1st Edition
Le Corbusier’s Practical Aesthetic of the City The treatise ‘La Construction des villes’ of 1910/11
Set within an insightful analysis, this book describes the genesis, ideas and ideologies which influenced La Construction des Villes by Le Corbusier. This volume makes the important theoretical work available for the first time in English, offering an interpretation as to how much and in what way his ‘essai’ may have influenced his later work.
Dealing with questions of aesthetic urbanism, La Construction des Villes shows Le Corbusier’s intellectual influences in the field of urbanism. Discontent that the script was not sufficiently avant-garde, he abandoned it soon after it was written in the early 20th century. It was only in the late 1970s that American historian H. Allen Brooks discovered 250 pages of the forgotten manuscript in Switzerland. The author of this book, Christoph Schnoor, later discovered another 350 handwritten pages of the original manuscript, consisting of extracts, chapters, and bibliographic notes. This splendid find enabled the re-establishment of the manuscript as Le Corbusier had abandoned it, unfinished, in the spring of 1911.
This volume offers an unbiased extension of our knowledge of Le Corbusier and his work. In addition, it reminds us of the urban design innovations of the very early 20th century which can still serve as valuable lessons for a new understanding of contemporary urban design.
Discovering the aesthetics of the city
Essay
Chapter 1: Jeanneret’s reading and work on the Manuscript
The task: a study of urban design
Taking stock of the material
The work in its latest form: Jeanneret’s final table of contents
To Munich
Mid-April 1910: Approaching the material
An attempt to date Cahier City II Bridges
Jeanneret studies Sitte’s Städtebau
Gathering material in Munich’s libraries
The urban design exhibition in Berlin
What would be the scope of the study?
Some bibliographical details
La Chaux-de-Fonds: Editing the Manuscript
One final month in Munich: Green space in the city
Cemeteries and garden cities
At Behrens’ studio: No time for urban design
Spring 1911: Big plans and a Laugier excerpt
Chapter 2: The material in detail
Proposition and General Considerations
Proposition – the collective and the universal genius
General Considerations – the situation of urban design circa 1900
Les Eléments constitutifs de la ville – The Elements of the City
Introduction
Des Chésaux – On Blocks
Des Rues – On Streets
Des Places – On Squares
On Squares in Cahiers C.7 and C.8
Murs de clôture – On Enclosing Walls
The unfinished chapters: Green elements in the city
Des Ponts – On Bridges
Des Arbres – Trees as sculptural elements in the city
Des Jardins et Parcs – On Gardens and parks
Des Cimetières – The architectural possibilities of cemeteries
Des Cités-jardins – On Garden cities
Des moyens possibles – On Possible Strategies
Application Critique – La Chaux-de-Fonds: A case study
Chapter 3: 1911 to 1925 – Towards urbanism
The Laugier excerpt as a turning point
Why was La Construction des villes not published?
Urban aesthetics versus the Voyage d’Orient
France ou Allemagne? Reasons against publication
La Construction des villes and Urbanisme
Camouflage
Curved or straight streets revisited
The residential block
Public spaces in the city
Chapter 4: Conclusion
The malerisch versus the monumental
Urban space
Beauté and utilité
The architectural garden and the garden city
A somewhat stupid book, "un livre un peu idiot"?
La Construction des villes: The manuscript
Legend
Part I, Chap. I General Considerations
§1 Purpose of this study
§2 General Principles
§3 The present state of the debate
§4 A fundamental present-day error
Part I, Chap. II The Elements of the City
§1 Introduction
§2 On Blocks
§3 On Streets
§4 On Squares, I
§4 On Squares, II
§5 On Enclosing Walls
§6 Material for On Bridges
§7 Material for On Trees
§8 Material for On Gardens and Parks
§9 Material for On Cemeteries
§10 Material for On Garden Cities
Part I, Chap. III On Possible Strategies
Part II Critical Application: La Chaux-de-Fonds
Appendix: Material for Critical Application, II
Materials: Notebooks
Notebook C.2 – City II Bridges
Cahier C.3 – Cities III (Materials for Blocks, Streets and Squares)
Cahier C.11 – City J Theodor Fischer (Berlin, October 1910)
Cahier C.12 – Roland Fréart (Berlin, October 1910)
Cahier C.13 – Laugier (Berlin, January to March 1911)
Inventory
Tables of contents, overviews
Overview table of contents for ‘On Squares’
Illustrations
Bibliographic Notes
Cahiers: Title Pages
Bibliography
List of illustrations
Biography
Dr Christoph Schnoor is Associate Professor at Unitec Institute of Technology in Auckland, New Zealand. Having published extensively on modernist architecture, with specific focus on the work of Le Corbusier and architectural critique by Colin Rowe, his intellectual biography on Austrian émigré architect Ernst Plischke has been published in 2020.
Translated by Kim Sanderson.
