Le Corbusier's Integration of the Male and the Female

LE CORBUSIER’S INTEGRATION OF THE MALE AND THE FEMALE WITH A

Michio KATO The University of Tokyo, Japan

ABSTRACT: Le Corbusier designed rational (logical) and universal architecture, composing geometrical volumes. He called it “male architecture”. However, he designed another type of architecture; “female architecture”. If we see him as a painter, it is more difficult to understand why he exclusively created the rational (logical) and universal images. How should we interpret the fact? It is a purpose of this paper to reply this problem. For the purpose, first, we returned to the birth of his following three images; (objet type), (objets à réaction poétique) and . Next we showed his texts on the birth of his (image de taureau), and reconfirmed the following two processes; 1) the birth from a rotated with deformation of and their association with other images, 2) the birth from by his assembly of . Thirdly, we paid our attention to a united image where is integrated into . The final image shows the unity of the male and the female. Finally, we reconsidered his as follows. 1) If we understood linguistically, the is the most masculine (=the opposite pole of the feminine) because a bull is not castrate, 2) considering its formation process, it could include the double images, those of male and female, and 3) it units them into one image.

Keywords: Le Corbusier, male and female, Mediterranean. ………………………………………………………………………………………………………....

1. INTRODUCTION commodities or musical instruments which It is a general view that Le Corbusier has they called (objet type), under designed rational and universal architecture, geometrical rules. If we see him as a painter, composing geometrical volumes. He called it it is more difficult to understand that he had “male architecture”. However, he designed exclusively created logical and geometrical another type of architecture. He called it (masculine) images. In fact, he summarized “female architecture” [1] [7]. When Chapel of his activity as a painter, late in life, as Ronchamp, Notre Dame du Haut was built in follows. 1955, its apparent curved image puzzled many modern architects, including one of the In my drawings and paintings, I have most famous British architect; Starling, J. always shown only women, or images, or In another view, Le Corbusier had been also a symbols, or geology of women [9] (my painter. He proposed Purism with Ozenfant, translation). A. in 1918 [13]. Purists aimed to make their universal picture on universal rules; geometry. How should we interpret the fact? It is a In their purist era Le Corbusier (Jeanneret) purpose of this paper to reply this problem. had painted exclusively industrial daily First, we returned to the birth of his following

three images; , (objets à réaction poétique) We had to go back before the manifestation of and . Next we showed his Purism to reach his beginning of the (image image> in his pictures. He drew <> (gouache and pencil) in 1904, two processes; 1) the birth from and from 1908 to 09, he drew many female with deformation of nude studies (pencil sketches). Moreover, he and their association with had drawn many after the other images, 2) the birth from > in 1912. poetic reaction> by his assembly of . Thirdly, we paid our female nudes, referring to the classic pictures, attention to a united image of for example; <> of Angre. In and . The final image shows addition, he used many religious or his integration of the male and the female. mythological subjects such as <>. Finally, we would like to reconsider the However, in and after 1917 when he came up united , connecting to his image to Paris, [3] he came to draw many nude of ancestor and The Mediterranean See. sketches directly without classical or mythological mediation, such as <> (gouache, 1917). Then, he eliminated after 2.1 Object-types his declaration of Purism. The revival went Purism inherited Cubism critically. If we underground and advanced from about 1925 summarize the reason why they limited their when he parted from Ozenfant. The picture motifs to , it is as prostitute's sketches, which he drew in 1925, follows, 1) pictures should be general and remained. It was after his lecture tour in the universal like science, 2) machines were the South America in 1929 or his visit to Algiers most modern and advanced, 3) machines in 1931 that he began to draw nudes could mediates between science and pictures. positively. He made many nude sketches In other words, the reason why they chose using local prostitutes as a model. as picture motifs is that they It is in 1932 and afterwards that he repeated believed the generality and universality based as his main pictures motifs of on the mechanical selection learned from an oil painting. natural selection in science. However, their limitation of picture motifs to 3. BIRTH OF was loose when they first Birth of was deferred for a proposed Purism in After Cubism (1918). while. He described two examples about the Then, their limitation had been established birth. First, "sketch of <> through their practice of pictures until the 2nd resulting from the turned-around a still life Purism exhibition in 1921 (at gallery Druet, motif; 1951" [4] [11]. It shows the transition from January 22, 1921 to February 5) [4]. to from that were Purist motifs. 2.2 Objects with poetic reaction Another description about the birth shows After 1928 when Jeanneret began to sign Le generation of from . It was seen in his picture motifs. He used stones, bones, roots, poetic text corresponding to the Lithograph and shells that he had picked up. Then he “C 1 body” in Poem of the Right Angle [8] called them “objects with poetic reaction (see Figure.1). (objets à réaction poétique)”. 2

The elements of vision are summoned Angle (1955) that he first made the integrated together. The key is a image. His poetic text in of Poem stump of dead wood and a pebble of the Right Angle is as follows [8] (see both picked up in a Figure 2). sunken Pyrenean lane. Ox and plough passed They (men) are but all day before my window. half, and feed Because I drew it and redrew it life but by half the ox – pebble and root – And the second half comes became a bull. to them and binds And good or evil comes to all those who encounter each other!

Figure 1: “C1 Body” in Poem of the Right Angle [8]

In this text, we could observe two processes in connection with the birth of . The first was the process of observing the real oxen or cows. He had drawn many sketches of cows in India in his sketchbook [8]. The other process of constituting the bull was the assembly of the pebbles or roots, i.e., , gathered in the Pyrenees. Figure 2: Integration of and 4. INTEGRATION WITH

IAMGE> There exists the following work (lithograph) This text showed a man was integrated into a integrating the two different images; , which is an image> and , sharing common imperfect half, is joined or complemented contours. Probably it is in Poem of Right with the , which is the second

half. It suggests the marriage of Le Corbusier It was in 1952 that he conceived and made the and his wife Yvonne. corresponding original drawing of Poem of In the color lithograph corresponding to , he composed the image where the completed Unités d'habitatioin a Marseilles branch of a tree like the horns of a bull was that is one of his most important architectural embedded on the woman’s head (see Figure. works after World War Ⅱ. 3). It shows the bisexuality where is a noun originating from a verb image> and the were unified. “unify" (unir). On architectural field, it is translated into a "unit" or a "housing unit" in many cases. However, I would like to emphasize the following meaning, i.e., different things would be set to one, in other words, integration.

5. INTEGLATION WITH OPPOSITE IMAGES We would like notice the process of the integration as follows (see Figure 5).

Figure 3: “C 4 Body” from from Poem of the Right Angle [8]

Figure 5: The process from and He repeated the image of Figure 2 in his set of to drawn in 1953 and published in 1965 (see Figure 4). 1) Neither nor goes to directly. 2) Rather, both of them once go toward , which is the opposite pole of , because a bull is not castrate and the most masculine. 3) Afterward, he integrates the two images; and . In summary, it shows a reversed J pattern. We could understand that he generates a new , which complements both sides, integrating the two images in the opposite poles, via . Figure 4: “Unité #1” in Unité drawn in 1953, Generation of the by published in 1965, private collection combination of the opposing images also

connotes several following fusions of various , which integrated the other two oppositions; 1) marriage of man and woman, images and unified into , may 2) combination of the male principles and be the image of Le Corbusier himself, who female principles, 3) fusion of reason and would like to be Creator of the world. sensitivity, etc. In fact, he entrusted his fusion of the 7. CONCLUSION oppositions such as "the sun and the moon" or We could interpret his as "Apollo and Dionysus". follows; 1) If we understood linguistically, the was the opposite pole of 6. INTEGRATION INTO (the most masculine) because IMAGE> a bull was not castrate, 2) it could include He published Between the Two (Entre deux) sharing the same contours, 3) that is a set of prints composed in his later it mediated the double image; the male and years (1964). As mentioned above, he the female. summarized his career as a painter as follows. Finally, we would like to summarize his early career as follows. In his formative years, he In my drawings and paintings, I have expressed his ideal regulations, i.e., always shown only women, or images, or in After Cubism. However, they were symbols, or geology of women [9]. linguistic and lacked concreteness. He produced and changed the concrete If we take into consideration the through his practice, i.e., , as a above-mentioned integration of the two painter. images, we should not read only in his works. It is because the Creator of the world, which is entrusted to the is possible to be the in the opposite pole. Paradoxically, like to mention the next text in Quand les we can read (i.e., his wife) in cathédrales étaient blanches (When (i.e., himself). cathedrals were white) (1937) [6]. Furthermore, and , which intervened As years have passed, I came to think still between the generation processes of , could be integrated into via (see Figure 6). the forms under light. I follow a command of harmony, beauty, and modeling. There always existed in my ancestor as follows; the freedom of thinking and the indifference to the material good, It is the freedom of the thinking regularly drawn on a nomad occurrence (my underline and translation) [6].

Naturally, the person connected firmly to "the queen-Mediterranean" aims at the Mediterranean Sea, i.e., the . In fact, he made a set of prints; the sea is Figure 6: Integration into always present (1962), late in life. Here he via entrusts his past to the . The origin of

the title was seen un the following text of The [8] Le Corbusier. Le poem de l'angle droit. voyage of the east (Le voyage d’orient, 1966), Fondation Le Corbusier/Éditions which was completed in his last year and Connivences (1989). Originally published published one year after his death. by les Éditions Verve (1955) [9] Le Corbusier. Entre deux. (1964). In The see is always present, white-blue at Galerie Taisei ed. Le Corbusier noon, flamboyant at sunset, serves to « Entre-deux ». Galerie Taisei (1994). measure the heights of mountains barring the horizon;…(my underline and English [10] Le Corbusier. Le voyage d’orient. Les translation) [9]. Éditions Forces Vives (1966). [11] Moos (von), Stanislaus. Le Corbusier In this way, Elements of a Synthesis. The MIT Press was a fatal being for him. Probably, it should (1979). not be accidental that he said that he was a [12] Musée des beaux-arts de La person fatally connected firmly to the Chaux-de-Fonds ed. Le Corbusier Peintre Mediterranean Sea. It corresponds to the avant le Purisme. Musée des beaux-arts goddess linked to a . de La Chaux-de-Fonds (1987). However, it also corresponds to , [13] Ozenfant, A. et Jeanneret, C. E. Après le which is also a projection of Le Corbusier Cubisme (1918). Reprint: Altamira, who is the Creator of the world. Furthermore, Paris (1999). was always present and could accept all his past. ABOUT THE AUTHORS REFERENCES Michio KATO, Dr. (Eng.), is a professor of [1] Evans, R. The Projective Cast. The MIT the University of Tokyo. His research Press, (1995). interests lie in architectural drawings, [2] Franclieu, F. et al. ed. Le Corbusier especially of Le Corbusier. He published the book titled, Le Corbusier – Space and Sketchbooks Volume 2 1950-1954. The Time in His Architectural Drawings (2011) Architectural Foundation and The MIT and The Birth of Le Corbusier as a General Press, Cambridge (1981). Artist- critic, painter, architect (2012). His [3] Hayashi, M. , “ Prints of The architect Le e-mail and postal address is as follows: Corbusier”, The Prints Arts. Abe [email protected]. Department of publishing Tokyo Japan, 50-55 (2007) General Systems Studies, Graduate School / [4] Jornod, N. et Jornod J.-P. Le Corbusier College of Arts and Sciences, The catalogue raisonné de l'oeuvre peint Tome University of Tokyo, 3-8-1 Komaba, Meguro-ku, Tokyo, Japan, 153-8902. Ⅱ, Skira (2005). [5] Kato, M. Coexistence of Geometry and geology - Considering Le Corbusier. Proceedings of The 16th International Conference on Geometry and Graphics. 159-166. (2014). [6] Le Corbusier. Quand les cathédrales étaient blanches. Plon (1937). [7] Le Corbusier. Le Modulor. Éditions de l'Architecture d'aujourd'hui. (1950)