Reading Response 5 (Week 9)

Jean-Louis Cohen and Beatriz Colomina's analyses of Le Corbusier's integration of various media to further his architectural projects underlined something we often forget: the various distortions that images of a building or project can introduce to the actual design. Colomina puts this most bluntly on page 15 of "Le Corbusier and Photography", writing: "Images are not used to 'illustrate' the text; rather they construct the text." Nicolai Ouroussoff's New York Times article of April 20, 2008 entitled "Now You See It, Now You Don't" addresses similar concerns: the manipulative digital constructions and pseudo-photographic representations architects and developers use to promote their projects. Here, as in Colomina's Le Corbusier examples, doctored images hold as much weight as buildings themselves: the distinction between sign and referent, object and image breaks down.

Ouroussof's larger argument – something Colomina avoids in favor of portraying Le Corbusier as a pioneering guru of photography and advertising – was that completed constructions can be extremely disappointing if these representations are looked at uncritically. This is clearly a problem in New York today, where luxury condo developments come with high-concept visual campaigns. Finished, some look passable at a distance, but they're often poorly constructed and designed from street level and inside. This same problem – prioritizing mediated views over embodied experience – struck me in the two Le Corbusier buildings I'm most familiar with: the Unité d'Habitation housing project in Marseille (1952) and the Notre Dame du Haut chapel in Ronchamp (1954).

Both are in relatively isolated settings, nearly "eliminating the site," and "mak[ing] architecture into an object relatively independent of place" (Colomina 4). In Ronchamp this isn't so problematic. Ascending a steep hill from the village towards the building turns the visit into a kind of pilgrimage, and the beautiful site offers terrific vistas onto the surrounding valley. Even here, though, architecture seems organized especially for photographic and filmic vision. Observed from the access road or village below (as seen at top), the chapel appears as it was intended to be seen: a building both dominant and soft, posturing while peeling back its roof and corners with inviting curves. From the other side (only accessible on foot), the building is completely mediocre (as seen above).

The shortcomings of Le Corbusier's Unité d'Habitation are much greater. The building features over 300 apartments, housing a veritable village within its suspended structure. Located off a six-lane parkway far from the dense city grid, the building's cast concrete structure sits on pylons, lifting it off the ground (as seen at right). This impressive feat of engineering isolates inhabitants from the surrounding geography, forcing all community activities onto a roof terrace (seen below) that features beautiful views but fosters insularity. Here, again, what Le Corbusier dubbed "machines for living" may actually be "machines for seeing." How ironic that one of New York's most spectacular buildings under construction – Jean Nouvel's 100 Eleventh Avenue – was dubbed "the vision machine" but will, judging from the site and structure so far, be a disappointing living machine. Such discrepancies are the highest stake in this art of architectural representation.