The Modulor And Modulor 2

In the years 1942 to 1948, Le Corbusier developed a system of measurements which became known as "Modulor". Based on the Golden Section and Fibonacci numbers and also using the physical dimensions of the average human, Modulor is a sequence of measurements which Le Corbusier used to achieve harmony in his architectural compositions. Le Modulor was published in 1950 and after meeting with success, Le Corbusier went on to publish Modulor 2 in 1955. In many of Le Corbusier s most notable buildings, including the Chapel at Ronchamp and the Unité d habitation, evidence of his Modulor system can be seen. These two volumes form an important and integral part of Le Corbusier’s theoretical writings.

This book is a revised and extended version of the article that I wrote and published in 1996, 22 years ago now, which for some time I have felt the need to update. Some parts of the text have been modified, others removed and others extended, all as a result of the maturity that I have gained after all these years of experience. I have of course also changed some of my own pictures which were the result of a surprising and naive confidence in myself. Some of the original images from my old edition of the Modulor have been retained, I suppose out of pure nostalgia and a love for one's own books, despite the fact that they could have been replaced by others that were better scanned than the originals produced with an old hand-held scanner... and others have been removed.I believe that this evolved version of the original article will be worthy of greater recognition from the large number of people from around the world who have been and are kind enough to read it.Manuel Franco, A Coruña, April 2018

Le Corbusier’s Modulor—a fundamental work in the history of architecture—as a beautiful facsimile edition.

Villa le Lac, which was designated a World Heritage in 2016, was designed and built by Le Corbusier as Geneva lakeside home for his parents in 1925. Because of its spare arrangement of spaces, he referred to it as a “dwelling machine.” Even today it remains the modern prototype of the “small house” that fulfills all of the functions of a residence with a minimum of floor area and seamless transitions between spaces. For the first time, this book is appearing in three separate language editions, following the original edition in which Le Corbusier documented the history of the building: with photographs, sketches and a poetic text. Access to the original photographs allowed the quality of the illustrations in this edition to be improved significantly.

Le Corbusier's assistant and fellow architect remembers his mentor in a series of concise and poetic reflections. Le Corbusier's Hands offers a poetic and personal portrait of Le Corbusier—a nuanced portrayal that is in contrast to the popular image of Le Corbusier the aloof modernist. The author knew Le Corbusier intimately for thirty years, first as his draftsman and main assistant, later as his colleague and personal friend. In this book, written in the mid-1980s, Wogenscky remembers his mentor in a series of revealing personal statements and evocative reflections unlike anything that exists in the vast literature on Le Corbusier. Wogenscky draws a portrait in swift, deft strokes—50 short chapters, one leading to the next, one memory of Le Corbusier opening into another. Appearing and reappearing like a leitmotif are Le Corbusier's hands—touching, taking, drawing, offering, closing, opening, grasping, releasing: "It was his hands that revealed him.... They spoke all his feelings, all the vibrations of his inner life that his face tried to conceal." Wogenscky writes about Le Corbusier's work, including the famous design of the chapel at Ronchamp, his ideas for high-density Unités d'Habitation linked to the center of a "Radiant City," and his "Modulor" system for defining proportions—which Wogenscky compares to a piano tuner's finding the exact relation between sounds. He remembers the day Picasso spent with Le Corbusier at the Marseilles building site—"All day long they outdid one another in a show of modesty," he observes in amazement. He adds, speaking for himself and the others present, "We were inside a double energy field." And Wogenscky writes about Le Corbusier more personally. "I have spent years trying to understand what went on in his mind and in his hand," he tells us. With Le Corbusier's Hands, Wogenscky gives us a unique record of an enigmatic genius.

A theoretical history of anthropomorphism and proportion in modern architecture, this volume brings into focus the discourse around proportion with current problems of post-humanism in architecture alongside the new possibilities made available through digital technologies. The book examines how the body and its ordering has served as a central site of architectural discourse in recent decades, especially in attempts to reformulate architecture’s relationship to humanism, modernism and technology. Challenging some concepts and categories of architectural history and situates current debates within a broader cultural and technological context, Hight makes complex ideas easily accessible. Extensively illustrated and written without academic jargon for an informed but non-specialized architectural audience, this book elucidates the often obscure debates of avant-garde architectural discourse and design, while demonstrating how these debates have affected everyday places and concepts of architecture. As a result, it will appeal to professional architects, academics and students, combining as it does an insightful introduction to the fundamental issues of architectural history and theory over the past fifty years with entirely new formulations of what that history is and means.