History of Architecture (AP313) | Essay | 2014
Comparison of the five Principles of Le Corbusier and Monumentality and servant and served- space concepts of Louis Kahn
Essay for History of Architecture (AP131)
Garima Bansal Roll Number: 41 Sushant School of Art and Architecture
Le Corbusier Architect Le Corbusier will be forever known as an icon of Modernism. His outstanding achievements, his vision of machine civilization, his drawings, sculpture, architecture, city planning, and writing together compose a portrait of the architect as „protein creator‟(1). He aimed to create a modern architectural aesthetic based upon science and reason, utilizing technology and industry. With support of his technical expertise, he rationalized house design through scientific investigation of new materials and their potential, particularly re-enforced concrete. The theoretical considerations are based on many years of practical experience on building sites. These theories formulated and culminated in Le Corbusier‟s manifesto – Five Points towards a New Architecture.
The pilotis. The research work achieved new perspectives in architecture and urbanism. Previously, the house had been buried in the earth and the rooms are often dark and damp. Reinforced concrete gave the pilotis, the house in air, far from the soil, gardens stretching beneath the house as well as on the room.
The roof garden. It was then possible to make roof flat using reinforced concrete rather than inclined. The flat roof demands in the first place systematic utilization for domestic purposes: roof terrace, roof garden. The Page 1 of 9
History of Architecture (AP313) | Essay | 2014
water drainage occurs via interior of the building. The roof garden displays luxuriant vegetation.
The free plan. In the past, the plan had been the slave of the structural wall. Reinforced concrete brought the innovation of free plan in which the interiors are no longer rigidly determined by the structural wall. They have become free.
The elongated window. The window is one of the essential characteristics of the house. Reinforced concrete revolutionised the window. It is possible to place window along the whole façade from support to support, thus becomes horizontal window. Also, experiment has shown that a room thus lit has an eight times stronger illumination than the same room lit by vertical windows with the same window area.
The free façade. The pillars retreated from the façades to the inside the house. The floors project beyond the supporting pillars, like the balcony around the building. The whole façade is free and extended beyond the supporting construction. (2)
Figure 1: Le Corbusier Comparative sketches to show the advantages of the 'Five Points' Ref: http://www.oocities.org/tokyo/temple/9827/LeCorbusier5
Le Corbusier assured himself of the 'Five Points' in the design the Cook House in Boulogne-sur-Seine and the Villa Stein. Le Corbusier felt fully justified in making 2Houses Weissenhof Siedlung in Stuttgart (1927), a kind of summary of all his convictions concerning an industrialized architecture. The first Weissenhof building was a precise and beautifully proportioned version of his Citrohan project of 1922. It repeated the clearly defined roof garden on top, and free facade glazed by large rectangles of glass, like an abstract painting. The second building was an actual apartment house. The building had single-level apartments on the second floor, and a roof garden on top. The stair towers were treated as separate elements, projecting out from the 'pure prism' of the apartment block. A ribbon of glass consisting of horizontally sliding windows extended across the full length of the building. All partitions inside consisted of prefabricated storage walls. Page 2 of 9
History of Architecture (AP313) | Essay | 2014
Louis Isadore Kahn Architect Louis Kahn is known for combining Modernism with the weight and dignity of ancient monuments. He influenced the development of modern architecture in poetic way of light and by his theories of form, monumentality and division of spaces as served and servant and measurable and unmeasurable forms. According to LIK, monumentality in architecture may be defined as a spiritual quality inherent in a structure which conveys the feeling of its eternity, that it cannot be added to or changed. We feel that quality in the Parthenon, the recognized architectural symbol of Greek civilization. Architectural monuments indicate structural perfection which has contributed in great part to their impressiveness, clarity of form, and logical scale. Masters of building design indicated the direction an architect may take to translate into simple terms the complexity of interrelation in space by a wall, a post, a beam, a roof and a window. Efforts developed in refining the meaning of these elements. A wall dividing interior space is not the same wall dividing the outside from the interior. Masonry functions as retaining and garden wall. The surfacing of the domes, vaults, and arches appear as part of exterior of building may be an integral part of the structural design. From experiments,
the
architect
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embellishments for his structures. His judgments lead him to free-standing forms in space. (3) Kahn Invented the idea servant and served spaces, i.e. which spaces would help him to use structural elements to not only to carry loads and give identity to his building but also to make them functional. Kahn differentiates between desire and need. He distinguished a space for people and space for service or servicing needs. He claims “It is disgraceful not to supply needs, and it goes without saying that if you are brought into this world, your need must be supplied. But desire is infinitely more important than need.” (Kahn, 1973) Therefore, he discovers a hierarchy of spaces, and made what he called “servant and served” spaces. The servant spaces only belong to the MEP spaces (the Mechanical, Electrical, Plumbing needs), which also includes the circulation and structure, while the served spaces belong to people who experience the space as a derived quality of form. This distinction was made explicit by Kahn and added a more meaningful exploration of experience than had been present in Modern architecture.(4) LIK designed a residential building Weiss House in Pennsylvania, 1950. He plans it with a clear functional division: the living room with central sitting area the fire Page 3 of 9
History of Architecture (AP313) | Essay | 2014
place and the adjoining kitchen create an independent volume, connected to the bedroom area by a narrow corridor zone. In this way Kahn creates a central track of service rooms as an axis and spine, for the first time establishing as a principle the distinction between „servant‟ and „served‟. (5)
COMPARISON Modern architecture emerges as monolithic and stresses on modern technology. The transformation of classical le Corbusier‟s villas of 1920s to physiological sculpture of Louis kahn to realise that the best ‟modern‟ work based on theories. However the aim is to compare works of these two architects‟ based on the theories they proposed. Villa Savoye designed by le Corbusier shows the „purity in its form‟ as it culminates the five five points of new architecture. On the other hand, Salk Institute for biological Studies constructed by Louis Kahn that applies monumental stature to modern architecture.
Figure 4: Villa savoye, 1929 Ref: http://artsiefartsy.wordpress.com/2011/03/28/a-look-back-villa-savoye-1929/
In Villa Savoye, the pilotis are elevated the mass off the ground and both the structural and non-structural elements are distinguished. Whereas, in Salk institute the structural pattern and joints of the formwork and the metal form ties (rods) that were used to hold the formwork in place are left visible.
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History of Architecture (AP313) | Essay | 2014
The villa Savoye has roof garden at top likewise Kahn included a garden to add to the natural elements of light, water, and trees and to further address the human needs of those who would inhabit the space. “I separated the studies from the laboratory and placed them over gardens,” he said.
Kahn called the laboratories the „served‟ spaces and the towers the „servant‟ spaces, and kept the two separate in his design whereas Le Corbusier the spatial interplay between public and private spaces, he situates the living spaces around a communal, outdoor terraced that is separated from the living area by a sliding glass wall that privatized areas within a larger communal setting.
Also, Corbusier‟s point of free designing of spaces has modified by Kahn in same project as he designed new style of truss that could support the floor above and give lift to the ceiling below without any additional support system. Therefore laboratory spaces are flexible enough to be customized for the needs of incoming scientists. The laboratories are designed as wideopen horizontal spaces, with their mechanical facilities stored above in the trussing, leaving more room in the laboratories themselves for people and equipment.
Villa Savoye has clean white façade cut only by distinctive horizontal windows thereby these strip windows
form rectangular openings in the façade
through which light and air enter copiously. The institutional building reflected Another integral part of Kahn‟s design -the incorporation of natural light. He believed that natural light was a basic human need that should be considered in the design of buildings.
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History of Architecture (AP313) | Essay | 2014
Figure 4: Salk Institute, 1960 Ref: http://mindcontrolblackassassins.com/tag/salk-institute/
CONCLUSION Consequently, Le Corbusier‟s design, ideas and structural expression influenced Kahn. He studied Le Corb‟s domino type structure and achieved a Free-plan by placing the grid column beneath covering roof. He always wanted for Corbusier. The influence of Le Corbusier on Kahn was considerable as he said “Every man has a Page 6 of 9
History of Architecture (AP313) | Essay | 2014
figure in his work who he feels answerable to. I often say to myself, “How‟m I doing, Le Corbusier?” kahn was also inspired by Corbusier‟s five points of architecture.
Figure 4: Le Corbusier‟s Dom-ino form-structure, 1914 Ref: http://www.pinterest.com/alpitecture/german-modernism/
Corbusier stated in his book „Towards a New Architecture „about materials and form, “you employ stone, wood and concrete, and with these materials you build houses and places; that is construction. Ingenuity is at work……” It was Le Corbusier‟s use of concrete that influenced Kahn, since he used concrete for most of his building. The influence can be seen in Kahn‟s designs for a combined school and community centre. Kahn‟s influence from Corbusier‟s design attitude between historicism and modernism, since all Kahn‟s work is related to monumentality. (6)
Figure 5: Contemporary city Ref : Le Corbusier „The City of Tomorrow and its Planning.‟ (p.2001, p.12)
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History of Architecture (AP313) | Essay | 2014
Figure 6: Louis Kahn public square Ref : Louis kahn‟s Situated Modernism (p.2001, p.37)
It was in 1961, when Kahn realized that he didn‟t have to work for anybody and his concept of the “servant and served” spaces gave him enough confidence to say “when I realized there were servant areas and there were areas served, that difference, I realized I didn‟t have to work for Corbusier anymore. At that moment I realized I don‟t have to work for him at all”. This is seen in Kahn‟s monumental and historical designs that he used modern materials and structural system sympathetic to modern need and functions had been influenced from Le Corbusier and other modernist architects Paul Cret, Frank Lloyd Wright, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Robert Venturi. Kahn in turn influenced contemporary architects such as Tadao Ando, Moshe Safdie, Mario Botta, Renzo Piano and Norman Foster.
Bibliography 1. Charles, Jencks. Le Corbusier, Monacelli Press, 2000. ISBN: 1580930778, 9781580930772 2. Corbusier, Le. Le Corbusier: Elements of a Synthesis, 010 Publishers, 2009 . ISBN 9064506426, 9789064506420
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History of Architecture (AP313) | Essay | 2014
3. Kahn, Louuis. Louis I. Kahn: writings, lectures, interviews. Rizzoli international publication, 1991. ISBN 0-8478-1331-2. 4. Kahn, Louuis. Louis I. Kahn: writings, lectures, interviews. Rizzoli international publication, 1991. ISBN 0-8478-1331-2. 5. Heinz Ronner. Louis I. Kahn: Complete Work 1935-1974. reprint. Birkhaeuser, 1994. ISBN: 0521002540, 9780521002547 6.. Milad Rabifard. The Integration of Form and Structure in The Work of Louis
Kahn.
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