4 unités LC - Architecture Insights

From the design of ‘Immeubles-Villas’, Le Corbusier formulated his
proposals for the Paris Exhibition of 1937 – ‘Projects A + B’. These
were for real projects, as opposed to the more classically temporal
projects of Exhibitions, proposing the construction of housing
blocks in the style of ‘Immeubles-Villas’ on a site in Paris, marking
the starting point for the ‘Plan Voisin’. 38 Le Corbusier had great
difficulty convincing the exhibition organisers of the merit of his
ideas, however, and his eventual contribution to the Paris
Exhibition of 1937 was the Pavillon des Temps Nouveaux – a
structure that, in reaction to his initially rejected ideas, emphasised
its temporal nature through its materials and construction. 39
The ‘Pavillon des Temps Nouveaux’ was a vehicle for propaganda.
It was used by Le Corbusier as an exhibition space to display to the
public the various urban and housing design schemes produced by
his studio over the years, and demonstrated how they fitted in to
the history of Urban design and addressed the problems
experienced in cities today. The Pavilion displayed in particular, the
plans for Paris 37 40 , based on the conclusions reached at the
CIAM (Congrès International d’Architecture Moderne) 41
conference in Athens, 1933. 42
39 40
9. The Ilot Insalubre no 6, Paris,
1937.
The first step in creation of ‘Paris 37’, was the reconstruction of the
Ilot Insalubre No. 6, in demonstration of Le Corbusier’s dedication
to social reform. 43 Le Corbusier claimed that the problems of the
‘îlots insalubres’ lay in the fact that too much land had been built
on. The results of this he saw as being: limited natural light, limited
fresh air, few green spaces, high humidity, lack of hygiene, and
proliferation of illness. 44 To counteract these problems he
proposed higher density housing blocks surrounded by ‘soleil,
espace, verdure’, the design being adapted from the housing
blocks that had featured in the ‘Ville Radieuse’, and were
developed in greater detail as the ‘Ville Radieuse’ housing block.