Something more about architecture

There will not be any other post on architecture this week – after this one, but I wanted to show some last things from my 16th arrondissement walk the other day.

It is surprising to find some radically different kind of buildings, built during the same period as what have seen in my latest two posts.

In the beginning of the 20th century, when the Art Nouveau was still in fashion and some more traditional types of houses were still built, an architectural movement tried to go in a clearly opposite direction. One of the “opposition leaders” was Le Corbusier (1887-1965), born in Switzerland, but later choosing French citizenship.

Le Corbusier’s real name was C-E Jeanneret and he took the pseudonym from his maternal grandfather’s name. Le Corbusier was a visionary. He did thus not believe in the Art Nouveau, nor in the later Art Deco. He thought that the new industrial age should be represented by a brand-new architecture, which could be called Industrial Style. People needed space, fresh air, simple comfort, hygiene… He talked about “machines of living”. One of his ideas was to build enormous skyscrapers (those he saw in New York were too small), surrounded by a lot of green space. He wanted to transform the Paris centre in this way. This remained a vision, but he designed some big apartment houses, on pillars (for the air to circulate), with gardens on the top (now closed). Basically everything should be very rectangular and simple.

Most of his visionary ideas are today criticised, forgotten…, but here you can see some examples of what he accomplished (photos found on Google). (The church is not so quite rectangular.)

What we can find by Le Corbusier in the 16th arrondissement (see below) is a rather modest building. Through one of the windows, you can also see a chair, designed by him (the photo on the top). The place can be visited (but it was closed when I passed by). Another architect, who designed in a similar style, was Robert Mallet-Stevens (1886-1945). Together with Le Corbusier and some others he founded “l’Union des Artistes Modernes”. Here you can see one of a few buildings he has created in the same area. The one I pictured is fairly freshly repainted; its neighbour is not, and I believe that whether you like this kind of architecture or not - it certainly needs to be very well maintained. You will find as well the Le Corbusier as Mallet-Steven buildings on rue Blanche.

The original photos can be found on my other blog, "Peter - photos".

I got another reward yesterday, see below!