Corbusier's Apartment - Part 2 Learning from Pompeii

Walking from the painting studio towards the living room is like stepping back into the ancient past. Strip away the steel, concrete, and glass of Corbusier's apartment and you essentially have a house that is Roman in organization and conception. In a typical Pompeii house, all public rooms of the house are on axis. Sculptural elements like shrines and fountains are placed within these rooms off center in dynamic positions. Diagonal expansive views open up as one walks through the spaces. In Corbusier's apartment, the east-west axis skewers all the public functions of the house like a shish kebab - the painting studio, vestibule, living room, dining room, and terrace are all lined up. As one enters each room along the axis, spaces open up multiple unexpected dynamic diagonal views. The sculptural forms of the stair, fire place, library shelf, and dining table give each space a focal point. 

In his Voyage d'Orient writing and sketches made in 1911, Corbusier distilled the essence of the Roman house axis and focal points succinctly. 23 years later he would base his own apartment design on these ancient ideas.  "An axis is perhaps the first human manifestation ; it is the means of every human act. The toddling child moves along an axis, the man striving in the tempest of life trace for himself an axis. The axis the is regulator of architecture. To establish order is to begin to work. Architecture is based on axes. The use of the schools are an architectural calamity. The axis is a line of direction leading to an end. In architecture, you must have a destination for your axis. In the schools they have forgotten this and their axes cross one another in star shapes all leading to infinity to the undefined, to the unknown, to nowhere, without end or aim. The axis of the schools is a recipe and a dodge.

Arrangement is the grading of axes and so it is the grading of aims, the classification of intentions. The architect therefore assigns destination to his axes. These ends are the wall (the plenum, sensorial sensation) or light and space.

In the house of the Tragic Poet we have the subtleties of a consummate art. Everything is on an axis but it would be difficult to apply a true line anywhere. The axis is in the intention, and the display afforded by the axis extends to the humbler things which it treats most skillfully by optical illusions. The axis here is not an arid thing of theory; it links together the main volumes which are clearly stated and differentiated one from another. When you visit the House of the Tragic Poet, it is clear that everything is ordered. But the feeling it gives is a rich one. You then note clever distortions of the axis which give intensity to the volumes; the central motive of the pavement is set behind the middle of the room ; the well at the entrance is at the side of the basin. The fountain at the far end is in the angle of the garden. An object placed in the center of a room often spoils the room, for it hinders you from standing in the middle of the room and getting the axial view ; a monument placed in the middle of a square often spoils the square and the buildings which surround it- often but not always. Arrangement is the grading of axes, and so it is the grading of aims, the classification of intentions.

view through large pivot doors back towards entry vestibule

house of tragic poet axis

notice the fountain positioned off center

shrine off center resembling corbusier's fireplace...

To give the architectural promenade through the house axis a sense of richness, Corbusier deployed a rhythm of light and space reminiscent of the the light and dark sequence of spaces of the mosques of Istanbul and houses of Pompeii. 

In "Towards a New Architecture" Corbusier opines, "A building is like a soap bubble. the bubble is perfect and harmonious if the breath has been evenly distributed and regulated from the inside. In Broussa in Asia Minor, at the Green Mosque, you enter by a little doorway of normal height; a quite small vestibule produces in you the necessary change of scale so that you may appreciate, as against the dimensions of the street and the spot you come from, the dimensions with which it is intended to impress you. Then you can fell the noble size of the mosque and your eyes can take its measure. You are in a great white marble space filled with light. Beyond, you can see a second similar space of the same dimensions but in half light and raise on several steps (repetition in a minor key); on each side a still  smaller space in subdued light; turning around you have two very small spaces in shade. From full light to shade, a rhythm. Tiny doors and enormous bays. You are captured, you have lost the sense of the common scale. You are enthralled by a sensorial rhythm (light and volume) and by an able use of scale and measure, into a world of its own which tells you what it sets out to tell you. What emotion, what faith. There you have motive and intention. The cluster of ideas, this is the means that has been used. In consequence, at Broussa as at Santa Sophia, as at the Suleiman Mosque of Stamboul, the exterior results from the interior."

The dark low ceilinged living room space is punctuated by a skylight that accentuates the red fireplace wall. Of color, Corbusier remarked, "Blue and his green mixtures create space, create a sense of distance, create an atmosphere, push the wall into the distance, making it palpable, depriving it of the quality of firmness by creating a certain airiness between the wall and the viewer. Red fixes the wall, affirms its exact location, its dimension, its presence." For an architect who painted every morning and left architecture for 4 years to paint (1917-1921), Corbusier took color selection very seriously. In fact he developed a color palette system for his architecture.

Describing his color system, Corbusier notes, "These Keyboards of Colour aim at stimulating personal selection, by placing the task of choosing on a sound systematic basis. In my opinion they offer a method of approach which is accurate and effective, one which makes it possible to plan, in the modern home, colour harmonies which are definitely architectural and yet suited to the natural taste and needs."

Corbusier's Architectural Polychromy palettes contains 63 shades that Le Corbusier created in two colour collections – in 1931 and 1959. All shades are architectural, annotated by Corbusier, naturally harmonious and combinable. Each hue has its relevance and embodies specific spatial and human effects. (click here to see Corbusier's color system)

Hopefully for a lazy color challenged architect like me, using his color palettes on projects will prevent future color catastrophes. For an ambitious Roman inspired architect like Corbusier, setting up standards for color palettes was a natural endeavor in his quest for perfection. In his career, Corbusier emulated the Romans' effort (documented by Vitruvius) to standardize everything from dimensions to proportions to housing to materials to urban plans. Whereas the Romans were seeking the efficient world domination through standardization, Corbusier was interested in harnessing quality design through the power of standardization of modern industrial mass production. 

"Architecture is governed by standards. Standards are a matter of logic, analysis and precise study. Standards are based on a problem which has been well stated. Architecture means plastic invention, intellectual speculation, higher mathematics. Architecture is a very noble art. Standardization is imposed by the law of selection and is an economic and social necessity. Harmony is a state of agreement with the norms of our universe. Beauty governs all ; she is of purely human creation ; she is the overplus necessary only to men of the highest type. But we must first of all aim at the setting up of standards in order to face the problem of perfection." 

"A standard is established on sure bases, not capriciously but with the surety of something intentional and of a logic con- trolled by analysis and experiment. All men have the same organism, the same functions. All men have the same needs. The social contract which has evolved through the ages fixes standardized classes, functions and needs producing standardized products."

"We must aim at the fixing of standards in order to face the problem of perfection . The Parthenon is a product of selection applied to a standard . Architecture operates in accordance with standards. Standards are a matter of logic, analysis and minute study : they are based on a problem which has been well “stated.” A standard is definitely established by experiment.

The establishment of a standard involves exhausting every practical and reasonable possibility, and extracting from them a recognized type conformable to its functions, with a maxi- mum output and a minimum use of means, workmanship and material, words, forms, colours, sounds."