Essay Page - 2
Le Corbusier, the Swiss architect who was one of the founders of modern architecture, characterized the
house as a “machine for living.” It must have been a wonderful thing to say when he said it. After the Great
War industrialization held a promise of a new life and a new order. The antiquated stylistic trappings of the
nineteenth century could be scrapped. Daily living could be governed by the orderly and rational processes of
manufacturing. The Villa Savoye, built in the late twenties in Poissy, France is a masterful realization of Le
Corbusier’s purist concepts:
It looked manufactured. It certainly did not look like a nineteenth century house; it looked more like a device. It
was wonderful. Corbu re-thought almost every idea not only of what a house should look like, but how it
should work, in the way an engineer would design a new machine for a new use.
It is the nature of design that it encompasses everything. Corbu was incapable of designing a “machine for
living” that wasn’t at the same time beautiful. Corbu knew as well the importance of things that are not
precisely quantifiable. “Space and light and order. Those are the things that men need just as much as they
need bread or a place to sleep,” he said. Not just a machine, “The home should be the treasure chest of
living.”
We are living in another era of technological acceleration. If we are designing or building houses, it is easy for
us to be swept into the idea that our computers and cell phones should operate everything in our living
environment; perhaps “a house is a computer for living.” Or we might find ourselves trying to capture the idea
of the “family homestead” that embodies our feelings of life accomplishment and success. We should do
something more like what Le Corbusier did. At a time when the world was new, he went back to the
fundamentals of design, and looked at each part of the process with new attention and care.
Take a look at his 1923 book his 1923 book Vers Une Architecture ("Towards a New Architecture"), which is
purported to be the best-selling architecture book of all time.
house as a “machine for living.” It must have been a wonderful thing to say when he said it. After the Great
War industrialization held a promise of a new life and a new order. The antiquated stylistic trappings of the
nineteenth century could be scrapped. Daily living could be governed by the orderly and rational processes of
manufacturing. The Villa Savoye, built in the late twenties in Poissy, France is a masterful realization of Le
Corbusier’s purist concepts:
It looked manufactured. It certainly did not look like a nineteenth century house; it looked more like a device. It
was wonderful. Corbu re-thought almost every idea not only of what a house should look like, but how it
should work, in the way an engineer would design a new machine for a new use.
It is the nature of design that it encompasses everything. Corbu was incapable of designing a “machine for
living” that wasn’t at the same time beautiful. Corbu knew as well the importance of things that are not
precisely quantifiable. “Space and light and order. Those are the things that men need just as much as they
need bread or a place to sleep,” he said. Not just a machine, “The home should be the treasure chest of
living.”
We are living in another era of technological acceleration. If we are designing or building houses, it is easy for
us to be swept into the idea that our computers and cell phones should operate everything in our living
environment; perhaps “a house is a computer for living.” Or we might find ourselves trying to capture the idea
of the “family homestead” that embodies our feelings of life accomplishment and success. We should do
something more like what Le Corbusier did. At a time when the world was new, he went back to the
fundamentals of design, and looked at each part of the process with new attention and care.
Take a look at his 1923 book his 1923 book Vers Une Architecture ("Towards a New Architecture"), which is
purported to be the best-selling architecture book of all time.
