Le Corbusier, Orientalism, Colonialism Author(s): Zeynep Çelik Source: Assemblage, No. 17 (Apr., 1992), pp. 58-77 Published by: The MIT Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3171225 . Accessed: 12/09/2014 12:01 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. The MIT Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Assemblage. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Fri, 12 Sep 2014 12:01:28 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Zeynep (elik Le Corbusier, Orientalism, Colonialism Zeynepgelik is AssociateProfessor of Le Corbusier'sfascination with Islamicarchitecture and ur- Architectureat the NewJersey Institute banism formsa continuing threadthroughout his lengthy of Technology.She is the authorof The career.The first, powerfulmanifestation of this lifelong in- Remakingof lstanbul(University of terest is recordedin his 1911 travelnotes and sketchesfrom Press, and Washington 1986) Displaying the "Orient"- an ambiguousplace, loosely alludingin theOrient: Architecture of Islamat nineteenth- and earlytwentieth-century discourse to the Nineteenth-CenturyWorld's Fairs lands of Islam in the Middle East and North Africa,and in (Universityof CaliforniaPress, 1992). Corbu'scase, solely to Istanbuland westernAsia Minor.' The formativerole of this voyaged'Orient for Le Corbusieris evident in his theoreticalwork and practicethereafter.2 Refer- ences to Islamicarchitecture and urbanforms appear in his writingsas earlyas 1915 and span his numerouspublications, among them L'Artdicoratifd'aujourd'hui (1925), La Ville radieuse(1933), Quand les cathedralesetaient blanches (1937), and Le Modulor(1949).3 A number of his earlyvillas, such as the Villa Jeanneret-Perret(1912), Villa Favre-Jacot (1912), and Villa Schwob (1916), are inspiredby the Otto- man houses in terms of their interiororganization around a centralhall, their simple spaces,massing, and blank street fagades.The Mediterraneanvernacular with an Islamictouch surfacessporadically in his built work- for example, in the Weekend House (1935), the Roq and Rob project (1949), and the Maison Jaoul (1956) - recordingits most memo- rablemoment with the Notre Dame de Ronchamp (1950- 55), inspiredby the sculpturalmass of the Sidi Ibrahim Mosque near El Ateuf in the Algeriancountryside. In one episode of Le Corbusier'scareer, however, Islam no 1. Le Corbusier,Fathma, 1939 longer only servesas a source of inspirationand reference,but 59 This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Fri, 12 Sep 2014 12:01:28 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions ::::::i:i::ol W. iiiiiiiiiiiiiliiiiiii'iiiiiili'::'":: ::: iiilliiiiiiiiiiiii ii~i .-:iii ::(:::': :::;:-:.c~::i:::::i:::-':"':?'-'';'?:?: ::: :- i: 'i~i'i'i~i~~''i~ii'i:'Sim~ ?:-::::?:: iiiifiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii-i iiiW w .:.::-:_ ::::: o::: iiiii~ii ?:::::::',::_iii iiiiiiiii :~i:i-iiIX -:i I Xi iii~iii ?-: ::::::: - : : ?~: : : -:: iiiiili -:-::;c~:IN : N o: :':X.-i~i: mo-M .:ms:.ii':(: i~~~~i:::::::: iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii :- - -;w iip~iS i iii-ii ii M. ei iiiii i -: i: i-iii.:- X.. i~iiiiiifi::~;:~iiiiiiii'iii : i::::: ox, ---- : .-. -i::~::?i::~:: : l8:::::73X1.: ii~i ..... F..- :: i ii~i~?i:i~i~ii:I~i:':i iiii iiii~i:- :iiiii --.0 i .. 'Xi: This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Fri, 12 Sep 2014 12:01:28 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions assemblage 17 becomes a living challenge:his projectsfor Algiers,developed between 1931 and 1942, attempt to establishan ambitious dialogue with Islamicculture, albeit within a confrontational colonial framework.The most lyricalof Le Corbusier'surban design schemes, these projectshave been discussedat length by architecturalhistorians of modernism.Yet, aside from brief references,their colonial context and ideological implicationsfor French policies in Algeriahave remained uninvestigated- a surprisingoversight given their raison d'etre:the decision to renovatethe city in celebrationof the centennial of Frenchoccupation and in preparationfor its becoming the capitalof FrenchAfrica.4 They have been ex- plained as a parableof Europeanmodernism, as a poetic responseto the machine age, to syndicalism,and so forth, and thus abstractedfrom the "politicalgeography" of colonial Algeria.5Neither have the Algiersprojects been analyzedas part of Le Corbusier'sinfatuation with Islamicculture, on one side, shapedby the legacyof nineteenth-centuryFrench discourseon the "Orient,"and on another,informed by the Parisianavant-garde's preoccupation with the non-Western 2. CharlesBrouty, sketch of the Other in the 1920s and 1930s.6 To fill this lacuna in the casbah, Algiers extensive literatureon Le Corbusier,I will attempt to read the workof perhapsthe most controversialfigure of modernismfrom a shifted perspectiveinformed by recent postcolonialdiscourse. Not surprisingly,architecture and urbanforms constituted the overridingtheme in Le Corbusier'sobservations of other cultures.Nevertheless, they were accompaniedby an inquiry into the social norms, in particular,religious and sexual ones - two of the three realmshistorian Norman Daniel defines as havingcharacterized Islam for centuriesin Europeandis- course.7It is my hope that an interconnectedanalysis of Le Corbusier'sideas on these issues will providea compre- hensive understandingof the architect'svision of Islamas the Other and reveala new level of ideologicalcomplexity within the Algiersprojects. Le Corbusierundoubtedly first encounteredthe "Orient" throughliterature, travel accounts, and paintings.Certain popularauthors, among them Th ophile Gautierand Pierre Loti, appeartime and again in his writings.Furthermore, the 3. Postcardview of Algiers and illustrationsin travelbooks must have shaped Le Corbusier's its terraces expectations.His fascinationwith travelliterature and its 60 This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Fri, 12 Sep 2014 12:01:28 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions ?elik 4. Le Corbusier,sketch of Istanbulviewed from the sea visual media is reflected in his own work,for example,by his that connected the shoresof the city, thus finding something use of CharlesBrouty's drawings of the Algeriancasbah in of the mental image he had constructedback in Europe.In- addition to postcardsin La Ville radieuse.8As will be dis- deed, Corbu surpassedthe formulasof Orientalistdescrip- cussed later, the impact of the Orientalistschool of painting tions by readingthe urbanform analytically:he studied the becomes apparentin relationto Le Corbusier'sstudies of carefulplacement of monuments in respect to topography Eugene Delacroix'sLes Femmesd'Alger in the 1930s, but it that resultedin "summitsformed by reallyenormous is manifested earlierin Istanbulin his speculationsabout mosques"as well as their relationshipto each other in the Islamicwomen and the privatelife of the Muslim family. calculatedcomposition of the skyline." In a rerunof innumerabletravel accounts, Le Corbusierfirst Like Istanbul,Algiers makes a powerfulimpression from the viewed Istanbulfrom a boat in May 1911. "Thuswe did ap- sea - one that has also been recordedunfailingly in travel proachby sea,"he wrote, "likein old times, to watch all these literature.Theophile Gautierdescribed the approach: things unfold."9This was a strategycarefully planned by A whitishblur, cut into a trapezium,and dotted with silver sparkles Corbu, in orderto be welcomed an formed by image already - eachone of thema countryhouse - beganto be drawnagainst in his mind he had read. by everything Nineteenth-century thedark hills: this is Algiers,Al-Djezair, as theArabs call it. We travelbooks on the Ottoman followeda set capital pattern, approach;around the trapezium, two ocra-coloredravines define the opening pages describingthe strikingimpressions of the thelower edges of the slopes,and shimmer with such a livelylight city from the sea, divided into three settlements by water, thatthey seem as thoughthey are beds to two suntorrents: these with Istanbulon one side of the Golden Horn, Galataon the arethe trenches. The walls, strangely crenellated, ascend the height other, and Uskiidaryet fartheraway on the Asian banksof of theslope. ... Twopalm trees and four windmills stand out in the Bosphorus;they talkedat length about the harmonyof contrast:the palm tree, symbol of thedesert and the patriarchal of andcivilization. colors, the skylinedefined by domes and minarets,and the life; thewindmill, symbol Europe reflectionsof the built and naturalforms on the water.To Le Algiersis builtas an amphitheateron a steepslope, such that its Corbusier,then, this was a familiarmoment, much rehearsed housesseem to havetheir feet on theheads of others.Nothing is in his imagination.'0He knew what he wanted to see: strangerfor the French eye thanthis superposition of terracesin the colorof chalk.... Whenthe distance gets smaller,we perceive I wantStamboul to sit herGolden Horn all white,as rawas upon amidstthe general glare the minaret of a mosque,the dome of a sufi chalk,and I want to screechon the surfacesof domeswhich light convent,the mass of a greatedifice, the Kasbah.14 swell the heap of