Le Corbusier created the general layout of this new Indian city, separating it into different functional sectors (or “urban villages”). Palace of Assembly building in Chandigarh, India, image by duncid, (CC BY-SA 2.0) Its ideas did, however, shape Corbu’s approach to urban design and architecture, from European projects all the way to Chandigarh. Though highly influential (in both Corbu’s own work and the work of other city planners), the Ville Radieuse was never constructed. In theory, at least, he had design solutions for every kind of built environment, from individual houses up to entire cities as well as suburbs and agricultural communities.Īrticle Machines for Living In: Le Corbusier’s Pivotal “Five Points of… He also developed parallel proposals for a Ferme Radieuse (Radiant Farm) and Village Radieuse (Radiant Village). Residents would enjoy peace and quiet, separated from industrial districts.Ĭorbu exhibited his master plan in 1930 at the third CIAM meeting in Brussels. Apartments would have views out onto shared public spaces. Prefabricated housing towers would serve as vertical villages with their own laundromats as well as rooftop kindergartens and playgrounds. At the center, a business district would be connected to separate residential and commercial zones via underground transit.
Pedestrians, cyclists, drivers and public transportation users were given dedicated routes to get around, set up (or down) at various elevations.Įverything in the Ville Radieuse would be symmetrical and standardized. The resulting horizontal areas would serve as traffic corridors as well as public landscapes with lush greenery.
The basic strategy behind these various schemes was to create vertical architecture and leave plenty of shared open space in between for people to use and enjoy.
Notably, the latter of these sparked controversy after Corbu suggested razing historical parts of Paris to build it - he had a way of riling people up, arguably an intentional tactic to draw public attention to and elicit media coverage of his ideas. Like a living organism, it consisted of organized parts that would work together as a whole.Ĭorbu’s approach to his visionary Ville Radieuse was an extension of other conceptual cities he had been working on, including the Ville Contemporaine and Plan Voisin. The layout of Corbu’s ideal city was abstractly inspired by the arrangement and functions of the human body.
It was ambitious, a blueprint not only for a more rational urban environment but also for radical social reform. Designed in the 1920s by Le Corbusier, one of Modernism’s most influential architects, the “Radiant City” was to be a linear and ordered metropolis of the future.