What is art? What defines artistic creation, and to what extent is it possible to know whether a piece of art belongs to one movement or another? The modern era invited audiences and creators of all areas to explore and challenge these and many more questions. Between the 18th and 19th centuries, the world saw the rise of abstract art as a means to represent intangible concepts and defy existing conventions of creation, bringing a new meaning to art itself; while on another hand, the birth of jazz produced new textures and sounds while favoring live improvisation, as opposed to earlier traditional genres where only existing music was performed. Architecturally speaking, modernist architecture served a highly similar purpose in the sense that it adjusted classical structural elements to fit an emerging technological society while establishing new postures regarding the relationship between form and function. These postures may vary within designer’s works, such as Le Corbusier’s abstractions in his Maisons Jaoul, finished in the late 1956. Additionally, the use of series is well appreciated in both the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts and the Mill Owners’ Association Building. Together, both abstractions and the use of evolutionary series have facilitated a wider definition of modernism in all its senses.
The Maisons Jaoul, two similar villas located in Paris, are a curious opposite of Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye, completed in 1929. Instead of the latter’s materialistic purity and floating appearance, the Maisons Jaoul are perceived as more compact structures, with varying materials and contrasting shapes in its facades, seen in its orthogonally gridded window frames and the concave geometries formed by the concrete on the top levels. This dialogue between linear and curved shapes, present in previous works of Le Corbusier (even in Villa Savoye, although at a lesser scale), are present in the Jaoul villas’ interiors: both main longitudinal walls are crowned with catalan vaults, suggesting a reinterpretation of train station vaults. The vaults, which set spatial divisions, break free from the architect’s past former preferences towards open space plans, which would not be surprising, seeing how none of Le Corbusier’s Five Points of Architecture are emphasized in the twin villas. While bearing an eclectic appeareance, it’s evident that the Maisons Jaoul are not only a reinterpretation of the classical vault, but an abstraction of the designer’s work as a whole.
Le Corbusier may have abstracted from his earlier stances, but he also repeated the use of certain elements, adapted to suit different functions. For instance, the Mill Owner’s Association Building (1954), located in Ahmedabad, India, used curved distribution of space within an orthogonal floor plan. Homogeneous in appearance, due to its brutalist approach, the building balances solid concrete versus the colors and textures present in the building’s vegetation and its natural surroundings. However, a characteristic feature in the building is the use of brises-soleil, a series of slanted openings to deviate direct sunlight and allow ventilation, all while adding visual depth to the main facade. Almost a decade later, Le Corbusier presented a very similar project, this time serving an educational purpose: the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, located in Cambridge, Boston. Similar to the Mill Owner’s Association headquarters, the Carpenter Center features a ramp that leads the way towards the building’s interior. In this scenario, the brises-soleil serve a more specific purpose as windows for the studio areas, thus being larger than those in Le Corbusier’s former project.
Throughout Le Corbusier’s works, recurring themes, both abstracted and reimagined, such as the ones previously mentioned, ultimately characterized his work. Conversely, the same happens in virtually any art: be it film, music or visual arts, everything embodies a posture, a reaction, an evolution of past versions. As a result, every creator is defined by the result of their own constant exploration and iteration.
References:
Angel, J. F. (n.d.). Maison Jaoul. Retrieved November 01, 2020, from http://jessica-f-angel.com/maison-jaoul
Jones, R. (2014, January 07). AD Classics: Mill Owners' Association Building / Le Corbusier. Retrieved November 01, 2020, from https://www.archdaily.com/464142/ad-classics-mill-owners-association-building-le-corbusier?ad_medium=gallery
Kroll, A. (2011, March 13). AD Classics: Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts / Le Corbusier. Retrieved November 01, 2020, from https://www.archdaily.com/119384/ad-classics-carpenter-center-for-the-visual-arts-le-corbusier
Videos:
The Case for Abstraction | The Art Assignment | PBS Digital Studios [Video file]. (2016, July 28). Retrieved November 1, 2020, from The Case for Abstraction | The Art Assignment | PBS Digital Studios
The Case for Jackson Pollock | The Art Assignment | PBS Digital Studios [Video file]. (2017, December 14). Retrieved November 1, 2020, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1U19VOF4qfs
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