The Theory of Practice Le Corbusier and Brutalism

Le Corbusier and Brutalism
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Le Corbusier and Brutalism
Introduction
Brutalism is an architectural style widely used between 1950 and 1980. It is a form of modernism that emphasized the exposure of the basic elements and materials of a building. The design exposed the frame, the mechanical systems, and the support structures to be seen and celebrated (Banham, 2011). Le Corbusier, a French-Swiss architect, was the origin of Brutalism. With a career spanning 50 years and in almost all continents, Corbusier was one of the prominent modernist architects of the 20th century. He was a talented architect, a gifted painter, divisive urban planner, a provocative writer, and devoted polemicist. He left a mark on the world of architecture with buildings in major cities.
Corbusier signature structures comprised of a novel system of reinforced concrete columns that supported the weight of buildings, which allowed interior walls to bear no load providing the option of removing them to make more interior open spaces. Many of his buildings displayed the system of reinforced concrete that was not covered or decorated and was the basis of his aesthetic (Corbusier, 2013). There are examples of Brutalist architecture all over the world today in cities such as Boston, Sydney, New York, and London.
The Brutalist Style
As an architectural style, Brutalism combines aesthetic and ideology. The ideology of brutalism is the visibility of the structural components. Regarding aesthetics, the characteristic of brutalism is the prominence of basic building materials, especially concrete. The term Brutalism is the translation of the French phrase béton but which means raw concrete (Banham, 2011). Hence most Brutalist structures stress on a solid, unadorned and undecorated flat, concrete exterior.
By utilizing the solid strength of concrete, Brutalist architects design buildings that look strong and solid. Brutalist structures appear to have been carved from a single, concrete block and giving a monolithic feel which is created by the uniformity of the exterior materials. The structures are imposing, fortress-like and visually heavy.
Brutalism follows modernism which emphasizes that form should be second to function, architects should let buildings resemble what they are and pay minimal attention to the decorative aspects. Modernism was contrary to the various revivalist movements of the early 20th century that made buildings resembling Moorish mosques, Egyptian temples and Gothic castles, and the brightness and frivolity of the immediate post World War II styles.
Le Corbusier’s Career
Le Corbusier (real name Charles-Edouard Jeanneret-Gris) was born in the fall of 1887 in La Chaux-de-Fonds, a small Swiss industrial city in the Jura Mountains, a section of the Alps just across the border from France. He died in 1965 (Corbusier, 2013). The city was famous for its watchmaking industry. His father was an enameller and a watch engraver and his mother a music teacher in the hope of him becoming a watchcases engraver and encouraged him to study decorative arts. The frequent trips Jeanneret made into the mountains in the region intimately acquainted him with nature and the environment.
After completing his studies in architecture in his hometown, Jeanneret traveled to Italy, Budapest, and Vienna before Paris. In Paris, he worked with August Perret before moving to Germany to work for Peter Behrens. Le Corbusier further traveled around Greece and Greece before returning to his hometown to teach; a place he remained throughout the First World War. The Dom-Ino house: a reinforced concrete frame was his first major theoretical work.
He returned to Paris after the war and started practicing architecture with his cousin, Pierre Jeanneret, a collaboration that lasted most of his career. It was in 1920 that Jeanneret adopted the name Le Corbusier, the same time he formulated the “five points of architecture,” (Banham, 2011):
1 Raising a building on “pilotis” to free the walls of their structural functions
2 A free plan should be used since the walls are free of their structural function
3 In the same way, a free design on the façade
4 Using the horizontal ribbon window to light rooms as enabled by the freed façade
5 A flat roof with a garden roof to compensate for the occupied ground space
In 1923, he published the book “Towards a New Architecture” which contained his initial approach to design and foundations of Modernist architecture. The Villa Savoye in 1931 best demonstrated his five points of architecture and marked the peak of his early ideas.
All through the 1930s and the Second World War, Le Corbusier designed few buildings than ...