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What Le Corbusier got wrong and right in his design of Chandigarh

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Re: What Le Corbusier got wrong and right in his design of Chandigarh

#51

Post by dmitriid »

kergonath wrote: post #46
dmitriid wrote: post #33

As I saw someone say, "In all its years modernism has failed to produce beautiful cities". Tourists still flock to old parts of towns and 19th-century factories are refurbished into elite apartments.

The 19th-century warehouses that are so trendy these days were abominations back in the day. I think it’s very difficult to predict with any king of accuracy what people will like 100 years from now.

Modernism has been around for almost 100 years already. "Le Coubousier's Toward an Architecture" is 1920–1923.

Re: What Le Corbusier got wrong and right in his design of Chandigarh

#52

Post by saiya-jin »

rahulnair23 wrote: post #32

Yes, Corbusier's vision of cities was tied to speed, and by consequence, to cars. But Chandigarh today has fantastic segregated bike infrastructure! No other Indian city comes close. The city itself is pan-flat and relatively small (shaped as a rectangle where the longer side is 10 kilometers). Cycle the routes and you see the vast array of tradesman, workers, maids, and vegetable vendors travel by cycle. Big apartme…

Man, I recall in good old 2008, arriving into Chandigarh after almost month of backpacking in rest of India. What a shock it was! Straight roads in mesh, traffic lights everywhere. It looked and felt so surreal, detached from rest of Indian subcontinent which felt to me to be in some very distant parallel universe.

Re: What Le Corbusier got wrong and right in his design of Chandigarh

#53

Post by burntoutfire »

jabl wrote: post #35
entropyie wrote: post #21

We can't have a discussion of Le Corbusier and modernism with mentioning the concept of "legibility" as illuminated here: https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2010/07/26/a-big-little-idea-call... Relevant quote: " High-modernist (think Bauhaus and Le Corbusier) aesthetics necessarily lead to simplification, since a reality that serves many purposes presents itself as illegible to a vision informed by a singular purpose. Any el…

I've watched many architecture TV programs presenting works of Le Corbusier, the Bauhaus school, and other examples of modernism. And often I've walked away with a "Wow" feeling, there is in some sense a kind of majestic beauty in it. But OTOH I'm thinking that actually living in an environment like that would get, well, quite boring after a while. Lacking all the small ornaments and other minor details that you noti…

The Soviet-style farms of boring apartments blocks are basically Le Corbusier's vision on a budget - and yep, it does get boring in there.

Re: What Le Corbusier got wrong and right in his design of Chandigarh

#55

Post by mercutio2 »

saiya-jin wrote: post #52
rahulnair23 wrote: post #32

Yes, Corbusier's vision of cities was tied to speed, and by consequence, to cars. But Chandigarh today has fantastic segregated bike infrastructure! No other Indian city comes close. The city itself is pan-flat and relatively small (shaped as a rectangle where the longer side is 10 kilometers). Cycle the routes and you see the vast array of tradesman, workers, maids, and vegetable vendors travel by cycle. Big apartme…

Man, I recall in good old 2008, arriving into Chandigarh after almost month of backpacking in rest of India. What a shock it was! Straight roads in mesh, traffic lights everywhere. It looked and felt so surreal, detached from rest of Indian subcontinent which felt to me to be in some very distant parallel universe.

I was there in 2006, but I started my journey recovering from jet lag there, and I kept thinking "this seems very different from what I expected India to be like". My traveling companion explained it is in fact completely different from most of India (and so I found in the rest of my visit).

Re: What Le Corbusier got wrong and right in his design of Chandigarh

#56

Post by rayiner »

Spooky23 wrote: post #34
prionassembly wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to go to Brasilia 3-4 times a month for work. If you got on a Tuesday morning flight you could rub shoulders with congressmen, top-level cabinet ministers, supreme court justices and so on. Many would easily engage you in conversation, too; maybe because I didn't open with political subjects and mainly complained about having to go to Brasilia. The first problem with Brasilia is that it's horribly located. We…

If you ever find yourself in or near Albany, New York it’s worth looking at the state government complex and university to compare and contrast. The capitol complex really settles the arguments. You have the NYS Capitol, which is an amazing expression of the excess of 19th century monumental building. Across one street is a circa 1910 replica of a Greek temple turned office building, with a gross 1950s addition in th…

I took my bar admission oath in Albany. The NYS Capitol is so beautiful. Then I came across Empire State Plaza and thought I had entered some Star War set.

Re: What Le Corbusier got wrong and right in his design of Chandigarh

#57

Post by lengxzai »

This article misses the mark in so so many ways. Chandigarh is pretty much the only livable city in the country!

- "unnecessarily large scale" is the reason that it is the only city in India that doesn't suffocate it's own residents

- wide avenues, open spaces and numerous public parks encourage families to step out of their residential sectors often. Walk into any park after 4pm during the week, and you will see children and adults of all ages exercising/ playing sports

- It is also one of the few places where the bureaucracy has enforced strict building codes to prevent the kind of construction creep you see in large tier 1 metropolitan centers

Re: What Le Corbusier got wrong and right in his design of Chandigarh

#59

Post by renewiltord »

johnyzee wrote: post #47
martneumann wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first few are single family villas, the last four are multi family housing complexes. For some reason, people in Europe back in the 60s believed that creating dense housing only units with no sense of scale, long commutes and walks and 100% car dependence was the way forward. That experiment backfired almost everywhere. Some of these homes, both in Eastern and Western Europe are well connected via public transpor…

> For some reason, people in Europe back in the 60s believed that creating dense housing only units with no sense of scale, long commutes and walks and 100% car dependence was the way forward. I saw a documentary about one of these projects. It was contemporary footage with interviews of regular people, asking what they thought about them. A woman gave an answer which I felt was very profound: "Who wants to live wher…

I grew up in a courtyard style (but much larger, super-block style) area for much of my childhood. The outer box is one section of the compound. The inner boxes are tall apartment blocks. If you look out your front balcony you'll see your kids play with other kids and the older kids will watch out for the younger ones. The box with the 'x's in it is a massive courtyard (think a couple of your football fields) with trees and playgrounds and space for sports. It is encircled by a road that leaves at that top right area.

      ┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
      │                                                                              │
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      │     ┌────────────────────┐         ┌────────────────────────┐                │
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      │     │                                                        │               │
      │     │                                xxxx       xx           │               │
      │     │     xxxxxx                      xxx       xxx          │   ┌───────┐   │
      │     │    x     x                                 xx          │   │       │   │
      │     │    x  xxxx                                             │   │       │   │
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      │     │                 xxxxxxx               xx               │   └───────┘   │
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Re: What Le Corbusier got wrong and right in his design of Chandigarh

#60

Post by somewhereoutth »

martneumann wrote: post #26
lqet wrote: post #18

Le Corbusier is a mystery to me. I would very much like to understand the intellectual bending of his esthetic instincts that lead him going from this [0, 1, 2] to this [3, 4, 5] and his ideas of "machines for living" [6]. With good intentions, he invented the modern ghetto. [0] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a2/Maison_b... [1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a6/CF05.jpg [2] https:/…

The first few are single family villas, the last four are multi family housing complexes. For some reason, people in Europe back in the 60s believed that creating dense housing only units with no sense of scale, long commutes and walks and 100% car dependence was the way forward. That experiment backfired almost everywhere. Some of these homes, both in Eastern and Western Europe are well connected via public transpor…

Depends how it is executed.

I consider my neighbourhood in Western Europe a great modernist success:

Blocks are mostly around 7 floors high, with access organized vertically - each floor landing has typically 3 apartments around the lift/stairwell, so no 'streets in the sky'.

Plenty of shops (and entrances!) at ground level of each block.

Lots of parks, schools, trams, etc interspersed amongst the blocks.

Private balconies for all.

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