Concepts of the Architect

BETWEEN 1902 and 1917 Le Corbusier was, in his native country closely involved in the birth and organization of a special educational section for architectural evolution. Thanks to an exceptional teacher, young and full of initiatives (L'Eplattenier), an educational center limited to 20 students, men and women, existed during 15 years exciting the interest and hostility of people. In one single place were taught drawing or color, volume, modeling, etc..., construction (furniture, etc.), jewellery, embroidery, etc, etc. . . . Le Corbusier began with a burin in his hand and the goldsmith's hammer and chisel, realizing, though very young, excellent works. He made his first house when he was seventeen and a half without ever having studied architecture. This house subjected to the influence of that time and of his teacher L'Eplattenier, gave an opening to architectural decorations: "sgraffiti," mural painting, furniture, wrought iron, embossing, etc.... During the following years this school undertook building works (decorative, of course, since it was the fashion at that time): metal, stone, mosaic, stained-glass window (concert-room, church, fragment of a public edifice, etc...) One day everything collapsed before the rivalry and the hatred which had roused the old school against this New Section. The evolution of men, the manifestation of individualities, the divergences, finally overcame the enthusiasm.

And the whole concern collapsed!

From this first experience Le Corbusier has kept the instinct of the fatidical, indispensible, practical, and beneficient relations between the hand and the head. The rupture of this collaboration of the hand and the head brought by the mechanism and the bureacracy has fomented little by little the monstrous society which would be on the decline if no reaction interfered.

Harvard University's initiative has therefore found in Le Corbusier a ground which is naturally favorable to the implantation of the ideas which constitute the present program of this University.