The Man Who Almost Destroyed Paris

Le Corbusier, or Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, was born on October 6, 1887 in a densely populated town—La Chaux-de-Fonds—in the mountainous region of Swiss Jura. The town’s location and proximity to France allowed Le Corbusier the opportunity to experience Swiss and French class, including its architectural character and personality. Le Chaux-de-Fonds was, additionally, an industrial town, and many of its male residents manufactured watches. Le Corbusier’s own father was part of this industry; Le Corbusier himself would later take this up after abandoning primary school at the age of thirteen. It is unknown and unfamiliar territory as to why Le Corbusier left primary school, but it is assumed that La Chaux-de-Fonds’ Protestant and Puritan presence pushed many people like him away. In the late nineteenth-century, especially before the First World War, religion and spirituality grew at rapid rates. This strange and sudden excitement for Christianity then caused revivals all around the country, including the West. They made numerous individuals resent Christianity—it felt as if these revivals nearly forced theological doctrine down people’s throats, and those like Corbusier had nothing to do with it. Upon leaving primary school to follow his father’s trade, Le Corbusier found École d’ Arts Décoratifs at La Chaux-de-Fonds, a more suitable atmosphere for those wanting to engage in the arts. Here Le Corbusier learned the entire process of watch making and design under Charles L’Eplattenier.

Charles L’Eplattenier was a Swiss artist and master of Art Nouveau/Style Sapin, and he heavily influenced the watch industry in La Chaux-de-Fonds. L’Eplattenier was a teacher at the school Le Corbusier attended; Le Corbusier grew quite fond of the artist as both a mentor and an architect. In L’Eplattenier’s classes, he taught his students the construct of Art Nouveau, which was his prized possession, accompanied with drawing techniques, the history of art, and a radiating desire to inspire its audience. Le Corbusier took every word L’Eplattenier said with great weight, including the suggestion for Le Corbusier to pursue architecture. After nearly three years at École d’ Arts Décoratifs at La Chaux-de-Fonds, L’Eplattenier gave Le Corbusier a reason to be an architect by assigning him a series of propositions that would lead him around Europe, studying classic and modern architecture in a self-taught manner. Le Corbusier composed three years of educational prowess between 1907-1911, hoping to satisfy and impress L’Eplattenier.

When Le Corbusier reached the ripe age of 30, he concluded his architectural studies around Europe and moved back to Paris. The drastic shift and removal from his indulgence in art gravely impacted Le Corbusier’s artistic purpose until he met Amédée Ozenfant, a painter and artistic expressionist. Ozenfant was the first to introduce Le Corbusier to contemporary art of that day, which was Purism. Purism is the distant relative to Cubism; it rejects Cubism and all its disorganized chaos. Rather than bright, abstract colors and prints, Purism returns to art’s original intent to simplify, relate, and reveal a natural aesthetic to everyday life. Ozenfant and Le Corbusier grew extraordinarily passionate about Purism, writing a manifesto in 1918 called Aprés le cubisme. Their manifesto purposefully attacked Cubism and pushed new coming artists to leave this aesthetic behind and pursue new trends, much like Purism. Le Corbusier’s contribution and creation of the manifesto exponentially helped his career as a writer, which blossomed from then on. Two years later, in 1920, a poet, Paul Defmée, entered into their trio.

The three then crafted an idea to formulate a journal—L’Esprit Nouveau— to revive the humanities, ultimately creating a space for new ideas and suggestions to the art world. While Parisian society was undergoing the First World War, Ozenfant, Corbusier, and Defmée felt led to produce L’Esprit Nouveau in hopes to distract society from the turmoil of war. (Ozenfant and Le Corbusier wrote their article series in L’Esprit Nouveau under pseudonyms as a disguise if and when they were persecuted. Ozenfant chose to write under his grandmother’s name, Saugnier. At the time, Le Corbusier’s name was still legally Jeannerat, but Ozenfant instilled within him the name Le Corbusier, which is what the world formally knows the artist as). And it truly did so when cityscape reconstructive pieces were submitted. Adolf Loos and Henri van de Velde were two contributors to suggest post-World War architectural advancement in the magazine. They both were strongly against more decorative stylistic choices, both pushing for functionalism. Rather than a building looking aesthetically pleasing, they suggested that it should only include functional features. Decorative styles are reminders of the past, which can be a distraction from the building’s essential functions.

Le Corbusier’s association and partnership with Ozenfant continued to flourish when Ozenfant urged Le Corbusier to publish his selected articles in L’Esprit Nouveau as a book called Vera une architecture in 1923. Vera une architecture, or Towards a New Architecture, transformed Le Corbusier’s original articles to highlight and expound upon his passion and satisfaction for disproving nearly every architect. Among Vera une architecture, Le Corbusier published nearly 12 other books, which quickly became the foundational text(s) for both new and old architects. (Often, Le Corbusier’s books were seen as the architectural holy grail or even the Bible.) Without L’Esprit Nouveau, Le Corbusier would not have received the opportunity to expand his artistic blueprinted thoughts into a tangible form. And he certainly would not be remotely considered as a linguistically inclined, sophisticated architect. Moving forward, in 1922, Corbusier partnered with his cousin, Pierre Jeanneret, to open a studio. It was in that studio Corbusier constructed Plan Voisin.

Plan Voisin is modern society’s idea of fifteen- minute cities, where everything is within walking distance: work, school, shopping, etc. Le Corbusier shared, “Everything is concentrated there: the tools that conquer space and time—telephones, telegraphs, radios; the banks, trading houses, the organs of decisions for the factories: finance, technology, commerce.” Le Corbusier was not into fiber optic theology, yet his blueprints are nearly identical to what twenty-first-century leftists intend to create with smart cities around the United States in the coming years or decades. Plan Voisin was originally drawn in the early 1920s, perhaps between 1922-1925, which coincidentally matched his drawing of Contemporary City in 1925. It begs the question of Le Corbusier’s fascination with productivity and sustainability. But it does not answer its overarching purpose for society and Parisian life other than distancing the elite and working class.

The blueprints place Plan Voisin on the Seine River with green spaces intertwined among administrative buildings and two roadways connecting the rural and suburban areas in east-west and north-south. These roads were crafted with the intention to bring Paris into its ultimate image it has always longed to be: the powerhouse of Europe (aside from its already stereotypical literary audiences). This is also the first picture oncoming visitors would see from the train lines and stations, airport, or main highway—they would be taken aback by its modern beauty amongst the greenery.  Central France, with Plan Voisin, would be the literal center of the country, its efforts, and the essence of architectural genius, bringing the remaining Frenchmen outside of Paris and European peoples to experience this ambitious and inventive space. Le Corbusier said, “Center France is the brain of the city, the brain of the whole country. They embody the work of elaboration and command on which all activities depend on.” Le Corbusier knew Paris’ immaculate characteristics, but he wanted to stretch its potential along the Red Bank/Montmartre area. Rather than drafting a completely new plan, La Defense, which was drafted in 1925, as a secluded business only district, to make this dream a reality from scratch. Le Corbusier proposed they keep Paris and all its style at rest (by removing its notable pieces outside the city as if it were being preserved and displayed in a museum). The irony here is that Plan Voisin would ruin France’s landscape simply because two square miles of downtown Paris would be destroyed. If Le Corbusier wanted to replace Paris with grotesque skyscrapers, why was this information withheld from the outset? To Le Corbusier, having this population in such proximity would greatly enhance communication and efficiency. To be fair, Le Corbusier’s demolition makes decent sense considering the majority of France, during this time, was covered with disease from overpopulation and a lack of sanitation crews. (250 out of 276 around Beauvoir were deemed uninhabitable.) Starting completely over, building from the bottom to the top, erasing the city’s heartache and troubles, does sound enticing, especially to an architect that thrived off bizarre architecture.   

When looking at a draft of Plan Voisin, it is quite unique and dystopian. Le Corbusier’s design is simply a collection of eighteen x-shaped, office-like skyscrapers that housed over twelve hundred residents each. Le Corbusier said, “I shall ask my readers to imagine they are walking in this new city and have begun to acclimatize themselves to its untraditional advantages. You are under the shade of trees, vast lawns spread all around you. The air is clear and pure; there is hardly any noise. What, you cannot see where the buildings are? Look through the charmingly diapered arabesques of branches out into the sky towards those widely spaced crystal towers which soar higher than any pinnacle on earth. These translucent prisms that seem to float in the air without anchorage to the ground – flashing in summer sunshine, softly gleaming under grey winter skies, magically glittering at nightfall – are huge blocks of offices. Beneath each is an underground station (which gives the measure of the interval between them.) Since this City has three or four times the density of our existing cities, the distances to be transverse in it (as also the resultant fatigue) are three or four times less, for only 5-10% of the surface area of its business center is built over. That is why you find yourself walking among spacious parks remote from the busy him of the autostrada.” He continues, “Paris of tomorrow could be magnificently equal to the march of events that day bringing us ever nearer to the dawn of a new social contract.”

Now, if Plan Voisin were to be approved, Le Corbusier would need funding, and the only way was from his assumptions regarding high-class, elite business investors. Still assuming, Le Corbusier promised their investment could be bought back from the land’s potential worth. Of course, the Plan did not come to fruition. And, therefore, the investors did not invest.

To wrap all these pieces together, it is now appropriate to move from this insane architectural plan to Le Corbusier’s political involvement, which, inevitably, resembles Plan Voisin.

Le Corbusier’s fascist condition runs through Plan Voison’s veins. However, it is important to note Le Corbusier’s conservatism behind this seemingly capitalist agenda to produce business cities designed for the upper middle class. Le Corbusier showed great respect and gratitude for the working class, which is why he is often seen as an advocate for trade unions. He wanted these unions, specifically banks and international corporations, to control production while their chain of command found replacements for themselves.  Meaning, the bourgeoisie would remain in full control while the proletariat simply illuminates their position and hierarchy. Rather than linking himself to capitalism, which would ruin his image and legacy, Le Corbusier called himself a revolutionary syndicalist.

Le Corbusier’s fascist and radical activism revealed a drastically new plan for cities that have never been expressed as plausible possibilities. The blueprints Le Corbusier presented were his plan of success to create powerful and industrial cities he knew he could build with confidence. These blueprints were the gateway to Le Corbusier’s immaculate and incomprehensible brain. And, if we understand clearly, we are able to determine Le Corbusier’s purpose to combine environmental efforts and its transformation of social order. Without these environmental and natural qualities, Plan Voisin could never be Paris again, nor would it be considered a key portion of European culture.

It is important to note that Le Corbusier saw himself as an authoritative figure in the architectural world. This authority essentially gave him the power to produce something out of nothing, ultimately persisting his architectural creations would be taken over by the capitalist working class. Plan Voisin, among other blueprints like Contemporary City, was crafted from this genius to formulate an area designated to an industrial society. A new society, a new form of life, and a new perspective for mankind to live in community with one other. By itself, Le Corbusier’s capitalist and fascist ideals reflect Plan Voisin by highlighting its centrality and controlling nature of this organized yet complex structural center. Le Corbusier said, “the offices in my infrastructure come with the commands that put the world in order,” which brings hierarchy into this picture. Central Paris as the administrative and business center of France is the epicenter of Europe by housing the elite, nearly secluding them from the rest of the world, but they would also collaborate to create a mega city by combining forces of intellect. Le Corbusier says, “captains of business, of industry, of finance, of politics, masters of science, of pedagogy, of thought, the spokesman of the heart, the artists, poets, musicians.”

To create a city where the rich are catered to and the working class are treated like scrum unites Le Corbusier’s sentiments towards capitalism, socialism, communism, and fascism. A city of prosperity through business opportunities yet controlled by the same people that live in these skyscrapers, is seen as an oxymoron. It is a miracle Le Corbusier never received funding to demolish Paris. If he did, Paris, and probably the rest of the world, would be living in a dystopian empire full of chaos, not the harmony and unity Le Corbusier envisioned.

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