Reflecting back on the day we all watched the movie “Misleading Innocence” in class, I vaguely remember the likes of Bruno Latour and Langdon Winner engaging in a debate on morals of power in the context of underpasses in New York.
At some point in the interviews, Latour was incriminated for excluding minorities from his ideologies and his European descent was ascribed for it. This prompted the following thoughts in my mind:
Bruno Latour —-> Prominent sociologist —-> European —-> French —-> Le Corbusier —-> Concept of Modernity —-> Master of Modern Architecture
Just like Latour is at the forefront of philosophy and sociology, Corbusier, the master of modern architecture, had a very bold approach towards design and built spaces, and at times, was criticized for it. Somewhat arrogant, his expression was “Brutal and monumental” which is evident in all his works of architecture. Example: “Chandigarh” (a city planned by Corbusier himself as a symbol of Modernization) follows the unconventional iron-grid pattern in urban layout. All his buildings are made of concrete, are gigantic, and defy almost all the rules of visual comfort and tranquility. I still love his work though 😛
Curious to see if there were any parallels drawn between the ideologies of the two, I did some instant web search and found something really interesting. An article named “LATOUR, LE CORBUSIER AND SPIRIT OF THE TIME” by Andrej Gogora (http://sav-sk.academia.edu/AndrejGogora), a philosopher from Nitra. Following is a link to his paper :
http://sincronia.cucsh.udg.mx/pdf/2013_b/gogora_64_2013.pdf
Comparing the ideologies of the two, he says that Corbusier exemplifies the Latourian concept of modern purification by adopting these theories to re-define urbanism in his works.
“Le Corbusier’s theory of urbanism excessively adopts such concepts as objectivity, truth, clarity and strictness. This concepts conditioned his approach to the unhealthy industrial city of the 19th century and shaped his proposal to its modernistic transformation.” (Gogora, A. (2013). LATOUR , LE CORBUSIER AND SPIRIT OF THE TIME ., pg 3.)
He concludes by saying that
“It can be assumed that we successfully extended the Latour’s concept of modern purification by the non-rational and emotional feature of the idea of progress. We exemplified it by the case of modern urban theory of Le Corbusier (purification + emotional factor) and its implementation in the form of the construction of prosperous and multilayer modern megacities (hybridization + spirit of the age)” (Gogora, A. (2013). LATOUR , LE CORBUSIER AND SPIRIT OF THE TIME ., pg 6.)
Links to some really cool websites:
this is Bruno Latour’s website:
http://www.bruno-latour.fr/node/328
This website is for his book “Modes of Existence”. There is a summary of the book and additional surveys and discussion:
This is a link to this book ^:
An interesting interview with Peter Sloterdijk on “Culture and Architecture”, referencing Latour and Corbusier
http://www.harvarddesignmagazine.org/issues/30/talking-to-myself-about-the-poetics-of-space
Enjoy!
Leave me a Comment