Modul Architekturmuseum

Towards a New Architecture – 100 years of Le Corbusier: Vers une architecture.

Master Level 4 SWS / 6 ECTS
Lecturer: Dr.-Ing. Irene Meissner
AR30202

"A great epoch has begun. A new spirit exists," LC, 1923.

Le Corbusier's 1923 modernist manifesto, Vers une architecture – a collection of essays he first published in the journal L'Esprit Nouveau – is the most influential book in 20th-century architectural history. Architecture critic Reyner Banham called it "the only writing on architecture to be counted among the great literary works of the 20th century."

As a plea for a completely new architecture based on "engineering aesthetics," Le Corbusier radically reckons with contemporary currents and historical styles, aiming to convince through a combination of image and text. In guiding principles on architecture, such as the "Three Exhortations to the Gentlemen Architects," he pleads to open our eyes to the modern world. Airplanes, steamships, and automobiles show that architecture itself is a technical artifact, derived from simple forms and based on human scale. Antiquity serves as a model and inspiration, and Corbus's own projects of mass-produced houses are models for a new way of building. The book ends with a call for "architecture or revolution." In a time of rising Bolshevism, fascism, and Nazism, for Le Corbusier architecture has the power to avert revolutionary upheaval through spatial art.

100 years later, we have arrived at a turning point. Already in the preface to the second edition, Le Corbusier wrote in 1928: "Vers une architecture remains in action and this book manifesto sets out again and continues its work." So what does a "coming architecture" look like today, after 100 years?

In the seminar, this question will be pursued and, to this end, the work of Le Corbusier and "modernism" will be critically reflected upon and dealt with in the social, economic and political contexts.

As a seminar task, the guiding principles and core statements of "Vers une architecture" are to be transferred with images, sketches and texts into an "Outlook on a new, climate-friendly architecture" 2023.

Kick-Off Meeting: Thursday, 20.04.2023, 15.00
Time: Thursdays, 15.00–18.15
Location: Seminar room 0340 B
Language: German