Le Corbusier

by Nicholas Fox Weber

  In 1926, when the Salvation Army set out to buy and restore a large building as a women’s dormitory, Winnaretta embraced the cause. One blustery winter night, she saw Salvation Army officers dispensing aid to a miserable group of society’s outcasts, and she was moved to action. The commissioner of the army, Albin Peyron, then asked her if she would contribute to an addition to the existing Palais du Peuple, which was to house up to 130 homeless people. Her reply was positive, but with strings attached. Having been an early subscriber to L’Esprit Nouveau, she was fascinated by the links Le Corbusier made between architecture and music. Additionally, Albert Jeanneret was a friend of her friend Fauré. The princess told Peyron she might indeed fund a substantial part of the construction costs of the new building, but only if she could replace the army’s chosen architect with Le Corbusier, who, in 1926, was working on a design for a villa for her in Neuilly-sur-Seine.

  In June 1926, Le Corbusier went to the site of the Palais du Peuple and was deeply impressed by the work being done there. He wrote the princess that they might build a modest, stripped-down structure onto it, where he would orchestrate bold forms with impeccable proportions. He assured her the results would be magnificent.

  The addition to the existing building was never constructed, but in 1929 the Salvation Army decided to create the Cité de Refuge, a shelter for up to six hundred people, at a cost of six million francs. Whereas most people whose money had American roots were substantially wiped out that year, the princess’s fortune, which depended on a Canadian trust and was managed in Paris, flourished, and she offered half that money, again with the stipulation that Le Corbusier be the architect.

  On June 24, 1930, the heiress laid the foundation stone. Eventually, she had to add more than a million francs to her gift when Le Corbusier went over budget, but, when the building was inaugurated by the president of the republic, Albert Lebrun, on December 7, 1933, her name appeared only on a small plaque over the entrance door saying “Refuge Singer-Polignac.” This rich woman’s modesty and generosity impressed Le Corbusier immensely. Heart, intelligence, and tenacity combined were his ideal.

  17

  The structure that opened on December 7, 1933, to house the homeless and provide a way station for immigrants was, in its heyday, a monument to visual inventiveness, technological advances, and, above all else, human dignity.

  In the past, triumphant symbols of arrival, like large porticos and grand staircases, had belonged mainly to buildings associated with vast wealth. They demonstrated power—whether of the church, a monarchy, a strong government, or a giant of mercantilism. Now a new form of architectural welcome lifted the spirits of people who felt estranged from such institutions. A cubicle-shaped portico tiled in bright colors, a bridge, a vast rotunda, and a shimmering expanse of glass sheathing and mosaic bricks greeted the ex-convicts, unwed mothers, and tramps who previously had taken shelter underneath the bridges of the Seine. The sparkling sequence of geometric forms gave hope and dignity.

  Today, our urban homeless burrow their way into basement soup kitchens and sleep in shelters. They are downtrodden by the message that their lives merit nothing better than cheap construction standards and shoddy materials. But when the Cité de Refuge opened its doors, it elevated the spirits of all who entered. For a very different clientele than at his luxurious villas, Le Corbusier had again succeeded in positively transforming human feelings through the architectural environment.

  LIKE THE MONASTERIES of Ema and Mount Athos, the Cité de Refuge was meant to provide all the necessities of life for a large group of people living collectively. The program for the new building called for places for the residents to sleep and eat, with public assembly spaces and a range of support services including kitchens and a laundry. The entire structure was to be airtight, with a climate-control system that purified the air as it heated or cooled it; this was among the first structures in France to be air-conditioned.

  Facade of the Cité de Refuge, ca. 1933

  To achieve all that was not easy; from start to finish, there were disputes revolving around building codes. Pierre Jeanneret and Le Corbusier tried to bend laws, circumventing regulations concerning the height of the structure and the construction of the glass-and-steel curtain wall. The Cité de Refuge took longer and cost more than anticipated.

  But when the pioneering structure for the homeless was inaugurated on that raw December day at the nadir of an international economic depression, many people’s spirits soared. In his signature bow tie, Le Corbusier beamed in the company of President Lebrun, the minister of public health, and other government officials and dignitaries. Harsh criticism was expected for a building that violated tradition so audaciously, but there were those who instantly grasped its fresh and optimistic spirit.

  The day following the opening, an anonymous journalist in Les Temps wrote that the “architects, Messrs. Le Corbusier and Jeanneret, whose fecund originality we already know, have given the edifice the appearance of a beautiful ship, where everything is clean, comfortable, useful, and gay.” The critic recognized the transformative powers of architecture, saying that at the entrance counter “unhappy people will come to deposit their misery like the rich deposit their valuables at the windows in a bank.”52

  18

  The dormitories of the Cité de Refuge filled up quickly. Soup was soon being ladled out free of charge. But not everything was as it was meant to be. The climate-control system, so radical in concept and execution, was a problem. Residents claimed to be suffocating from their inability to open windows at night when the ventilators were turned off. A doctor complained of treating children deprived of adequate oxygen. The temperature inside reached thirty-three degrees Celsius.

  An intractable Le Corbusier refused to perforate the glass curtain wall with windows. He summoned Gustave Lyon, the expert who had, among other things, installed the air-conditioning at the Salle Pleyel, and Dr. Jules Renault, an authority on child care, to the site, and they both issued reports disputing the claims that necessary ultraviolet rays were failing to reach the children through the airtight membrane. Le Corbusier claimed the problems could be remedied by adjustments to malfunctioning machinery. But in January 1935, the Seine Prefecture condemned the Cité de Refuge for code violations, and the police ordered the installation of sliding windows within forty-five days.

  Le Corbusier was desperate not to comply. He managed to get government officials to give some time to the engineers he employed to find another solution. Then Le Corbusier proposed drilling tiny holes in the glass wall, saying that the holes could be covered in the winter. But by the end of the year, he was forced to put in the new windows.

  The problems did not stop there. By 1936, tiles had begun to fall off the rotunda. Children were deemed at risk of being injured when they went out to play. The tiles had been applied with mortar directly to the reinforced concrete, a method that failed in extreme heat. The architects and contractors together had to pay for half of the cost of repairs.

  Le Corbusier never accepted blame for any of these problems. “The City of Refuge is not a fantasy; the city of refuge is a proof,” he declared. Its users “make a fuss and argue in perpetual confusion between their psychological reactions and their physiological reaction. They don’t know at all what they’re talking about; they are obsessed by fixed ideas and it is this obsession that is the cause of their protests. We have the obligation to ignore this and to pursue positive and scientific work with serenity.”53 The words were almost identical to his retorts whenever his mother criticized him for the leaks at La Petite Maison.

  OVER THE YEARS following its construction, the concrete at the Cité de Refuge developed numerous cracks. Windows broke, paint peeled. But not all of the damage was the fault of the design. On August 25, 1944, the last day of the liberation of Paris, the Germans dropped a bomb directly in front of the building, shattering all the remaining glass in the facade.

  On one visit to the Cité de Refuge when repairs were being m
ade shortly after the war, Le Corbusier was shocked to discover that his pure concrete columns in the interior had been papered with materials imitating wood and marble and that an ornate and garish mural had been painted over his wall of glass bricks. In 1948, he oversaw a complete restoration free of charge, with Pierre taking on the bulk of the details. Today, some elements reflect their original concept, but a lot has been altered. The current Cité de Refuge is a ghost of the original. The structure on the edge of the thirteenth arrondissement was ultimately rebuilt so disastrously that Le Corbusier later announced, “The building can no longer be thought of as architecture.”54 What was built optimistically still stands as a symbol of hope and genius but also of decay, disrespect, and failure.

  19

  In spite of its flaws, the Salvation Army building won Le Corbusier an invitation to receive a Legion of Honor. The day after the inauguration, on December 8, 1933, he wrote the faithful Frantz Jourdain his response.

  You offer me, with a generosity of heart I find deeply touching, the red ribbon that consecrates so many efforts. Your entire life having been devoted to the struggle for what is good, you do not forget that others follow in your footsteps and, having arrived, yourself, at the pinnacle of honors, you turn your solicitude toward them as a spiritual father. I hope my response to your offer will not be taken as that of a naughty boy, nor as that of an embittered man, nor as that of some sort of nihilist. Yet I must tell you that my attitude in life has always been a matter of a fierce liberty, and that at the present time, when good and evil are confused in a dangerous mixture, I owe it to myself—and to those who on all sides have acknowledged my efforts as a useful direction—to keep apart from all such consecrations and to remain the man of my idea: a man still at the beginning of his investigations.

  I have twice already refused the Legion of Honor. On the occasion of the L’Esprit Nouveau; and then on the occasion of the Palace of the League of Nations. That time, scandalously enough, it was Lemaresquier who offered it to me: an exchange, a bargain!

  Today, my dear friend, the atmosphere is different. You have made a gesture of friendship and esteem. Such is my reward! Remember that in 1922 I was without resources and you allowed me to produce the panorama of the “Contemporary City.” Eleven years later you consider that I have deserved further support. Here is another reward. I receive this consecration from you with a deep satisfaction and with a certain pride. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. And let this consecration remain between us without ribbon or a certificate. That way I am happy and satisfied. In the present state of my existence, the author of “The Twilight of the Academies” can no longer accept the Legion of Honor. This is a simple and direct decision, between the two of us. It is not a manifesto; it is an inner manifestation of my own state of mind—nothing more.

  Here in Paris, and in Moscow as well, L’Humanité accuses me of being vulgar bourgeois. Le Figaro and Hitler denounce me as a Bolshevist. I am and desire to remain an architect and an urbanist with all the consequences which that may involve.

  And I desire above all to remain in possession of your esteem, quite simply, as before, by the effect of my efforts which I seek to pursue in all simplicity and strength.55

  Eight days later, he wrote Anatole de Monzie, the minister of education:

  Maître Frantz Jourdain has made (he tells me) a formal request for me to be awarded the ribbon of the Legion of Honor.

  It is with some embarrassment that I must reject this disinterested initiative, for it is my desire not to receive the Legion of Honor. I have informed Frantz Jourdain of the fact, but he seems not to understand me.

  You will greatly oblige me by willingly acceding to my desire and above all by being willing not to consider my gesture as a pretentious manifestation. On the contrary, what is involved here is an attitude dictated by an inward, entirely individual state of consciousness, one exclusive of all publicity. My entire life being devoted to an effort which finds the academies constantly in its path, I have no choice but to remain apart from a distinction that would oblige me to enter the rank of certain people with whom I am in acute disagreement.56

  20

  As Le Corbusier was building, the world was moving in horrific directions. By October 1934, the writer Carl von Ossietsky had been in concentration camps for twenty months. He had been incarcerated the day following the burning of the Reichstag and imprisoned in Sonnerburg and Esterwegen. A committee was formed to protest this act. Von Ossietsky’s main offense seems to have been that, as a newspaper editor in Berlin, he had protested the budget of the Third Reich. Among those who joined the committee and signed the letter of protest were Thomas Mann and Le Corbusier.

  Still, Le Corbusier had no clear ideology or political stance. In this same period, through Pierre Winter, his new neighbor on the rue Nungesser-et-Coli, he grew close to the fascist organization Le Faisceau. Winter wrote newspaper articles extolling the merits of Le Corbusier’s housing and stated that Pessac was a concept well suited for the ideal fascist state.

  Philippe Lamour, the lawyer who had represented the architect with the League of Nations, joined Winter in forming the Parti Fasciste Révolutionnaire; Mussolini was one of their heroes. Le Corbusier worked with Lamour on several publications and even tried to have Lamour’s new magazine take over L’Esprit Nouveau. Le Corbusier remained friendly with Lamour throughout the next decade—apparently unbothered by Lamour having gone to Germany in 1931 with Otto Abetz, a head of the paramilitary organization Reichbanners, to create a German cell of the Front Unique.

  Le Corbusier was similarly unfazed by the rise of fascism in Italy. Adriano Olivetti, the director general of the typewriter company that bore his name and another of those rare businessmen whom Le Corbusier admired as a form of modern hero, was an irresistible lure. Olivetti invited Le Corbusier to come to his offices near Turin to discuss issues of urbanism, and Le Corbusier engaged in a series of projects for Olivetti, although none of them were completed. Italy was welcoming; in 1934, the architect gave lectures in Venice at the Palazzo Ducale and began negotiations in Turin about a factory for Fiat. He imagined that the country of his early inspiration would become the land of his support—so much so that, by the end of the decade, he happily anticipated that one of his backers would be Benito Mussolini.

  Yet Le Corbusier could join forces against Il Duce as readily as he would work for him. In 1933, the architect and Pierre Winter, François de Pierrefeu, and Hubert Lagardelle created two reviews: Prélude and L’Homme Réel. The agendas of the publications were unclear, but the heroes included Nietzsche and Gandhi, and their editorial pages protested Mussolini and fought fascism, while supporting Spanish anarchists and republicans. When Le Corbusier had written his mother and Hélène de Mandrot that he had faith in no one political system, he had been telling the truth; he would support or oppose almost anyone or anything, since the sole issue that counted was who would let him promulgate his ideas and build.

  XXXII

  1

  On the other hand, in America, in the Republic, one must waste a whole day in paying serious court to the shopkeepers in the streets, and must become as stupid as they are; and over there, no opera.

  —STENDHAL, The Charterhouse of Parma

  The Museum of Modern Art in New York organized an exhibition of Le Corbusier’s recent work that was to start on October 24, 1935. At last the architect went to the United States. Following the exhibition opening, he was to go on a lecture tour. He had agreed to lower lecture fees than he wanted—between seventy-five and one hundred dollars per engagement—because he was so curious to see North America and hoped to encounter clients there. He conceived of the United States as a gold mine, which made him irritated about the fees but optimistic that this was the land of unparalleled opportunity.

  Le Corbusier left Le Havre on October 16, ten days after his forty-eighth birthday. Sailing first-class on board the Normandie, the legendary French liner, he wrote down English phrases he expected to need in th
e upcoming weeks: “inside street not exposed to rain, snow, or sun,” “swimming pool,” “people who bore me,” and “here’s looking at you,” written next to a drawing of a martini glass in the form of an exclamation point.1

  As soon as he arrived, he got off to a rocky start with the American press. A New York Herald Tribune article bore the headline “Skyscrapers Not Big Enough, Says Le Corbusier at First Sight,” and smaller headers declared “Finds American Skyscrapers ‘Much Too Small’…Thinks They Should be Huge and a Lot Farther Apart.”2 The New York Times also put a negative spin on Le Corbusier’s initial impressions with the headline “Venice ‘Best City,’ Le Corbusier Finds” and the statement “he feels the average city leaves much to be desired.”3

  “Skyscrapers Not Big Enough, Says Le Corbusier at First Sight,” New York Herald Tribune, October 22, 1935

  Believing that the skyscraper was a miracle of modern urbanism and the machine age, the architect was disappointed with the examples he found in New York. He thought a building of great height should be large enough to contain up to forty thousand people, and that if it was that size it could stand alone and face nothing but the cosmos: “The true splendor of the Cartesian skyscraper: the bracing, stimulant, optimistic, radiant spectacle offered from each office through the limpid windows opening onto space. Space! This response to the aspirations of being, this release offered to the respiration of the lungs and the beating of the heart, this effusion of vision from afar, from on high, so vast, infinite, limitless. The total sun in a pure, fresh air afforded by mechanical installations.”4 He felt that New York’s skyscrapers did not put their inhabitants in direct connection with the wonders of the universe, were too small, and were too numerous and too close together, forcing people to look directly at the windows of another building rather than over the landscape or toward the sun.