Transcribing the contemporary city: Le Corbusier, Adelaide and Chandigarh

Within the space of seven months in 1950-51, Le Corbusier committed two celebrated city plans to paper. One was his seminal plan of Chandigarh, the modern capital of the Punjab, made in February 1951. The other, made earlier in August 1950, was a re-drawing of Colonel William Light’s plan of Adelaide, South Australia, the result of a chance meeting between Le Corbusier and a professor of the University of Adelaide on secondment in the Americas. This paper brings attention to the unusual circumstances surrounding the making of Le Corbusier’s drawing of Adelaide and observes parallels in its making with the relatively concurrent planning of Chandigarh and the processes of design and drawing attributed to Le Corbusier through his association with the CIAM group. Out of this discussion the paper also reconsiders the question of Chandigarh’s origins as a work of design and speculates upon qualities of transcription and imaginative projection in the architect’s Adelaide and Chandigarh drawings

Movement and figurality: The circulation diagram and the history of the architectural plan

Knowledge of the plan competes with self-consciousness of experience. The less we are able to understand our spatio-visual experience by the abstract coordinates of the plan, the more we are thrust back into a lived experience of the building in duration. This formula, frequently unacknowledged, has been one of the main precepts of the experientialist modernism which arises out of the picturesque and which stands in critique of classical idealism. One of the paths to critique this formula is by showing that the attention to the experience of the spaces in duration is predicated on obscuring, complicating and weakening the apprehension of the plan as a figure. Another development in the practice of modern planning has been architects using a kind of over-drawing where human circulation diagrams or 'movement lines' are drawn expressively across the orthographic plane; thus representing the lived experience of buildings. We will show that these two issues are linked; the plan's weak figure and the privilege this supposes for durational experience has a corollary - experience itself demands to be visible in the plan, and this is one origin of the present fascination with 'diagramming'. In this paper we explore the practice of architectural planning and its theoretical underpinnings in an attempt to show the viability of a history of architectural planning methods

Urbanity

Brisbane's Queen Street Mall and South Bank cultural precinct are being reconfigured with architect-designed pergolas. Antony Moulis investigates these sun responsive civic improvements

Everyday Animation

By investing in the public realm, Donovan Hill's AQIS Facility pushes the small commercial building into the domain of architecture

Architecture in Translation: Le Corbusier’s influence in Australia

[EN] While there is an abundance of commentary and criticism on Le Corbusier’s effect upon architecture and planning globally – in Europe, Northern Africa, the Americas and the Indian sub-continent – there is very little dealing with other contexts such as Australia. The paper will offer a first appraisal of Le Corbusier’s relationship with Australia, providing example of the significant international reach of his ideas to places he was never to set foot. It draws attention to Le Corbusier's contacts with architects who practiced in Australia and little known instances of his connections - his drawing of the City of Adelaide plan (1950) and his commission for art at Jorn Utzon's Sydney Opera House (1958). The paper also considers the ways that Le Corbusier’s work underwent translation into Australian architecture and urbanism in the mid to late 20th century through the influence his work exerted on others, identifying further possibilities for research on the topicMoulis, A. (2016). Architecture in Translation: Le Corbusier’s influence in Australia. En LE CORBUSIER. 50 AÑOS DESPUÉS. Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. 1544-1553. https://doi.org/10.4995/LC2015.2015.752OCS1544155

From Impact to Legacy: Interpreting Critical Writing on Le Corbusier from the 1920s to the Present

[EN] As a major figure of international modernism, Le Corbusier’s work has been subject to extensive critique and review both during his lifetime and since, to the extent that he has become the world’s most studied 20th century architect. While numerous attempts have been made to assess Le Corbusier’s works and ideas in their meaning and influence, little attention has been given to understanding the phenomena of critical writing and research that continues to surround the architect. Drawing upon research by the authors in preparing a 4-volume anthology of writings on Le Corbusier’s work for a major British publisher in 2016, the paper will trace critical reaction to the architect’s practice through a survey investigation of research and writing produced mainly in English from the 1920s to the present. The paper will give a chronological account of the issues, ideas and approaches that have emerged in critical writings on Le Corbusier and his architecture, reporting on the historiographic questions that have presented themselves in undertaking such a large-scale survey work. Reviewing the work of well-known critics the survey has also sought out lesser-known voices whose presence reflects Le Corbusier’s impact around the world, providing new interpretations through fresh perspectives on his work.Livesey, G.; Moulis, A. (2016). From Impact to Legacy: Interpreting Critical Writing on Le Corbusier from the 1920s to the Present. En LE CORBUSIER. 50 AÑOS DESPUÉS. Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. 1169-1185. https://doi.org/10.4995/LC2015.2015.712OCS1169118