The Modern Interior

The interior of Le Corbusier’s ‘Pavillon de l’Esprit Nouveau’ for the Exposition
Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes, Paris, 1925.
of materiality to otherwise abstract Modernist settings but the skeletal
forms of the furniture items that were included prevented them from
disturbing spatial continuity. A subtle balancing act was needed in the
design of the material and the spatial aspects of those interiors. Import -
antly, also, the materials in question were industrially manufactured
rather than crafted. Like Adam Smith’s identical pins, produced in early
pin factories, one industrially produced tubular steel chair looked, therefore,
exactly like another.
Le Corbusier’s Pavillon de l’Esprit Nouveau, designed for the 1925
Paris Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes,
combined fitted furniture with a number of anonymous ‘object-types’. The
pavilion itself was a rare instance of a prototype interior designed as a
‘model’ unit that theoretically, at least, could be replicated many times over
in a large apartment block. Le Corbusier chose each item to show his commitment
to new materials, industrial production, and standardization. 7 He 153