Notre Dame du Haut at Ronchamp. Image © Flickr user scarletgreen licensed under CC BY 2.0

聚焦：勒•柯布西耶
Spotlight: Le Corbusier

由专筑网李韧，王帅编译

Charles-édouard Jeanneret-Gris出生于瑞士小城La Chaux-de-Fonds，人们更习惯称呼他的笔名“勒•柯布西耶”（ 1887年10月6日——1965年8月27日），他是20世纪最杰出的建筑师，同时他也是具有挑衅意味的作家、机智的城市规划者、天才画家、独一无二的辩论家，柯布西耶甚至影响了世界上许多伟大的人物，并且留下了杰出的建筑作品，他的作品遍布世界。

Born in the small Swiss city of La Chaux-de-Fonds, Charles-édouard Jeanneret-Gris—better known by his pseudonym Le Corbusier (October 6, 1887 – August 27, 1965)—is widely regarded as the most important architect of the 20th century. As a gifted architect, provocative writer, divisive urban planner, talented painter, and unparalleled polemicist, Le Corbusier was able to influence some of the world’s most powerful figures, leaving an indelible mark on architecture that can be seen in almost any city worldwide.


© Willy Rizzo

在家乡学习建筑之后，时尚且年轻的Jeanneret不喜欢Chaux-de-Fonds的传统气息，因此他去了意大利，然后来到布达佩斯和维也纳。最后，他来到巴黎，在那里和佩雷学习了长达8个月，并且学习了德语，这样方便在Peter Behrens的柏林工作室就职，Peter Behrens是一位现代主义先驱，因为其为AEG的设计作品，因此也常常被认为是第一位工业设计者。

After studying architecture in his hometown the young Jeanneret rejected the provincial atmosphere of Chaux-de-Fonds, traveling to Italy then on to Budapest and Vienna. He finally came to Paris, where he spent time working for August Perret, then learned German in order to work in the Berlin office of Peter Behrens, the proto-modernist who is often cited as the first ever industrial designer thanks to his work for AEG.


Weissenhof-Siedlung Houses 14 and 15 / Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret. Image © Hassan Bagheri / hbarchitectural.com

在巴尔干和希腊旅行一段时间之后，Jeanneret又回到家乡Chaux-de-Fonds执教，在一战期间则一直留在那里。1914年至1915年间，他发表了第一步理论作品《多米诺住宅》，Jeanneret把它视为自由住宅而进行大规模的建造。

After a further period of travel around the Balkans and Greece, Jeanneret returned to Chaux-de-Fonds to teach and remained there throughout the First World War. In 1914–15 he developed his first major theoretical work, the Dom-Ino house: a reinforced concrete frame which he posited as a mass production system for free-plan housing.


Villa Savoye. Image © Flavio Bragaia

一战之后，Jeanneret又回到了巴黎，在那里他与妹妹Pierre Jeanneret共同进行建筑创作，在后来的职业生涯中，他们也常常合作。后来他还和法国立体主义画家Amédée Ozenfant会面，共同提出了“纯粹主义”的宣言，后来两人共同于1920年出版了杂志《新精神》，在杂志中，Jeanneret便开始运用众人皆知的笔名“柯布西耶”，这种做法在当时巴黎设计师圈子中十分流行。在《新精神》中，柯布西耶也首次提出了新建筑的5要点，总结如下：

1、底层架空
2、自由平面
3、自由立面
4、横向开窗
5、屋顶花园

After the war, Jeanneret returned to Paris, where he began an architectural practice with his cousin, Pierre Jeanneret, with whom he would continue to collaborate for most of his career. He also met Amédée Ozenfant, a French cubist painter with whom he developed the manifesto of “Purism,” and the pair went on to publish the journal L’Esprit Nouveau from 1920. It was in L’Esprit Nouveau that Jeanneret first adopted the pseudonym of Le Corbusier, following the fashion among Parisian artists of the time. It was also in L’Esprit Nouveau that Le Corbusier first developed his famous “five points of architecture,” which can be briefly summarized as follows:

1、Raise the building on “pilotis,” freeing the walls of their structural function.
2、With the walls freed of their structural role, a free plan should be employed.
3、Similarly, the facade should be designed freely.
4、The horizontal ribbon window, enabled by the free facade, should be used to light rooms evenly.
5、The roof should be flat and host a roof garden, replacing the ground space that is occupied by the building.


Swiss Pavilion. Image © Samuel Ludwig

1923年，柯布西耶出版了他的著作《Vers une architecture》，翻译为“迈向新建筑”，在这本书中，柯布西耶解释了现代建筑的概念，并且将汽车、飞机、luncheon的设计原理结合在建筑之中，同时，在这本书中，他提出“住宅是居住的机器”的宣言，并且总结了早期的设计策略，同时界定了现代主义的设计原则。

In 1923, Le Corbusier published his seminal book Vers une architecture, commonly translated into English as “Towards a New Architecture.” In this book he elucidated his vision for architecture inspired by the emerging modern era, applying the principles of cars, planes, and ships to buildings. It was here that he proclaimed the house as a “machine for living in,” summarizing his early approach to design and defining the fundamental attitude of Modernist architecture.


Villa Savoye. Image © Flavio Bragaia

在柯布西耶的早期作品中，萨伏伊别墅最能表达新建筑五要素，柯布将居住空间向上抬高，并且结合曲线，目的是容纳汽车的转弯半径，而人们可以通过斜坡来到屋面。

但是，萨伏伊别墅是柯布西耶早期作品的制高点，同时也代表了早期风格的结束。肯尼斯•弗兰姆普敦在《现代建筑：一部批判的历史》一书中将柯布西耶的作品分为两个阶段，即1930年之前和1930年至1960年，普兰姆普顿认为，柯布于1935年在巴黎郊区设计的周末住宅中，“传统风格结合材质特征，丰富了纯粹主义抽象与简约的自然特征，从而受到了欢迎。从现在起，材料之间的对比成为柯布西耶作品的重要特征，并非只是单纯的表达方式，这是一种建筑策略”。 [1]

Of the many structures completed by Le Corbusier in his early period, none is more successful in demonstrating his five points of architecture than the Villa Savoye, completed in 1931. Raising the main living spaces off the ground, the lowest floor features a swooping curve designed to accommodate the turning circle of a car, while the roof can be accessed by a ramp.
However, while the Villa Savoye marks the high point of Le Corbusier’s early ideals, it also marked the end of that period of his work. In his book Modern Architecture: A Critical History, Kenneth Frampton separates Le Corbusier’s body of work into two chapters, leading up to 1930 and from 1930-1960. Frampton argues that in the Weekend House completed in the suburbs of Paris in 1935, “the vernacular was being consciously embraced for its material articulation, for its capacity to enrich the abstract and reductive nature of the purist style... From now on the juxtaposition of contrasting materials became an essential aspect of Le Corbusier’s style, not only as an expressive ‘pallette’ but also as a means of building.” [1]


Notre Dame du Haut at Ronchamp. Image © Flickr user roryrory licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

在上世纪30年代第二次世界大战期间，柯布西耶的作品比早期要少了许多，战争结束后，住房委托的金额急剧增加。但是，他现在的作品风格与20世纪如机器般的现代主义有些不同，此时的他更加偏向裸露的混凝土和巨大的建筑规模，这种风格被柯布的许多粉丝们所追随，后人们将它称为“粗野主义”，这个名字来源于法国Béton Brut，意思是混凝土原料。

During the 1930s and the Second World War, Le Corbusier completed fewer buildings than in his fertile early years, but the end of the war saw an explosion in commissions. By now, however, he was working in a very different style to the smooth, machine-like modernism of the 1920s, favoring exposed concrete and monumental scale. Widely adopted and adapted by Le Corbusier’s many followers, the style came to be known as “Brutalism,” so named for the French Béton Brut meaning raw concrete.


Convent of La Tourette. Image © Samuel Ludwig

在接下来的大约15年的时间里，柯布西耶完成了最多著名作品，其中包括马赛公寓、朗香教堂、拉图雷特修道院、哈佛大学卡朋特视觉艺术中心，后者是他在美国的唯一作品。

It was during this period of around 15 years that Le Corbusier completed many of his most admired works, including the Unité d’habition in Marseille (as well as similar designs in Nantes-Rezé, Berlin, Briey and Firminy), the chapel of Notre Dame du Haut in Ronchamp, the convent of La Tourette and the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, his only building in the United States.


Unité d'Habitation in Marseille. Image © Flickr user wojtekgurak licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

在整个职业生涯之中，除建筑作品之外，柯布西耶还引导了现代主义城市规划，与其早期作品相同的是，柯布西耶的城市规划设计更加注重纯粹的功能主义，并且极大程度地考虑了汽车的便利，其第一个规划作品是1922年设计的巴黎当代城市，以及1925年设计的邻里规划，在这个项目中，柯布西耶建议将巴黎大部分的中心地区拆除，取而代之的是网格状的现代主义高塔，然后将这些建筑设置在公园之中，由高速公路连接在一起。10年之后，柯布西耶将这种设计方式结合到光辉城市的构想之中，这些想法同样影响了整座社区的独立村落的设计。

Throughout his career, alongside his architectural work Le Corbusier was a fierce and radical campaigner for new visions of modernist urban planning. Like his early architectural work, Le Corbusier’s urban designs were focused on purely functional design and gave great primacy to the automobile. His first plan, the “Ville Contemporaine” was designed in 1922, and in 1925 he designed the “Plan Voisin,” which proposed to destroy a large area of central Paris to be replaced with a grid of modernist towers, set in a park and connected by a network of raised highways. Ten years later, Le Corbusier expanded this design into the hypothetical “Ville Radieuse,” and these proposals would go on to influence the design of his “Unités” as self-contained villages for entire communities.


Convent of La Tourette. Image © Samuel Ludwig

柯布西耶的城市规划是其对生活和工作的批判，柯布是国际现代建筑协会（CIAM）的主要成员，在1933年举行的第四次会议中，他提出了关于功能城市的几大原则，而这些内容后来则通过《雅典宪章》的形式整理出来。《雅典宪章》是现代城市规划的基础内容，世界各地的许多城市都因此而达到了现代化的目标，在这些城市中，传统有机但却贫困的社区被高层现代主义社区模块所取代，在不同的程度上都取得了成功。柯布西耶在其规划作品中常常保留一些政治因素，他也因此受到了一些批评，他与法国Vichy政府合作，同时还接受了来自Benito Mussolini的罗马演讲邀请。

Le Corbusier’s urban planning forms the basis for much of the criticism of his work and his life. Using his power as a key member of the Congres Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne (CIAM), Le Corbusier presented his principles for the functional city in his Athens Charter, so named after the group’s destination for their fourth meeting in 1933. The Athens Charter became a foundational document for modern city planning, and in Le Corbusier’s name cities all over the world were modernized—replacing traditional, organic and often impoverished neighborhoods with high-rise modernist social housing blocks, to varying degrees of success. Le Corbusier has also been widely criticized for the political connections he kept in his attempts to realize his plans, working alongside the Vichy government of France and accepting an invitation to lecture in Rome from Benito Mussolini.


Chandigarh. Image © Laurian Ghinitoiu

在上世纪50年代，柯布西耶受邀完成了印度昌迪加尔的规划设计，在这个项目中，他也实现了建筑和城市规划相结合的目标。柯布仍然保留功能主义的城市布局，并且设计了三座主要建筑，即秘书大楼、议会大厦，和高等法院。

In the 1950s, Le Corbusier was finally able to realize a synthesis of his architectural and urban planning visions when he was invited to complete the design of Chandigarh, the new capital of the state of Punjab in India. Le Corbusier designed a functional city layout, and for the city’s Capitol he designed three buildings himself: the Secretariat Building, the Palace of the Assembly, and the High Court.


Palace of the Assembly at Chandigarh. Image © Flickr user chiara_facchetti licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

柯布西耶对于当代建筑的影响非常巨大。他奠定了现代主义城市与建筑的设计基础，就当代而言，几乎所有的设计方式都来源于柯布的设计理论。另外，他也建立了建筑的实践方式，作家Hal Foster称柯布西耶是“建筑雄辩家”，诸如库哈斯等当代大师也深受其影响。[2] Alan Plattus在Deborah Gans的著作《The Le Corbusier Guide》中介绍道：

“柯布西耶将半个世纪以来的评论、批评、研究，以及设计，融入到当代的血液之中，柯布西耶自身已经不再是我们所讨论的对象，其理论框架是当代设计的基础。”[3]

Le Corbusier’s influence on contemporary architecture is immeasurable. He helped form the basis of almost all modernist architecture and urban planning, with almost all contemporary theory essentially acting as a continuation of, or a rejection of, his ideals. Beyond that, he established the very way in which architecture is now practiced: writer Hal Foster refers to Le Corbusier as an “architect-polemicist” who helped lay the groundwork for current figures such as Rem Koolhaas to emerge. [2] As a result Alan Plattus, in his introduction to Deborah Gans’ book The Le Corbusier Guide proclaims:

“The effect of half a century of commentary, criticism, research and design has not been so much to situate Le Corbusier as to dissolve him into the collective bloodstream of the century… Le Corbusierhas become not so much an object for our discourse as part of the very ground upon which that discourse must be founded.” [3]


© Nicholas Iyadurai


Chandigarh Secretariat.


Chandigarh Secretariat


Unite d' Habitation.© Flickr User saragoldsmith


Church at Firminy.© Richard Weil


Church at Firminy.© Richard Weil


Mill Owners' Association Building.© motaleb architekten


Villa Roche.© Rory Hyde


Maison du Bresil.© Samuel Ludwig


Centre Le Corbusier (Heidi Weber Museum).© Samuel Ludwig


Expo '58 + Philips Pavilion.© Wikimedia commons  wouter hagens


Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts


Unité d’Habition, Berlin.© Thomas Lewandovsk

参考

1、肯尼斯•弗兰姆普敦：现代建筑：一部批判的历史（Thames & Hudson, 2007）p.225
2、Hal Foster：“Bigness，”伦敦书评，2001年11月19日
3、Alan Plattus：“Le Corbusier: A Dialectical Itinerary”于《The Le Corbusier Guide》（普林斯顿建筑出版社，2000）p.12

References
1、Kenneth Frampton: Modern Architecture: A Critical History (Thames & Hudson, 2007) p.225
2、Hal Foster: "Bigness," London Review of Books, November 19th 2001
3、Alan Plattus: "Le Corbusier: A Dialectical Itinerary" in The Le Corbusier Guide (Princeton Architectural Press, 2000) p.12