When reading Le Corbusier’s “The City of To-morrow” I found his “fundamental principles for modern town planning” quite interesting and rather practical (Le Corbusier 165). His concept of requiring “lungs” or open spaces in the city is a principle that I feel today should be emphasized in order to be more environmentally friendly. Initially, I found Le Corbusier’s principles well thought out and rationalized and agreed with a lot of what he was saying, until I saw the images of his city plan on page 173 and 178-181; one of these images is pictured below. While keeping with his ideas, these images struck me as creepy and imposing. This uniformity seemed to take all life and character out of the city and with the juxtaposition of requiring lungs and life in the city seemed odd to me.
On the other hand I found Gropius’ “Scope of Total Architecture” a little more difficult to read as it was much more theory based in comparison to Le Corbusier’s step by step principles. Despite this fact, I found his point of view about focusing on “individual variety” yet still keeping “a common denominator for all” refreshing after seeing the uniformity in Le Corbusier’s city images (Gropius xxii).
Citations:
Gropius, Walter. Essay. In Scope of Total Architecture, xvii-19. London: Allen & Unwin, 1956.
Le Corbusier. “A Contemporary City of Three Million Inhabitants.” Essay. In The City of To-Morrow: and Its Planning, 164–77. London: Architectural Pr., 1947.