LE COBUSIER, BACKGROUNG OF CITY DEVELOPMENT IN EARLY 20th CENTURY, THE GRID CONCEPT, Contemporary City, Radiant City, THE RADIANT CITY CONCEPT, CONCEPT OF RADIANT CITY, HOUSING TOWERS

1. HUMAN SETTLEMENT AND PLANNING
(ARCH- 255)
AMITY SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE &
PLANNING
LE COBUSIER Pooja Padhi
Dhruvi Sharma
Mohd. Affan
Amal Dev
Juhi Jaseem
Kriya Chopra

2. Le Cobusier
• Born in 1887, he is known as one of the most
important architects of the last century.
• He was also a famous artist and town planner.
• According to his point of view of architecture
as a complex art of construction, he also dealt
with architectural theory, city planning,
sculpture and designing of furniture.

3. City in Early 20th Century
Population Growth
Broken Traditional
Pattern &
Reconstruction of
New Structures
Environmental
Pollution
Traffic Congestion
BACKGROUNG OF CITY DEVELOPMENT IN EARLY
20th CENTURY:

4. THE GRID
CONCEPT
• Le Corbusier tried to create a totally different
world from the existing one. He wanted to
grow with the machines and take full
advantage of its potential for seed and
vertically.
• E.g.
• Contemporary City
• Radiant City
• Linear City

5. Contemporary City
• Symmetrical streets in grid iron pattern.
• Industry, commerce, administration and residential
areas are allotted separate sectors
• All fat automobiles traffic were handled by
Highways and never crossed pedestrian traffic
Central City
Two Main Highways
Residential Zone

6. Contemporary City

7. Contemporary City

8. Radiant City
• Concentric plan- to allow normal growth of the city.
• “Essence of the city is the dwelling area".
• Dwelling area occupied the most central location
• The civic center is on the main axis, the business area on the top,
light manufacturing, freight wards and heavy industries are at the
bottom.

9. Business Area
Residential Zone
Industrial Zone

10. THE RADIANT CITY CONCEPT
• Le Corbusier was trying to find a fix for the same problem of urban pollution and overcrowding but unlike Howard
he envisioned building not out.
• His plan also known as “tower in the park” proposed exactly that numerous high rise building each surrounded by
green space. Each building was set on “superblock”.
• The radiant city (ville radieuse) is an unrealized urban masterplan, presented in 1924 and
published in a book.
• Designed to contain effective means of transportation, as well as an abundance of green space and
sunlight
• Le Corbusier's city of future would not only provide residents with better lifestyle but would contribute to create a
better society .
• Though radical, strict in order, symmetry and standardization, Le Corbusier's proposed principles had an extensive
influence on modern urban planning and led to the development of new high density housing typologies.
• The radiant city was to be built on nothing less than the grounds of demolished vernacular European cities.
• The new city would contain prefabricated and identical high-density skyscrapers spread across a vast green area.

11. CONCEPT OF RADIANT
CITY
• The radiant city was a linear city
based upon the abstract shape of the
human body with head, spine, arms
and legs.
• The design maintained the idea of
high- rise housing blocks, free
circulation and abundant green space
proposed in his earlier work.
• The blocks of housing were laid out in
long lines stepping in and out and
were raised up on pilotis. They had
roof terraces.
• The resulting horizontal areas would
serve as traffic corridors as well as
public landscapes with lush greenery.
Pedestrians, cyclists, drivers and
public transportation users were given
dedicated routes to get around, set up
(or down) at various elevations.

12. PLANNING
• At the core of Le Corbusier's plan stood the notion of
zoning; a strict division of the city into segregated
commercial, business, entertainment a residential area.
• Everything in the Ville Radieuse would be symmetrical
and standardized. At the center, a business district would
be connected to separate residential and commercial zones
via underground transit. Prefabricated housing towers
would serve as vertical villages with their own
laundromats as well as rooftop kindergartens and
playgrounds. Apartments would have views out onto
shared public spaces. Residents would enjoy peace and
quiet, separated from industrial districts.

13. • At the center of the planned city was a transportation hub which housed depots for buses and train
as well as highway intersections and at the top an airport.
• Location in the center of the civic district was the main transportation deck from which a vast
underground system of trains would transport citizens to and from the surrounding housing districts.

14. • The center piece of this plan was a group of sixty story cruciform skyscrapers built on steel frames and encased in curtain wall of
glass. The skyscrapers housed both offices and the flats of the wealthiest inhabitants. These skyscrapers were set within large
rectangular park like green space.
• Le Corbusier segregated the pedestrian circulation paths from the roadways and glorified the use of the automobile as a means of
transport. As one moved out from the central skyscrapers, smaller multi story zig zag blocks set in green space and set far back the
street housed the proletarian workers.

15. HOUSING TOWERS
• The housing districts would contain pre-
fabricated apartment building known as
“unites”
• Reaching a height of fifty meters a single
unite could accommodate 2,700
inhabitants and function as a vertical
village: catering and laundry facilities
would be on the ground floor, a kinder
garden and a pool on the roof.

16. • Inside les unites were the vertical street i.e. The
elevators and the pedestrian interior streets that
connected one building to another
• Automobile traffic was to circulate on piotis
supported roadways 5 ways
• Other transportation modes like subways and truck
had their own roadways separate from automobile
• Corbusier bitterly reproaches advocated of the
horizontal garden city for the time wasted
commuting to the city.
• Issues of healthy living, traffic, noise, public space
and transportation which Le Corbusier unlike any
architect before him addressed holistically continue
to be a major concern of city planners today.
• The source of inspiration for designing of the new
"vertical city" by todays architects and planners

17. Linear (Industrial) City
• Located along the main arteries of
transportation - water, rail and the highway-
connecting the existing cities.
• Factories placed along the main transportation
routes, separated from the residential section
by the auto highway and green strips.
• The residential areas include the horizontal
growth of single houses and vertical apartment
buildings
• Sports entertainment, shopping and office
facilities are distributed in the district and all
the facilities of the community are placed
within ample open space enhanced with
nature.

18. VISIONS OF LE
CORBUSIER:
• Visions of city planning Better known by
his professional name, Le Corbusier was a
twentieth-century architect and planner
of planetary ambitions. At one the or
another he designed buildings or
proposed city-planning schemes for Paris,
Stockholm, Geneva, Barcelona, Moscow,
Marseilles, Algiers, Sao Paulo, Rio de
Janeiro, Buenos Aires, and Chandigarh,
India.
• Le Corbusier prenoted hugeness,
hierarchy, and centralism in city structure.
• He tremendously influential in leading
other modern architects in the same
direction.
• Le Corbusier hoped to create a
scientifically rational and comprehensive
solution to urban problems in a way that
would both promote democracy and
quality of life.
PARIS PLANNING CONCEPT
MOMA PLANNING CONCEPT

19. What is the Garden City
Movement
• The garden city movement is a method of urban planning in which
self-contained communities are surrounded by greenbelts,
containing proportionate areas of residences, industry, and
agriculture.
• The idea was initiated in 1898 by Ebenezer Howard in the United
Kingdom and aims to capture the primary benefits of a countryside
environment and a city environment while avoiding the
disadvantages presented by both.
• Howard envisioned this model city less as enclaves for the rich, but
believed greenery was a social equalizers imbibed with a utilitarian
spirit.
• Howard’s scheme outlined a nearly self-sufficient conceptual city of
6,000 acres for a population of 32,000 people.
• This city would take the best of both town and country-- a high
density and highly structured urban town surrounded by a ring of
agriculture and open/space.
• Housing, open space, employment, and financing were all though
about and detailed.

20. Le Corbusier's Garden
City
• The design of the Ville Radieuse was largely inspired by the shared
utilities inside the Constructivist Narkomfin building, which Le
Corbusier spotted in Moscow while working on a blueprint for the
House of the Soviets in the 1920s (his project was eventually
rejected by Stalin).
• The young architect was then under a huge influence of Ebenezer
Howard, the founder of the world’s first Garden City (Letchworth in
the UK) and his book ‘Garden Cities of Tomorrow’.
• If Howard’s ultimate aim was to take London workers out of the
late-Victorian slums and resettle them in the countryside, Le
Corbusier, who hated the very concept of a conventional urban
dwelling (‘Let’s kill the street!’ was one of his favourite mottoes),
aspired to build ‘a garden city in the sky’ to provide affordable
accommodation for those who had lost their homes in the First
World War.
• His vertical city was supposed to be a truly ‘brutalist’ structure
unappealing from the outside, but practical and comfortable for the
residents.
• The building’s dimensions were to be calculated using Le Corbusier’s
own ‘Modular’ system, based on the proportions of a human body.

21. Le Corbusier’s Four Principle’s in City Planning:
Decrease Congestion in City Centre
Increase the Density of Population in City Centre
Diversify Ways of Transportation
Expand the Green Area

22. HIS BELIEFS:
• Le Corbusier meant that a planner should dictate
the planning process of a city regardless of the
context, culture or need.
• He was of strong opinion that organically developed
cities lead to chaos. which is difficult to control.
• That is why he cites the examples of Chandigarh.
• "The human mind loses itself and becomes
fatigued by such a labyrinth of possibilities. Control
becomes impossible,"
• He explained. "1 eliminate al1 those things", he
said, stating, among other things, that "1 insist on
right-angled intersections.“
• Le Corbusier liked to control al1 variables. He
calculated the air, heat, light, and space
requirements of humans and settled on 14 square
meters per person but reckoned that this could be
reduced to ten square meters if such activities as
food preparation and laundering were communal.

23. • The very first of Le Corbusier's design principles was his dictum
that "The Plan (always capitalized in his usage) is a Dictator."
• He repeatedly contrasted traditional cities (products of
dispersed power and evolution across history) with the city of
the future, which would be consciously formulated from start to
finish by one designer.
• "The great city commands everything: peace, war, and work
Whether it is a Matter of clothing. philosophy, technology, or
taste, the great city dominates and colonizes the provinces:
The lines of influence and command are exclusively from the
centre to the periphery of the city. “
• Le Corbusier believed that at the apex of society, there should
be a modern philosopher-king who applies scientific truths for
the wellbeing of all. Naturally, the king executes his guidance
through his master planner; the person who uncovers these
scientific truths.
HIS BELIEFS:

24. FUNCTIONS
OF CITY
PLANNING
• Le Corbusier liked to compare the city he planned to a
biological entity. In this he identified four basic functions;
living, working, circulation and the body and spirit. This is
how he set the definition of the use of the city. This also
reflects his strong Dictum: "The plan is the Dictator of the
City".
• Residential sectors constitute the living part whereas the
Capitol Complex, City Centre, Educational Zone (Post
Graduate Institute, Punjab Engineering College, Punjab
University) and the Industrial Area constitute the working
part.
• The Leisure Valley, Gardens, Sector Greens and Open
Courtyards etc. are for the care of body and spirit.

25. SPACE DIVISION
He conceived the Chandigarh Master Plan as analogous to human body, It
is almost biological in its form.
• Its commanding head; the Capitol Group; its heart the city commercial
center
• its hands as the industrial area; its brain the intellectual center in the
park land ,museums, university, Library and other such cultural and
educational activities are located.
• It has its stomach in its city center in the central market, its veins are
embedded in the roads, the water, and electricity. The whole city is
surrounded by open country, but it has its internal lungs too, its green
breathing space.
• This long simile of a town, known as an organism, can be even further
extended to the fact that allowance has been made for growth.
• Le Corbusier has focused mainly on designing the Capitol Complex,
which was necessarily the 'Head' of his city. In short, this analogy was
used to define the zoning pattern of Chandigarh to create an order in
use of the city.

26. Edict of Chandigarh set by Le Corbusier:
• The city was composed of sectors.
• Each sector was 800 meters by 1,200 meters, enclosed by roads allocated to fast-
mechanized transport and sealed to direct access from the houses.
• Each sector catered to the daily needs of its inhabitants, which varied from 5,000
to25,000 and had a green strip oriented longitudinally in north direction stretching
centrally along the sector in the direction of the mountains.
• The green strip was to stay uninterrupted and accommodate schools, sports fields,
walks and recreational facilities for the sector.
• Vehicular traffic was completely forbidden in the green strips, where tranquility shall
reign and the curse of noise shall not penetrate.
• The roads of the city were classified into seven categories, known as the system of 7
Vs
Certain areas of Chandigarh were of special architectural interest, especially where harmonized
and unified construction of buildings was aimed at.
• No building was to be constructed north of the Capitol Complex.
• The central plaza in Sector 17 was designed by as 'Pedestrian's Paradise’.
• No vehicular traffic was to be permitted in the plaza.
• Corbusier stressed that the faithfulness to the mandated materials of constructions, concrete,
bricks and stone and so on was to be maintained in al1buildings constructed or to be
constructed.

27. CHANDIGARH CITY
• One of the most significant urban planning
experiments of the 20th century.
• Only urban planning schemes of Le Corbusier to
have actually been executed.
• Famous for its landscaping as for its architectural
ambience
• Each sector was 800 meters by 1,200 meters,
enclosed by roads allocated to fast-mechanized
transport and sealed to direct access from the
houses.
• Each sector catered to the daily needs of its
inhabitants, which varied from 5,000 to 25,000
and had a green strip oriented longitudinally in
north direction stretching centrally along the
sector in the direction of the mountains.

28. LE CORBUSIER VISIONS ON
CHANDIGARH CITY:
• Le Corbusier's proposed cities (like Chandigarh) could be
anywhere: free of context, history, or tradition. He had no
patience for environments that had grown up
independently over time. "A city should be treated by its
planner as a blank piece of paper, a clean table-cloth,
upon which a single, integrated composition is imposed".
• His new cities were supposed to be organized, serene,
forceful, airy, ordered.
• Le Corbusier suggested that master designs could
powerfully reshape a society, but for that to happen the
designer needed to be prepared to act ruthlessly.
• He hoped, the high-modernist social engineer would not be
carped as in the West, where a dispersion of power among
many competing groups and individuals made it possible to
practice only what he called an 'orthopaedic architecture'.

29. The Functions for Chandigarh as defined by Le
Corbusier
• According to CIAM (Congress International de 1' Architecture Moderne), Charter of Athens, Le Corbusier laid down functions
for Chandigarh.
• The force of this Charter was in giving the first place to the dwellings: the environment of living for the family under the rule
of '24 solar hours’.
• The second place was given to working, which is the daily act of human obligation.
• The third place was given to the culture of body on one hand and an intellectual leisure on the other.
• When all these goals were achieved, it was possible to give to each of them a respective rightful place and at this moment can
interfere the problems of realizing the contacts: that is 'circulation'.
• Referring to this line of conduct as stated above, the urbanism of Chandigarh emerged as a conclusion. The charter brought
many appreciable factors. However, the question placed before the city's development authorities was what will be the
future? Chandigarh being an administrative city, two centers emerged:
1. One as the government with Capitol Complex buildings and parks and its precise situation in the landscape.
2. The second one was the town hall, placed in the City Center.

30. The Functions for Chandigarh as defined by Le Corbusier:
The Sector:
• The population would be approximately from 5,000 to 20,000 inhabitants.
• Chandigarh had 30 sectors. Each sector had its maintenance organizations, the
food provisions, schools, necessary artisans, etc. all traversing in the middle of
each sector.
• The V-4 gave the horizontal connection between the contiguous sectors.
• The sector was surrounded by high-speed roads with bus stops every 430
meters and given eight entrances in this social group.
• The fundamental principle of the sector was that no door was to open on the
surrounding V-3s.
• the V-4could accept the through passage of cars and buses but only at low
speed.
• Each sector would have a green properly oriented in the direction of the
mountain, constituting a band vertically connecting a series of sectors.

31. ROAD HIERARCHY : 7 V’s OF CHANDIGARH
CITY ROADS ARE CLASSIFIED INTO SEVEN CATEGORIES,
KNOWN AS THE ‘V 7 SYSTEM’.
 V 1 : FAST ROADS CONNECTING CHNDIGARH TO
OTHER STATES AND TOWNS.
 V 2 : ARTERIAL ROADS ( MAJOR BOULEVARDS).
 V 3 : FAST VEHICULAR ROADS (SECTOR DEFINERS,
MARKING EACH SECTOR).
 V 4 : FREE FLOWING SHOPPING STREETS.
 V 5 : SECTOR INTER-CIRCULATION ROAD.
 V 6 : ACCESS ROADS TO THE HOUSES.
 V 7 : PEDESTRIAN PATHS AND CYCLE TRACKS.

32. ROAD NETWORK IN
CORELATION TO 7V’s
• BUSES ARE ONLY ALLOWED TO PLY UPON V1, V2, V3
AND V4 ROADS.
• ROADS INTERSECTED AT RIGHT ANGLES FORMING A
GRID.
• RESIDENTIAL AREAS ARE SEGREGATED FROM TRAFFIC.
• SEPARATE PATHWAYS PROVIDED FOR CYCLISTS.
• HIERARCHY OF MOVEMENT DECREASES THE NUMBER
OF ROAD RELATED CALAMITIES.

33. DENSITY AND
DEMOGRAPHICS
• Total Population (2011 census) : 1,055,45.
• Density of population/sq. km. : 9,258.
• There is an increase of around 1.54 lakh since the last
census in 2001.
• Between 1991 and 2001 the population growth rate was
40.3 per cent while from 2001 to 2011 it was 17.1 per cent.
• In terms of population density, the city is ranked at number
2, just behind Delhi NCR. The figure is 9,258 per sq km
against 7,900 per sq kilometre in 2001.
• Over the years, the concentration of population in the
southern sectors has witnessed an increase while the trend
is reverse in the northern sectors.
• The literacy rate of the city stands at eighth in the country
at 86.43 per cent of the population. This includes 90.54 per
cent males and 86.14 per cent females. In 2001, the literacy
rate was 81.94 per cent and the city was ranked sixth.

38. Positive and Negative aspects of Chandigarh:
• Le Corbusier's city was originally planned with the idea of considering the Human scale for proportion.
However the final product was totally out of scale.
• His idea of wide streets made interaction difficult.
• He specifically arranged zoning such as Capitol, Industry, Housing, Commercial, etc. which unfortunately was
completely opposite of a typical Indian characteristic settlement. In other words, his planning was free of
any context related to Indian culture and traditions.
• The resulting geography was very distinct from his analogy.
If his ideas of planning are superimposed on a virtual city, give a completely different picture. The reasons why Le
Corbusier's plans would work, possibly more efficiently as Virtual cities could be related to:
• His idea of straight, effective and simple to follow planning, which directed and dictated the user at every step.
• His rigid grid iron plans bring clarity to navigation, strength in representation, solidity to the interface and
distinctiveness to the character of a virtual city.

39. THANK YOU