportions of the Villa Stein see Roger Hertz-Fischler, "Le Corbusier's 'Regu- found in Josef Tscherv, William Ritteg,enfance et jeunesse, 1867-1889 (Melida, lating Lines' for the Villa at Garches (1927) and Other Early Works,"JSAH43 1958); Josef Tscherv, William Ritter 1867-1955 (Bellinzona, 1971); and Jean- (March 1984): 53-59.

450 JSAH / 56:4, DECEMBER 1997 47Since this paper is not primarily concerned with Le Corbusier's ideas thirties: Christopher Green, and Its enemies (London and New Haven, about form, a sketchy indication of sources will suffice. Le Corbusier's notion of 1987), passim; Christopher Green, "The architect as Artist," in London, Arts "le jeu ... des volumes ... sous la lumiere" was built on the ideas of Charles Council, exhibition catalogue, Le Corbusie, Architectof the Century (London, Blanc, the mid-nineteenth-century theorist, and of Maurice Denis and Julius 1987), 117. Meier-Graefe, two art critics much in view in 1900-1914. His correspondence 49 "La po6sie n'est que dans le verbe. Plus forte est la po6sie des faits. Des shows that he read Blanc in 1908, and he owned books by both critics: see objets qui signifient quelque chose et qui sont dispos6s avec tact et talent cr6ent Brooks, Formative Years, 68, and Turner, Education, 234-235. He certainly un fait po6tique." Le Corbusier, Versune architecture,113, in the chapter titled discussed the ideas of both with his travel companion August Klipstein on the "Des yeux qui ne voient pas... III: Les autos." way to Istanbul. Blanc's ideas, in turn, were an eclectic combination of 50oMary Caroline McLeod, " and Utopia: Le Corbusier from eighteenth-century aesthetics and Platonic and German Idealist notions. The Regional to ," Ph.D. diss., Princeton University, 1985. 51 interest in proportional systems probably came from the late-nineteenth- Stanford Anderson has addressed the question of continuity and change century architectural theorists Auguste Choisy and August Thiersch: see Brooks, in architecture using a conceptual model derived from Karl Popper's theory of FormativeYears, 447. scientific knowledge. See, for example, Stanford Anderson, "Architecture and 48Pierre Reverdy, "L'Emotion," Nord-Sud8 (October 1917), and "L'Image," Tradition," ArchitecturalAssociation Journal 80 (May 1965); and "Types and Nord-Sud 13 (March 1918). Both essays are reprinted in his Oeuvrescompletes: Conventions in Time: Towards a History for the Duration and Change of Nord-Sud,Self defenceet autresicrits sur l'art et la pogsie (1917-1926) (Paris, 1975), Artifacts," Perspecta18 (1982): 108-117, 206-207. 52-60 and 73-75. In the first essay, Reverdy argued that a work of art is constructed through elements taken from life. In the second, he argued that the poetic image is born "from the bringing together of two more or less illustration credits remote realities" ("du rapprochement de deux r6alit6s plus ou moins 6loi- Figures 4, 7, 8, 9. Photographs by the author gnbes"). Christopher Green has pointed out the importance of Reverdy for the All works by Le Corbusier ? 1997 Arts Rights Society (ARS), NewYork/ADAGP, painting ofJuan Gris in the late teens, and for that of Le Corbusier in the late Paris/Fondation Le Corbusier

PASSANTI: VERNACULAR, MODERNISM, AND LE CORBUSIER 451