alex work in progress
ALEX WRITES IN. HE INTRODUCES US TO LE CORBUSIER. As people move into cities where space is much more limiting, one must be much more thoughtful to how they use their space for self-expression or outwards expression.
He introduces us to the urban masterplan by Le Corbusier, first presented in 1924 and published in a book of the same name in 1933.
The plan championed the values of logic and symmetry of design. He uses the full scale of transportation methods, the smallest paths, feed into larger roads, which feed into a system of high capacity highways and railroads. Like how a small trickle feeds into a creek, a creek into a stream, and a stream into a river, this design championed the masses, the scale of the individual is erased completely and the large repetitive cruciform towers in the center were the high density housing for the inhabitants of this fictitious city. Each individual is but a small piece of a larger picture.
Le Corbusier’s Ville Radieuse, though never realized, remains a blueprint of ambition, where the individual dissolves into the collective, and the city becomes a living organism, pulsating with the rhythms of commerce and industry.