The issue of theology in the formative years of Le Corbusier

Dallo teologico negli anni formativi di Charles-Edouard Jeanneret Le Corbusier e il suo rapporto con la religione

The issue of theology on the formative years of charles-edouard jeanneret

Le Corbusier, Two carachteristic house types in the Jura region (1960)

“The God of Calvinism demanded of his believers not single good works, but a life of good works combined into a unified system. There was no place for the very human Catholic cycle of sin, repentance, atonement, release (…)”

Max Weber, The protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism. Pg. 71

“Le Corbusier insisted that his ancestors arrived in the high Jura region as early as the mid-fourteenth century (…) Later in life he relished the idea of tracing back his lineage to southern France and thereby substantiating his claim to being (1) French rather than Swiss, (2) of Mediterranean origin, (3) and descended from the heretical Albigenses (since he considered himself to be a heretic)”

H. Allen Brooks, Le Corbusier’s formative years. Pg. 5

“Le Corbusier (…) would remain a creature of his upbringing: he was obsessed by the work ethic and by the belief that only through suffering and self-denial one can perform at one’s best” “The boys (…) received their religious training from their aunt Pauline (…) perhaps in later life he might be called agnostic, yet the Protestant faith had left a deep, indelible impression in his mind.”


“(L’Eplattenier) had taught him to consider (…) himself, the artist, as a servant of a moral regeneration of mankind” “(…) In Paris (1908), he devoured Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra. (Nietzsche’s) image of the lonely superman, whose tragic destiny it was to be sacrificed for the sake of humankind, seems to have become a key to Jeanneret’s understanding of his own role as an artist in society”

Stanislaus Von Moos, Le Corbusier elements of a synthesis. Pg. 22

“ ”... and what are poets for in a destitute time?" The word "time" here means the era to which we ourselves still belong.”

Martin Heidegger, Poetry, Language, Thought. Pg. 89

“L’Esprit Nouveau was non other than the last, if not the most important, of a series of attempts to establish a cubist magazine in Paris ” “(…) the phrase ‘L’Esprit Nouveau’ had been used by Choisy (in the context of) a ‘rappel à l’ordre’ in architecture, the expression is a notorious citation of the quote by Cocteau, who by 1919 also used the ‘esprit nouveau’ in the sense of Zeitgeist.”

Reyner Banham, Theory and design on the

first machine age (translated back from italian). Pg. 247

“In the statement of purpose included in the first issue of L’Esprit nouveau’ the editors (…) openly reaffirmed the continuity between Rimbaud’s poetic experiments and the ‘esthétique mécanique’ (…) Yoking together the names of Rimbaud and Mallarmé perhaps for the first time.”

Carrie Noland, Poetry at stake. Pg. 39

“I attempted to create a place for meditation, of search and prayer for the monks. The human resonances of that matter have guided our work (…) I imagined the forms, the contacts, the circuits necessary with which prayer, liturgy, meditation can develop at ease in this ‘home’. ”

Le Corbusier, speech at the inauguration of La Tourette monastery . 1960

“I made rules for the form and movement of every consonant, and I boasted of inventing, with rhythms from within me, a kind of poetry that all the senses, sooner or later, would recognize. And I alone would be its translator.”

J-Arthur Rimbaud, The alchemy of the word.

The monastery as constant

The issue of theology on Corbusier’s first European travels

Charles-edouard Jeanneret , sketches of La chartreuse d’ema / Certosa del Galluzzo (1907?)

“On Sunday, September 15 (…) Jeanneret spent the afternoon at the Chartreuse de Galluzzo where he underwent the most profound architectural experience of his life. By his own admission, ideas derived therefrom formed the basis for his immueble-villas of 1922, Pavillon de l’esprit nouveau of 1925, and the numerous Unités d’habitation ‘From this moment on I saw the two terms, individual and collectivity, as inseparable.’ he would write.”


Charles-edouard Jeanneret, sketches of La chartreuse d’ema / Certosa del Galluzzo (1910)

“Carthusian monasteries are unlike all others since each monk lives not in a narrow, ill-lit, one room cell but in a modest house of several rooms with fireplace, cellar, attic, terrace, and a small private garden with flowers (…) a bridge-like walkway (is) the origin of Corbusier´s ‘architectural promenade’.”


Photograph of La chartreuse d’ema / Certosa del Galluzzo (2015)

“This existence, in such a setting, became Jeanneret´s dream of the ideal life: much that he designed and built in future years would reflect his love affair with the Chartreuse d’Ema.”


“Without doubt Christian asceticism (…) has had a definitely rational character in its highest Occidental forms as early as the Middle Ages. (…) with the Cistercians, and most strongly the Jesuits, (man) has become emancipated from plan-less otherworldliness and irrational self-torture. It had developed a systematic method of rational conduct with the purpose of overcoming the status naturæ, to free man from the power of irrational impulses and his dependence on the world and on nature.”

Max Weber, The protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism. Pg. 72

The morality of dwelling

The issue of theology on Corbusier’s serial houses (vers une architecture, 1923)

“(the role of the architect) is a question of morality, the lie is not tolerable, one dies because of the lie” “there is no right to waste energy, health and courage in the name of a bad tool: it is to be discarded, replaced.”

C-E Jeanneret (as Le Corbusier), Towards an architecture. Pg. 5

“the man practices a religion and doesn’t believes in it is a coward: a miserable man. We are miserable for we inhabit unworthy houses that ruin our health and our morality” “(…) Religions crumble, moth-eaten. Houses haven’t changed. The religion of housing has remained the same for centuries. The house will crumble.”

C-E Jeanneret (as Le Corbusier), Towards an architecture. Pg. 6

Documents

The issue of theology in the formative years of Le Corbusier