High Modernist Society

471 Words2 Pages
___________________________________________________ The High-Modernist City: An experiment and a critique This essay is a criticism of urban planning and creation of a High-Modernist city. In the first section we take a look into the utopian project of the creation of a city according to Le Corbusier. The utopian project has some of the following features: There is a visual order and aesthetic order, on the principles of architecture. It doesn’t take into account the historicity of a place and everything is built afresh. The whole creation of a modern city is more of an expression of a machine age consciousness. He presumes that happiness already exists and these modern cities are a manifestation of material and physical requirements that post industrialised man wants. Human needs are scientifically defined by Le Corbusier. The design of these cities also incorporate into them the class distinctions, which later become the order of residence. Pleasure, happiness, freedom are defined in the order and functionality of these cities. This approach is a kind of getting social order through visual order. Against High modernist urbanism: Jane Jacobs This section is a critique to urban planning of Le Corbusier by Jane Jacobs. Cities are not planned to create sheer visual order, but has a greater element of happiness and life. Few elements of discussion and observations are: Functional order need not necessarily be created from visual order. Purpose of a city is not only to create an aesthetic order, but also account for some actual social and economic order, which seems to be missing from Le Corbusier’s work Mere mathematical calculations, designs cannot create public trust and socialization. The visual disorder which Le Corbusier speaks is an indication of diversity, which results in synergy. Urban planning is not merely an architectural design or a
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