[HN Gopher] What Le Corbusier got right about office space
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What Le Corbusier got right about office space
Author : simonebrunozzi
Score : 146 points
Date : 2022-04-12 10:02 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (timharford.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (timharford.com)
| invalidusernam3 wrote:
| Off topic, but the scrolling on that site is completely borked.
| Please, for the love of all that is good, don't mess with default
| scrolling behaviour on websites
| ahaferburg wrote:
| Try reader mode if you can.
| cudgy wrote:
| "It should be easy for the office to provide a vastly superior
| working environment to the home, because it is designed and
| equipped with work in mind. "
|
| It should be, but most companies offer uncomfortable furniture in
| an open, noisy room with drab carpet and the stench of burnt
| coffee and burnt popcorn.
|
| "Few people can afford the space for a well-designed, well-
| specified home office. Many are reduced to perching on a bed or
| coffee table. "
|
| Maybe this is true in Silicon Valley, but the rest of the world
| could easily outfit a corner of a room to a better standard than
| most corporate offices.
| ouid wrote:
| >"It should be easy for the office to provide a vastly superior
| working environment to the home"
|
| There are a number of reasons why this argument doesn't make
| any sense
|
| -commutes are expensive, and time consuming.
|
| -surveillance produces a worse working experience, but is a
| major goal of office design.
|
| -A desk with a computer on it is 90% of the way towards a
| _fully equipped_ office.
|
| -Many modern offices are also built with recreation in mind,
| equipped with ping pong tables and other such nonsense.
|
| -I have come to believe that the primary business rationale for
| having people "in the office", is that it makes it harder for
| you to look for other jobs, and that process means that
| employees get more expensive.
| odonnellryan wrote:
| I'm sure there are lots of reasons. Another big reason is
| real estate. There is a lot of money tied up in these
| properties.
| bodge5000 wrote:
| Whilst I was moving out and inbetween places, my "home office"
| was close to perched on a coffee table, and even that I'd take
| over a big open plan office (or possibly even my own private
| office).
| yohannparis wrote:
| Not necessarily, I live in downtown Toronto, ON, and I rent an
| apartment for my needs. These needs did not include working
| from home! I could move and find a better place to allow me to
| work from home properly, but unless my employer pays for it, or
| give me a raise to compensate for it, I'll find a better paying
| job.
| nukemaster wrote:
| I was working out of a studio apartment until this year and I
| honestly didn't feel like my WFH set up took up any real
| extra space:
|
| In the beginning I would use the breakfast bar and just put
| the laptop up after work. Later on I bought an Ikea arm chair
| and an end table that just stayed in a corner I didn't use.
| This is all in addition to the partitioned off area for my
| side projects that had it's own desk and chair.
| ghosty141 wrote:
| >but the rest of the world could easily outfit a corner of a
| room to a better standard than most corporate offices.
|
| I disagree. Most people don't make enough money to have on room
| they can dedicate to work. In germany where I live rent is so
| expensive that for a single person a 2 room apartment is the
| standard. You basically need 3 rooms which means you're paying
| significantly more rent unless you live in very rural areas.
| hibbelig wrote:
| My wfh environment is a desk in a corner of the bedroom, an
| enclosed area about 150cm x 150cm, with walls on two sides
| and shelves on the other two, with two little gaps for the
| light.
|
| It's awesome. It feels so comfy. It's got the lighting I
| like. My chair could be better, but it's okay. I can hide in
| there.
| brimble wrote:
| Beating a corporate office, as far as the actual work space
| itself and if we're talking tech work, doesn't require much,
| is the thing. A small table with a monitor and keyboard and a
| pretty-good chair, tucked in a corner, is already better just
| by being private. Having an entire dedicated room--even a
| very small one--is _wildly_ better than most tech offices,
| and is far beyond what you need to have a better working
| environment.
|
| Hell, the private bathroom alone makes even the working-from-
| a-coffee-table version competitive with typical tech offices.
| aarghh wrote:
| Here is a more detailed look at the Pessac story:
| https://www.philipsteadman.com/blog/life-is-always-right-it-...
| gweinberg wrote:
| TL:DR Le Corbusier was right when he said life is always right
| and the architect is always wrong.
| xtiansimon wrote:
| Architecture article without photos? Meh.
| Marazan wrote:
| Ah, I did not realise it was from Le Corbusier that the
| brutalist's obsession with flat roofs came from.
|
| There is no greater symbol of the absolute anti human idiocy of
| the movement than: A) constructing a flat roof building on the
| west coast of Scotland (200+ rain days a year) B) declare it a
| master piece
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Peter%27s_Seminary,_Cardr...
| beaconstudios wrote:
| There does seem to be a strong cultural thread in architecture
| that views the profession as more art than design. If I have to
| live and work in a building, I would much rather it was
| designed with me in mind than being the architect's expression
| of personal style.
|
| Edit: to be fair, this criticism could also be levelled at
| programmers and interface designers.
| arturinios wrote:
| As someone who is just coming to the end of his architectural
| education and having worked in the industry for about 7 years
| now I can say this is largely a problem with academia in
| arhtecture which sees itself as some kind of pseudo-
| philosophical subject. Building regulations in most countries
| that I have worked in, for better or for worse, will not
| allow for architects to pull off what the modernists or the
| post modernists did anymore. (This is not to say that there
| aren't people out there still churning out poorly thought out
| buildings)
| mikro2nd wrote:
| "not allow for architects to pull off what the modernists
| or the post modernists did anymore"
|
| Thank all gods for that!
| beaconstudios wrote:
| That sounds like architects have been tempered by
| regulations moreso than having changed ambitions though, am
| I missing something? My understanding is that the modernist
| and postmodernist icons were not academics but practicing
| architects, sometimes both.
| arturinios wrote:
| Similar ambitions are still there from my anecdotal
| experience (especially among people in the polar ends of
| the profession's spectrum ie. the new grads and the
| veterans) but most architects I meet these days while
| appriciative of the works of people like Corb and other
| modernists, completely understand their shortcomings.
|
| But what has really curbed the possibility of anything
| like those movements to happen again is the neoliberal
| economics in contrast to the post war socialist policies
| of the time.
| saalweachter wrote:
| It's also worth realizing that much of style comes from
| technology -- an architect makes his name by designing
| something that couldn't have been built fifty years ago.
|
| Much of 19th century style was built around millwork, because
| millwork let you use this wide flat boards and linear patterns
| that were all but impossible to do at scale before.
|
| For the 20th, you had glass, steel and concrete -- because
| again, there were things you could do with concrete that you
| just _couldn 't_ before.
|
| So it was back to the beginning of time; you give an architect
| a flying buttress, and he's going to use it.
| trgn wrote:
| But the flying buttress solved a need. They wanted to build
| higher because they wanted to celebrate god in an even more
| glorious fashion, bringing in more light, more stained glass,
| more people in front of the altar.
|
| The difference with modernism, which is really a mindset, and
| so deeply seeped in we barely recognize it anymore, is that
| technology, in and of itself, is a value. That is why we have
| the flat roof in Scotland. The value is not keeping the
| inhabitants dry, or being mindful of long term maintenance
| issues. Technology, especially high technology, demands its
| application. That is modernism. It's a curse.
|
| Contrast this very clearly against humanism. Man is measure
| of all things. Not, as in modernism, that man should adapt to
| the measure. It's not that technology wasn't valued, but only
| as a tool, a means to an end. Or a means of understanding, a
| metaphor. The telescope is an implement of science, not a
| fetisj. In modernism, the tool is fetishized. The concrete
| that enabled shaping walls at large scales, now must be
| everywhere. Why, why would a living space demand that it be
| harsh, and in odd large shapes? It does not. But because at
| one point reinforced concrete was high technology, it must.
| It's a very infantile mindset, like a toddler, who has
| similar infatuations.
| awiesenhofer wrote:
| You are mixing a few things here, flat roofs have nothing to do
| with brutalism in particular or Le Corbusier - they existed
| long before both. Maybe you meant modernism in general?
|
| Anyway, for anyone wondering about all these flat roofs in
| modern architecture I recommend watching this video:
|
| Why Do Architects Insist on Using Flat Roofs? - Stewart Hicks
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QW0ydAMVQ2w
| spanktheuser wrote:
| I do also wonder what people consider modern. As I sit in my
| flat-roofed 1880's Chicago home. Surrounding block after
| block of flat-roofed residential buildings housing millions
| of people, largely constructed between 1872 and 1930.
| Marazan wrote:
| I find it hard to take seriously someone who is "suprised" by
| the existence of flat roofs in traditional North
| African/Mediterranean/Middle Eastern architecture.
| spanktheuser wrote:
| Why? Do you feel humans should be born with a natural
| instinct for Mediterranean architecture, much as they are
| for the supremacy of iterative software development?
| Marazan wrote:
| I would expect a person who runs an architecture YouTube
| channel to be vaguely familiar with major styles of
| architecture, yes.
| pfarrell wrote:
| I've had a good number of jobs in 20+ years in software. I have
| had a private office four times.
|
| Once when the business unit was failing and my room only had me
| in it.
|
| Once when I worked for a small old school family company.
|
| Once when I made principal engineer after years of work in a
| large-ish company.
|
| And finally now that I'm working from home.
|
| One job I had was really noisy and distracting. Rather than
| install sound mitigation, I found out the CEO liked it that way.
| "So it sounded like things were happening."
|
| It's going to take a lot to get me back to a cube farm or open
| office.
| cwilkes wrote:
| Now it clicks why cube farms are popular: it is an easy way for
| managers / owners to feel the excitement of the agora but being
| up in the box seats they don't have to live or think in it.
| saalweachter wrote:
| To be honest, I don't mind cube farms per se as much as
| densification.
|
| As long as you have a certain number of square feet and
| things aren't bolted down, you can still exercise a certain
| amount of control over your environment. You can rotate your
| desk to face a different way, put up pictures or a coat rack,
| what have you.
|
| It's when you start getting squeezed in the minimal legal
| square footage that all the options start to go away -- you
| literally can't move your desk without disrupting the entire
| floor, you can't add a bookshelf and any plants or pictures
| need to fit on your suspiciously narrow desk.
|
| Sure, cube farms have many of the other problems of noise
| pollution, minimal privacy, and bad lighting, but as long as
| you have your own cube, or a cube with few enough people to
| haggle over rearranging, and a few extra square feet it's
| still possible to put your stamp on it.
| elric wrote:
| My desk is bolted to the floor along with six other desks.
| If I get much fatter, I'll pretty much be sat on top of my
| neighbour. At this point, I would gladly get a cubicle, at
| least they pay lip service to concentration. The open plan
| office I'm currently in doesn't even manage that.
| oblio wrote:
| The next level of hell is hotdesking aka flex desk
| (flexible desk), when every day you come to work you're
| in a different place.
| jsrcout wrote:
| Our official "return to the office" date is very soon. Our
| second work site has been folded into the main site, and
| the cubicles in the main site have been reduced to half the
| size (in terms of square feet) they used to be, to more or
| less double the density.
|
| Implementation of the changes had already started when
| COVID hit. People who have been to the office recently say
| things like, don't hit your knees where the PC is mounted.
|
| I was fine with our (pretty standard sized) cubes before
| COVID. But I'm so glad we have the option to continue
| working from home now.
| sceadu wrote:
| noise pollution, same as regular pollution... it's an indicator
| of activity but not healthy for you
| zrail wrote:
| I've been working from home for almost a decade, two thirds of
| my career to date. Prior to that I was in either open bullpen-
| style offices (everyone in a room facing out) or sharing an
| office with two or three other people. I will never* sign up
| for an in-office job again.
|
| * unless, you know, I need to feed my family or whatever
| pfarrell wrote:
| Totally agree and _exactly_ the same asterisk I was thinking
| of with my pronouncement.
| kcplate wrote:
| About 5 years ago our company shifted from a more traditional
| private offices to a wide open "european/tech style" office
| environment to "to improve collaboration".
|
| I hated it. Too noisy. To much distraction and now the culture
| of the company seemed to encourage distraction and
| interruption. I managed to maneuver my way into one of the few
| private offices just so I could have a door to close. Even then
| I had to put up a sign that basically said "if the door is
| closed and the building isn't on fire, don't open it."
|
| In some regards for me the pandemic was a blessing. Fully
| remote now, company decided to shut down the office in our
| location and rely on rentable conference space if we need a day
| together. It's just my wife, dog, and I in a shared office with
| each of us respectful of distractions. It's bliss. It would be
| nearly impossible for me to return to an office again. I'll opt
| to retire first.
| m463 wrote:
| I hate open office spaces too.
|
| My method of dealing was to eliminate noise with earplugs and
| headphones.
|
| But visual distraction was more destructive and depended on
| the orientation of the desk - depending more on luck.
| tristor wrote:
| Perhaps I am privileged by living in a very low cost of living
| area, but it was no great difficulty even in the beginning of my
| tech career to acquire a SFH w/ enough bedrooms that I could
| dedicate one to being an office. I even have a mini-split AC in
| my home office so I can keep the temperature at a comfortable
| working level (cooler) compared to the rest of the house in a
| cost-efficient manner.
|
| I have no idea who these people are that think a company office
| intended for hundreds or thousands of people will be a better
| work environment than private offices per person or dedicated
| home offices. In my home office, I put significant effort into
| comfort and ergonomics and it yielded a huge improvement in my
| quality of life and a cost-savings to my employer due to not
| needing regular physical therapy for back pain anymore, and
| solving RSI that would have otherwise required surgery. Yet, if I
| go into an office to work they buy the cheapest "task chair" they
| can get and put everyone at tiny minimum spec desks. Even when I
| had a private office earlier in my career when that was still a
| thing, the furniture was garbage.
|
| At home, I have a sit/stand desk with electric lift, ergonomic
| monitor and laptop arms, a nice herman miller ergo chair, an
| ergonomic mechanical keyboard, and a vertical mouse, with
| everything properly adjusted by an ergo consultant I hired. I've
| never seen a company that would be willing to provide a similar
| setup, even setting aside the privacy and quiet aspect of a
| dedicated office vs cube/open. At the end of the day, company
| office space is expensive and management cost optimizes by
| reducing worker quality of life. I'd much rather they allow
| permanent remote work and pass the cost savings on to workers by
| covering the cost of ergonomic equipment. I've now been
| permanently remote for almost a decade, and I will never go back
| to the office.
| anonu wrote:
| An article on architecture with no pictures is a tough read.
| eternalban wrote:
| Here are the pictures, before and after.
|
| http://arts-plastiques.ac-besancon.fr/2018/03/03/la-cite-fru...
|
| Having those pictures included in the article would make a
| mockery of its content and intended points (whatever it was).
| Would any sane person object to the renovation from that
| squalid state to a bright and inviting building? Were those
| "modifications" sound or was poor Corbu overestimating the
| occupants (his actual error as an architect).
| chetanbhasin wrote:
| I almost thought this article was about the film "Office Space."
| bouvin wrote:
| I am a huge fan of Le Corbusier - here's a page about Cite Fruges
| de Pessac (the text may be in French, but the pictures are not!)
| [1]. For anyone entertaining thoughts about functionalist
| architecture only being boxes, I turn your attention to the
| beautiful Notre Dame du Haut in Ronchamp [2].
|
| [1] https://www.pessac.fr/a-decouvrir/tourisme-
| patrimoine/cite-f...
|
| [2] http://www.alluringworld.com/notre-dame-du-haut/
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| May I ask why? He always struck me as someone a bit
| disconnected from how humans actually work. Stewart Brand has a
| show about all the changes people had to make his buildings
| livable.
|
| * edit: I hadn't read the article! It's awesome
| brohee wrote:
| The show was made after his book.
|
| The book is on archive.org https://archive.org/details/howbui
| ldingslear00bran_0/page/n5...
|
| His videos are on YouTube
| https://www.youtube.com/user/brandst/videos
| bouvin wrote:
| I suppose that I have always found his designs very
| beautiful. (I also happen to enjoy the aesthetics of (good)
| brutalist architecture).
| drstewart wrote:
| >May I ask why? He always struck me as someone a bit
| disconnected from how humans actually work
|
| While it's popular to dump on Corbusier today, especially
| with the hindsight of history and what we know about urban
| planning now (and I mostly agree with it), you have to look
| through the lens of what he was working with at the time.
| City centers were areas of blight, not hip places with third
| wave coffee shops on them. Waterfronts were dilapidated
| docks, not pleasant beaches with views of the sea.
|
| On the flip side, cars were new, shiny, and free of any of
| the negative connotation we see in them today (traffic,
| pollution, noise). Any infrastructure built to support them
| was fresh and efficient.
|
| It's no surprise that you'd have some people going all in on
| the latter. In hindsight, it turns out to be unfortunate that
| viewpoint won so thoroughly in the US.
| _dain_ wrote:
| >For anyone entertaining thoughts about functionalist
| architecture only being boxes, I turn your attention to the
| beautiful Notre Dame du Haut in Ronchamp [2].
|
| It's hideous.
| andrewzah wrote:
| The exterior of the Notre Dame du Haut is simplistic, not
| beautiful (although the slope of the roof is nice). The
| interior design is striking in its layout, but overall both are
| ugly due to the materials used.
|
| This building looks like a first draft of the final design, and
| really does not deserve to be used for religious purposes.
| AlanYx wrote:
| >This building looks like a first draft
|
| The crazy thing is that Le Corbusier spent months on the
| design of the south wall. It wasn't a rushed project at all;
| this was late career Le Corbusier at the height of his
| creative vision.
|
| To me the south wall looks externally like a knock-off
| computer with a bunch of random ports, but that may just be
| personal idiosyncrasies.
| andrewzah wrote:
| I assume that these projects took time and effort, but the
| finished results look to me like a half-baked render, like
| someone just forgot to finish the job.
|
| I'm not a fan of much of Le Corbusier's works, if any.
| Zababa wrote:
| Notre Dame du Haut looks nice, but it's also the worst looking
| religious building I've seen in France aside from a few other
| "modern churches".
| brimble wrote:
| I was like "this isn't so bad" but then I got to the photo of
| all the mis-matched bizarre windows on one side, like someone
| totally screwed up editing a house in The Sims. Yikes. It
| looks like the architectural version of painting yourself
| into a corner and just giving up and letting that part be
| screwed up, rather than rethinking the whole thing to fix it.
|
| The... steeple, I think it's meant to be? Also kinda looks
| like a mistake, rather than something done on purpose.
|
| The inside's OK but I concur with it still being one of the
| uglier "nice" churches I've ever seen. Overall looks like
| it'd be better as, I dunno, part of a monastery or something?
| Maybe Tony Stark's vacation home or something, from the
| better angles.
| Zababa wrote:
| It's not really bad, but the average church is very
| beautiful.
| brimble wrote:
| Yeah, absolutely, I liked several of the photos quite a
| bit. They didn't really say "church" to me, mostly--maybe
| a really cool library?--but part of it's just that most
| "nice" churches are _really_ pretty, so the competition
| 's stiff. Given some of the reactions in posts, I
| actually expected it to be a lot worse than it was.
| davidivadavid wrote:
| "My son could paint that" vibes.
|
| Hacker News art criticism at its best.
| brimble wrote:
| _Shrug_
|
| Absent context I'd definitely take the mismatched-windows
| exterior shot as the result of something like the
| Internet-famous time that amateur (in Spain, I think?)
| tried to restore a painting of Jesus.
|
| [EDIT] My point is, if someone told me some other parts
| of the building were a mistake, much less something like
| the Sistine Chapel, I'd be like "no way". That particular
| view of the building? Someone told me it was a mistake,
| I'd be like "haha, yeah, clearly, hope they fix it so it
| doesn't keep dragging down the rest of the building"
| axiomsEnd wrote:
| The part about workers reacring really bad to forced
| rearragements reminds me of a time, when company removed flowers
| from my desk. Somehow this hurted more than bad micromanager and
| problematic coworkers. Edit : Everyone could have flowers and
| they were given by the company earlier. Just mine dissapeared.
| janandonly wrote:
| Interesting remark:
|
| > Le Corbusier's Pessac is now viewed as an architectural
| success. The picket fences and the pitched roofs and the garden
| gnomes are gone, and his original vision is restored. I wonder if
| Le Corbusier himself would have approved of that. The very fact
| that his designs were so easily modified was, arguably, their
| strength. When he was told about the garden gnomes of Pessac, he
| replied, "You know, life is always right; it is the architect who
| is wrong." Managers should remember that.
| KarlKemp wrote:
| Street View:
| https://www.google.com/maps/place/Cite+Fruges,+33600+Pessac,...
|
| It's somewhat run-down, if not poor. But it doesn't strike me
| as being particularly terrible. It seems to have had quite a
| bit variety even from the start.
|
| Compare to what may have been the alternative, right across the
| train tracks:
| https://www.google.com/maps/place/Cite+Fruges,+33600+Pessac,...
| ghosty141 wrote:
| Like others have mentioned, it's not impressive if you look
| at it like something built in the 70s/80s but they are ~100
| years old by now which makes it quite impressive in my
| opinion.
| beaconstudios wrote:
| There's a fundamental conflict of interest between workers and
| managers, and given that managers have all the power, they
| usually win. Workers want control in the form of autonomy,
| managers want control in the form of bureaucracy. A good manager,
| in my mind, devolves as much control as they can down to the
| workers while maintaining enough bureaucratic control to satisfy
| those above them.
|
| Of course, that only applies to the traditional hierarchical
| organisation - there are much more worker-friendly organisational
| structures organised around autonomy for the individual and
| democracy for the collective, like the VSM [1] and cooperatives
| [2]. Of course, we don't see them very often because people
| usually found companies to control for themselves.
|
| 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viable_system_model
|
| 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative
| DrBazza wrote:
| With the hindsight of history I find Le Corbusier vastly
| overrated. It just seems that in the land of the blind, the one-
| eyed man is king, and that was certainly true in that era.
|
| I can appreciate that it was "hey, here's a new material, and new
| techniques, let's see what we can do", but it all went a bit to
| far with Brutalism.
|
| To be honest, we're back at that point again over the last couple
| of decades with office buildings that are largely glass exteriors
| where the current glut of architects are putting "frilly bits" on
| the buildings to make them a bit less bland, but at the same time
| making them look very much "of the moment".
|
| As for current homes, in the UK, at least, the architecture has
| never been blander. Boring boxes with 2 car spaces and a bit of
| grass out the back. In terms of the article, I don't see how
| modern homes can be given much extra character by the owners
| versus those designed by Corbusier mentioned in the article. If
| anything modern house architecture is at a worse, lower point
| than in previous years.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| It could be the same trend as in fashion: a huge chunk of the
| population cares way less about social signaling and extra
| character, especially when it comes with more maintenance cost
| and no more functionality.
|
| This is an article that I find sums well the issues, even as
| the author is I think more aligned with your views and wished
| for more "Architecture" as Art.
| https://www.lifeofanarchitect.com/architecture-form-function...
| DrBazza wrote:
| Interesting article. You're right, I guess, I prefer
| architecture as (classical) art. My preferred architecture is
| largely anything Art-Deco or earlier, and most buildings (not
| necessarily houses) built in the late 80s-90s (oddly,
| specific, I know). The brutalist stuff in London (the South
| Bank, the Barbican, QEII centre, and so on), I'd pull down in
| an instant if I were in charge (which is probably a good
| reason for me not to be in charge of anything tbh).
| jules wrote:
| I don't understand this article. Le Corbusier is the epitome of
| the opposite: architecture that architects love, but that the
| people who have to live or work in it hate. The article attempts
| to shift the blame to managers, but there is hardly a better
| example of forcing stuff onto people against their will than Le
| Corbusier and his disciples. That Le Corbusier's Pessac is now
| viewed as an architectural success says more about the standards
| of contemporary architecture than about Pessac. Here's a picture
| advertising the place: https://media-
| cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/0e/f7/9d/67/... Is that
| supposed to be a grand achievement of one of the most famous
| architects?
|
| So what exactly did Le Corbusier get right, according to the
| article? "The very fact that his designs were so easily modified
| was, arguably, their strength." -- this is what fans of Le
| Corbusier always praise him for, and it always sounds really bad
| to me. The main strength of the architecture is that you have to
| radically change it to make it liveable...? That he said "You
| know, life is always right; it is the architect who is wrong."
| when people made radical changes? I guess that's more laudable
| than trying to fight the change, but also a very low bar.
| somenewaccount1 wrote:
| You have to read to the last line where he points out the
| takeaway for managers:
|
| "Life is always right;it's the architect that is wrong" -Le
| Corbusier
|
| Ergo, make sure employees retain some control.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _" Life is always right;it's the architect that is wrong"
| -Le Corbusier_
|
| Well, he was 100% the opposite of that in pracrice. Forcing
| the architect's will.
| ajkjk wrote:
| That's the opposite of the point here.
|
| > The very fact that his designs were so easily modified
| was, arguably, their strength.
| coldtea wrote:
| Well, most weren't. They stand looking as bad/gloomy and
| unlivable decades after as they did their first day.
| rhn_mk1 wrote:
| That doesn't detract anything from the observation, even
| if true.
| coldtea wrote:
| That's fine, since my point wasn't that the idea is
| wrong, but that "he was 100% the opposite of that in
| practice".
| simonebrunozzi wrote:
| And you should read @jules' full comment, because that
| sentence is mentioned at the end of the comment.
| toast0 wrote:
| > So what exactly did Le Corbusier get right, according to the
| article? "The very fact that his designs were so easily
| modified was, arguably, their strength." -- this is what fans
| of Le Corbusier always praise him for, and it always sounds
| really bad to me. The main strength of the architecture is that
| you have to radically change it to make it liveable...?
|
| Some famous architects make/made terribly unusable buildings
| that were also hard to modify to make usable. Having a famous
| architect that contemplates that his design may not be correct
| is amazing progress.
|
| His work tends to be utilitarian and not visually exciting
| (especially earlier work); but avoiding load bearing walls and
| having lots of windows was innovative and useful. Although,
| apparently the occupants found too much light and added
| shutters.
| atoav wrote:
| Designing architecture in such way it can be easily changed
| when down the line inevitebly the usage changes is a value in
| itself. A big chunk of architecture IMO suffers from
| architects _thinking_ they know how living or working is
| supposed to look like and push that ideology onto others
| while most often the offices of that architect look
| suspiciously different..
|
| I work in a building from an era that preceeds Modernism and
| adapting the building to anything other than was originally
| 250 years ago envisioned is a nightmare of limitations,
| reshuffles and regulations, a stairway that goes down into an
| hallway just to go up on the other side. Accessability
| nightmare etc.
| a9h74j wrote:
| > Designing architecture in such way it can be easily
| changed when down the line inevitebly the usage changes is
| a value in itself
|
| Reminds me of a building influenced/designed by Christopher
| Alexander. IIRC there was a 2D array of unformly spaced ca
| 6x6in wooden beams -- to mount walls/dividers etc against
| as needed.
| noneeeed wrote:
| It's a very light article with a title that over-promises.
|
| The fact that Pessac was easily modified appears to be
| accidental, and the article finishes with a passing comment by
| LC that I wholeheartedly agree with, but doesn't really amount
| to much.
|
| Feels like something dashed off to somehow prove a point?
|
| I very much like Tim Harford's reporting when it comes to
| statistics and numbers in life and the news (his More Or Less
| radio programme/podcast is great) and his older stuff on
| economics, but his more recent obsession with "cautionary
| tales" (the title of his other podcast) frequently seems to
| involve stories that are superficially interesting but
| frequently fail to convince me that they have a strong point.
| 4gotunameagain wrote:
| > The fact that Pessac was easily modified appears to be
| accidental
|
| Why is it accidental in your opinion?
|
| Corbusier's _Five Points of Architecture_ [1] specifically
| dictate free design of f.x. the ground plan, in order to
| facilitate further modification.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Corbusier%27s_Five_Point
| s_o...
| noneeeed wrote:
| The accidental thing seemed implied by the article, that
| the changes were an act of "resistance", rather than
| something that was designed for.
|
| My comment was more a criticism of the article than of Le
| Corbusier, whose work I mostly like (much more so than many
| contemporary architecture). A better article would have
| pointed to those 5 points, rather than simply repeating one
| pithy quote, which seemed to be the entire supporting
| evidence.
| aphroz wrote:
| That's not the best picture of it. There are better pictures
| here: https://www.archdaily.com/940878/le-corbusiers-cite-
| fruges-l...
|
| And this was built more than 100 years ago.
| achikin wrote:
| Looking at the pictures I can't tell what's exactly wrong
| with those buildings.
| brimble wrote:
| The fronts looked to me like they were unfinished or had
| been really, really badly renovated. Those back photos look
| much better.
| wongarsu wrote:
| At least from the outside these are pretty cool buildings if
| you give them a pressure wash and maybe add a couple more
| windows.
| recuter wrote:
| They were building pretty spiffy stuff 100 years ago: https:/
| /en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Frank_Lloyd_Wright_wor...
| flr03 wrote:
| Those are not exactly factory workers housing though.
| recuter wrote:
| He never got to make it:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadacre_City
|
| https://franklloydwright.org/revisiting-frank-lloyd-
| wrights-...
| agumonkey wrote:
| Most of what I saw of him feels cold and failed. That said the
| "cite radieuse", when inside, felt cozy, original and well
| built (from walls, orientation thus lighting, heating). People
| living there said they were very pleased.
| pharke wrote:
| Agreed on the Cite Radieuse, the hallways are what I wish all
| apartment building halls looked like. Essentially interior
| streets, two stories high with apartment windows facing onto
| them, large windows to the exterior, benches or places for
| people to sit and enjoy the sunlight and meet their
| neighbors. The highrise as the modern incarnation of a
| village with all of the communal charm would be a delight. ht
| tps://i.pinimg.com/originals/84/79/92/84799263a8dfa6fef6bf...
|
| Completely impractical since every developer will choose the
| standard closed in, windowless and unadorned hallway because
| it is the cheaper option.
| ohwellhere wrote:
| That's gorgeous, thank you for sharing. It's a bit silly to
| say, but I'm not sure I knew what a hallway could be before
| seeing that picture.
| agumonkey wrote:
| > Completely impractical since every developer will choose
| the standard closed in, windowless and unadorned hallway
| because it is the cheaper option.
|
| That's one theory I've heard a few times, it served as a
| basis for urban renewal in the 60s but dumb down on every
| level to the point of being rapidly unliveable (cue the
| movies about housing project blues that came soon after)
| trgn wrote:
| Urban renewal was the realization of Le Corbusier's
| ideology at a large scale. It really was his vision.
| Focussing on a detail whether corridors have light or
| not, I think is somewhat of a diversion.
|
| Urban renewal did not fail because it was done cheaply,
| or dumbed down (which it was). It failed because it was
| fundamentally the wrong approach to city building.
|
| We're still living with the consequences. Our current
| built environment is modernist; mediated by technology,
| planned, bureaucratic.
|
| It's due time Le Corbusier is getting his comeuppance. It
| took a long long time. The first criticism were in the
| 70s, but postmodernism could not get beyond pageantry.
| And when I was in college 20 years ago, modernism was
| still venerated in the architecture departments, because
| the architect-as-god remained so appealing (btw Ayn Rand
| was similarly infatuated, it's an odd quirk of history
| how both communism and libertarians found common ground
| in this one domain). It's slowly fading. I think the dyke
| is going to break, and we'll put Le Corbusier where he
| belongs. A hugely influential misanthrope, who made
| categorically bad architecture.
|
| (also really sad, because early in his career, Le
| Cobusier's single family homes were really quite
| appealing).
| agumonkey wrote:
| I kinda disagree, a little bit. You can live happily in a
| big housing project, as long as some basics are there. No
| noise, not too dense, some green spaces and also a fair
| owner. Lots of buildings failed because owners stopped
| caring, so everything rot, and people here didn't help
| either. Some of my family lived in these and it felt ok
| enough. Some other projects 500m for them became no-go
| zones. Quite surprising.
|
| That said I'm not pro big-structures[0], I understand it
| spoils the area too much. Near my town, an ex no-go zone
| has been replaced by smaller buildings, that was enough
| to regrow a peacefulness that left for 30 years. It's
| walkable, the woods nearby are walkable, almost shocking.
|
| [0] even though, I still love them for some reasons
| trgn wrote:
| tbf, I do agree with you. For sake of argument, "big
| housing project", is just another name for "big apartment
| building". And I agree that many places do "big apartment
| building" quite well.
|
| But "big apartment building" only works well in a big
| thriving city, within its existing fabric. Not as in,
| let's raze the city, and put a big building in this new
| empty space. And I think Le Corbusier was explicitly
| about the latter.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| LC was - somewhat credibly - accused of fascist
| sympathies.
|
| https://brill.com/view/journals/fasc/6/2/article-p196_196
| .xm...
|
| Urban renewal wasn't necessarily the wrong solution in
| itself.
|
| The 18th and 19th centuries weren't necessarily any
| better at humane building. In the UK postwar worker
| housing stock was _terrible_ - outside toilets, little or
| no insulation, no central heating, and often poorly
| built.
|
| So blocks were a solution of sorts. But they usually were
| poorly built and unimaginatively designed, optimised for
| low cost, but with no practical understanding of
| community or community spaces.
|
| A typical UK block has some decorative grass around it,
| but that's it. There's no common space, no common
| facilities, and no colour or texture.
|
| Later renovations which add at least some of the above
| are more popular and have fewer social problems.
| trgn wrote:
| Thanks for that link. I don't know about his personal
| thoughts, but just judging from his work, LC's
| architecture certainly had a fascist tinge, in the sense
| that through that kind of architecture man submits to
| authority. A-tower-in-the-park is a very authoritarian
| top-down way to house people. There was also his
| exaltation of destruction, to create a clean slate from
| which a new architectural order can arise, and fascists
| certainly appreciate violence as a force of change.
|
| Just do deviate a little from LC in particular. But both
| communism and fascism are the political realizations of
| modernism, in that they only can function through the
| mediation of high technology.
|
| In communism, equity is achieved through perfect
| bureaucracy; the system of production and wealth
| reallocation being a well-oiled machine, perfectly
| transparent and predictably manipulated. It is in
| communism, that humans completely submit to the machine
| the most.
|
| In fascism, dominion is achieved through incessant
| violent action. Technology is the necessary lever to
| maintain dominance over the enemy. It is in fascism that
| humans submit to their leader, exhilarated by their
| shared power through technology (Tanks! Bombs! Nuclear
| Reactors!)
|
| Since no technology is perfectly reliable, or
| technological dominion is never guaranteed, both are
| doomed to fail.
| syntheweave wrote:
| There's a commonality between modernism and the
| realization of an the industrial mass consumer society in
| the 20th century that transcends the ideological divides
| of the time. Factories, warehouses, office buildings,
| tower blocks, shopping malls, highways and suburbs all
| have the same rationales of mass production economics
| beating at their heart. A skyscraper is simply a "people
| warehouse".
|
| In this respect the gradually growing criticisms of
| modernism and the fraying of the postwar political order
| go hand-in-hand. A criticism of a one-size-fits-all
| lifestyle equally applies across the fascist/communist
| spectrum, and the "Californian ideology" that SV
| represented drove a stake into it by standing up for the
| individual, albeit in an amoral, Randian sense: cool toys
| for those who could afford them, digital sharecropping
| for the rest. The highly provisioned, toy-like offices of
| Google etc follow from that premise.
| brimble wrote:
| That hallway gives me strong middle school vibes. Or maybe
| that one older building on a university campus.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| I think the bigger thing would be accessibility.
|
| In the US all units in a new residential building with an
| elevator must be adaptable for accessibility. If each
| individual apartment was two floors then each would need
| accommodation for an elevator or staircase lift.
| HFguy wrote:
| Is that just the first floor or is every floor like that? I
| can't find pictures of what the interiors of the apartments
| look like.
| pharke wrote:
| > Inside, wide corridors ("streets in the sky") run along
| the central long axis of every third floor of the
| building. Each apartment lies on two levels, such that
| the room on one side of a corridor belongs to the
| apartment that is mostly below the corridor floor, while
| that on the opposite side belongs to the apartment above.
| On those floors without corridors, the apartments stretch
| from one side of the building to the other, and each has
| a balcony on the western side.
|
| If you search for floorplans of it, it looks like there
| are also interior corridors but I think every apartment
| has access to one of those wide corridors. I'm not sure
| what the point of having both interior and exterior
| corridors is, I would think it would be better to get rid
| of the interior corridor and give the extra space to the
| exterior one.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit%C3%A9_d%27habitation#L
| a_C...
|
| Edit: Well this is disappointing. After further research,
| it looks like that corridor is just the main one and the
| rest of the floor have dark, internal corridors and then
| enclosed balconies. What a missed opportunity, imagine a
| whole building full of corridors like the ones in the
| image, if you're going to build two story apartments then
| why not do it that way?
| agumonkey wrote:
| Can't say for sure but here's a 15min video with a tour
| of it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-ISAAZsq4Y
| clairity wrote:
| chapman court in LA was originally built with that kind of
| hallway on the 2nd floor of a series of work-loft spaces
| (studio below, living space above). i got to see it via an
| LA Conservancy tour a few years back. unfortunately, i
| couldn't find pictures of the hallway, but here are promo
| pages for the recent renovation with some other pictures
| ('creative offices' in the 2nd shows one of the loft
| interiors):
|
| https://kfalosangeles.com/project/chapman-court/
|
| https://www.ottodesigngroup.com/07_chapman-court
| wwalexander wrote:
| Le Corbusier was also partly responsible for the American ideal
| of the ultra-zoned, socially-stratisfied, car-centric city. Le
| Corbusier saw society as a machine, not an organism, and his
| work reflects this outlook; a comprehensive plan for alienation
| and the decay of community.
| probably_wrong wrote:
| > _The Chiat-Day office redesign has become a notorious
| cautionary tale, warning what happens when style is put ahead of
| substance and hot-desking goes too far_
|
| I had never heard about this "cautionary tale", so I dug around a
| bit and found this Wired article [1] plus some pictures of the
| tiny lockers for the "dog pictures, or whatever" in this other
| article [2]. I'm not sure I would take it as the final nail in
| the coffin for the open-office concept, seeing as some of the
| problems are no longer relevant (such as not enough mobile phones
| for everyone), but it's an interesting article nonetheless.
|
| [1] https://www.wired.com/1999/02/chiat-3/
|
| [2] https://workplaceinsight.net/a-just-in-time-lesson-about-
| off...
| scrumper wrote:
| I found that too. It's relevant today I think, as office-based
| companies start to think about hybrid futures.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| I wouldn't attribute this to the triumph of modern architecture.
| More a really obvious lesson that even when faced with hideous
| modern architecture, people with agency will make do.
|
| I spent several years working in a monumental modernist building.
| The place succeeded in its primary design goals: glorifying the
| architect and patron. Some of the exteriors & public spaces were
| not hideous. But the buildings as a place to work were awful and
| not fit to purpose.
| [deleted]
| brohee wrote:
| I honestly expected a blank page, as a statement.
| awiesenhofer wrote:
| Turn off JS and you're almost there! Ok, it will load the
| header and footer but apparently also displaying a text-only
| article without Javascript is asking too much (Reader mode
| works though)
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > Few people can afford the space for a well-designed, well-
| specified home office. Many are reduced to perching on a bed or
| coffee table.
|
| For what it's worth I actually prefer a bed or sofa. Way more
| flexible and less painful if your back is shot.
| MivLives wrote:
| Been interesting coming back to the office. The office I work in
| is seven floors of open office. Everyone up to and including the
| CEO has the same desk. A standing desk (6 feet wide, white), dual
| monitor arms hosting some combination of 24 inch 1080p panels, or
| 27 1440p panels, file cabinet (white, top made to be sat on), and
| chair (black, mesh back, fabric bottom). Before the pandemic you
| found your way around by decorations provided by the workers.
| "Take a left at the Darth Vader cardboard cut out, if you see the
| tiki hut you've gone too far".
|
| Since coming back though all those decorations are gone. The
| place feels even more lifeless then before. Part of this because
| many people just aren't coming in, and partly because a lot of
| people have moved to WFH, or another company. I don't think those
| decorations are ever coming back, and it sure feels a lot worse.
| motoboi wrote:
| I can't recommend enough the book Cubed. It's the history of the
| idea of the office.
|
| The evolution of the open plan is told in a fascinating way, but
| also the origin of the office worker.
|
| https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18209337-cubed
| bocytron wrote:
| > You know, life is always right; it is the architect who is
| wrong.
|
| I find this quote very interesting and resonates with UX
| engineering as well.
| alvah wrote:
| Theodore Dalrymple's article on Le Corbusier sums up the hubris
| of modern architects & modern architecture: https://www.city-
| journal.org/html/architect-totalitarian-132...
| nemo44x wrote:
| It's not only hubris but also dehumanizing. It's just so
| detached from how people want to live and in many cases
| amplified social problems and dysfunction.
| anm89 wrote:
| Of course, blame the people who had to live in the houses and
| modified them to be livable for not understanding the architect's
| vision, not the architect for designing houses people hated
| living in so much they felt they needed modification before
| living in them.
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