by Misa Hayashi
July 17, 2020

❏ Preface

Le Corbusier remarked that he had been striving for “architecture that would make people happy,” and in his paintings, he had been drawing almost always women. Then, how had Le Corbusier interacted with what kind of people? Hoping here that it will become clear by reading into the words in his books and correspondences as well as deciphering the expressed human figures in his pictorial works.

Accordingly, exploring how Le Corbusier interacted with people will also lead to consideration of his nature and humanity.

 

❏ Le Corbusier’s complex emotions for his family

Doubtlessly, the most important factor that had formed the nature and humanity of Le Corbusier (Charles-Édouard Jeanneret) must have been most probably his family background in which he was born and raised. He was born in La Chaux-de-Fonds, a small city in mountainous region in Switzerland in 1887. Le Corbusier was born to an alpinist father, Georges-Édouard Jeanneret who was a watchmaker (enamel watch-dial engraver) and his mother, Marie-Charlotte Amélie Jeanneret-Perret who was a piano teacher. His elder brother Albert after a long while became a pedagogue of Dalcroze eurhythmics and a violinist.

In his childhood, this elder brother Albert was his mother’s favorite and his father had high expectations for him. On the other hand, his mother always said that poor Charles-Édouard (Le Corbusier) was “a bad boy.” Since their childhood, it was always the elder brother Albert who had been complimented, so the younger Charles-Édouard felt lonely and kept to himself a desire that someday he would surpass his elder brother. Hence, Le Corbusier in Paris only told his parents who lived apart in Switzerland that he was well evaluated and his work was progressing smoothly (such as mentioning that next, he planned to take on such a project, or that he had a dinner with such a celebrity, etc., and so on).

After his father, Georges-Édouard Jeanneret had died in 1926, Le Corbusier became determinedly aware that, as the head of his family and in place of his older brother who had been struggling to succeed as a musician, he would take on responsibility for supporting his family. While deliberately showing an attitude of slight annoyance by saying that “oh dear, without me, neither my mother nor brother will be able to keep their lives, so I end up taking an arduous role of helping them out,” yet for Le Corbusier, a ‘successful self’ to take care of his family and receiving gratitude from his family for his bit patronizing act of benevolent affection led, seemingly, to boosting Le Corbusier’s superiority complex, and as such, in the end gave him joy. In real life, Le Corbusier never became a father as he had no children. Nevertheless, it was indeed one of his pride that he became a father or head of his family-like position in the Jeanneret family.

By the same token, despite demonstrating such wonderful activities, he appealed himself as a poor guy who was bombarded with criticisms from all over the world, and likewise, Le Corbusier also requested his mother to give him kind words. Even though after having a somewhat cold treatment from his mother in his childhood, still, forever and ever, Le Corbusier exhibited a peculiar trait of fawning on like a child. Altogether, Le Corbusier maintained a rather complicated affection and love toward his mother. His mother Marie-Charlotte has lived a spectacularly long life of 100 years old. That by itself ought to be blessed, yet it was also ironic that her longevity, in turn, eternally kept her son, Le Corbusier in confinement of his mother’s grasp.

 

❏ Regarding Le Corbusier’s wife

There is no doubt that Yvonne Gallis, who Le Corbusier met in the early 1920s and subsequently got married in 1930, had been a muse for Le Corbusier throughout his life. Since almost all of the women Le Corbusier depicted were modeled on the figure of Yvonne, it may well be perceived that those images manifested an ‘ideal female figure’ created inside Le Corbusier’s mind.

In fact, did Le Corbusier really understand Yvonne as a human being? Certainly there was no falsity of the married couple’s intimacy as seen spending their vacation together. Nevertheless, feeling increasingly lonely, Yvonne gradually became dependent on alcohol and took ill. So it is doubtful how well he actually understood her true feelings.

Indeed, Le Corbusier, in part, seemed to be inclined to slightly look down on women. Ergo, he remarked that he thought a little silly light-headed girl to be cuter than an intelligent woman. Thus, Le Corbusier did not talk about his work to Yvonne and distanced her from a realm of her husband’s work. Likewise, even though Yvonne would have enjoyed a lively downtown lifestyle where she could chat with anyone at a nearby café, instead, he confined her to the upper floor of an apartment in a quiet residential area with no shops in the neighborhood. When they evacuated to a rural village near the Spanish border during World War II, leaving her alone there, promptly, Le Corbusier departed for Vichy (The town where the Vichy government was located and a spa and resort town in central France). Afterward, while Le Corbusier flew around the world like a jet-set, Yvonne was left alone to struggle with disease. Hence, she always felt alone and lonely.

Back in the early days of marriage, Le Corbusier had repeatedly spent Christmas holidays at his mother Marie-Charlotte’s house with his older brother Albert, and not with Yvonne. Because his mother did not like Yvonne for she was from southern France and opposed his marriage with her. So, having a discord with mother-in-law from the beginning, Yvonne must have continued to be quite disappointed with Le Corbusier as his attitude always seemed to lean on his mother’s side. Moreover, what would have Yvonne’s torments been if she were aware that Le Corbusier was enjoying his secret rendezvous with a woman of his mother’s acquaintance in the far away U.S.

In spite of Le Corbusier being like that, he also wrote to Yvonne who lived away, wondering if she was feeling well and taking medicine, and asking her to go and see the doctor with whom he made an appointment for her. While his attitude seems just like a parental guardian, akin to a bit condescending father, caring for his sick daughter, it must have been his best way of showing his affection. For Le Corbusier, Yvonne was the only woman he had cherished for many years. Or else, Le Corbusier would have never designed and built ‘Le Petit Cabanon’ in Cap Martin for Yvonne, created his numerous art works modeled on her, nor surely would have produced a joint tombstone where the married couple would rest together. Above all, otherwise, it would be inexplicable how depressed Le Corbusier was when Yvonne had passed away.

 

❏ Freely egocentric: Le Corbusier’s relation with women

As seen in his attitude toward Yvonne, Le Corbusier’s attitude and behavior toward women would be thoroughly criticized if it were today. Unlike Frank Lloyd Wright, whose relationship with women has been especially talked about, Le Corbusier, who remained married to Yvonne for life, has an ostensible image of being straight and non-flirting, yet in reality, he was not without some ‘amorous rumors.’ Still, the reason why those have rarely been talked about openly is that, to some extent, because of his management of personal information but also chiefly because those ‘amorous rumors’ did not really amount to be much to talk about in any event.

With Joséphine Baker, an American-born and naturalized-French big revue star of black female entertainer, there were some photographs and intimate sketches of them together of the time when Le Corbusier spent several days with her on his way home to France from his 1929 lecture tour in South America. Except, since it never got any amorous development further, it just faded out.

Surrounding Le Corbusier, there were some outstanding and able women. Charlotte Perriand was an apprentice and colleague who worked in Le Corbusier’s atelier, and she was close to Pierre Jeanneret, Le Corbusier’s work partner as well as his second cousin. Le Corbusier highly appraised Eileen Gray, an Anglo-Irish architect, who even collaborated in Le Corbusier’s exhibit of ‘Pavillon des Temps Nouveaux’ (built for the 1937 International Exposition in Paris). In later years, Le Corbusier had drawn a mural without permission on the wall of a villa, ‘E1027’ which Eileen Gray designed and built for herself and her partner in Cap-Martin, and moreover, as Le Corbusier built his ‘Cabanon’ right behind her villa as if to keep watch over her villa, inevitably he broke up with her after all.

Another woman with whom Le Corbusier had a special relationship was Marguerite Tjader Harris (a Swedish-American heiress, Mrs. Harris). She was a wealthy heiress and Le Corbusier met many times in the U.S. as she was his mother’s acquaintance. He wrote many letters to her with memories of their secretive romantic affair. Even though those letters might have been a nuisance to her, his last letter to her was a far too dry businesslike correspondence requesting her to donate for his project. Le Corbusier, who seemed lacking the sensibility of respecting the humanity of women, and hurt women in an unconcerned male chauvinist-like manner, has disappointed us indeed. Likewise, this trait of his attitude could be also read in the expression of his paintings, which will be described later.

 

❏ Le Corbusier: Infatuated, disappointed and parted

Le Corbusier’s short tempered impatience and stubborn preconception were reflected in his attitude toward those who came looking up to him as a teacher, as well as politicians and influential people.

Le Corbusier had several teachers or those who could be called his mentors. They led Le Corbusier’s growth. For example, they were such people as a local art teacher Charles L’Eplattenier, a writer and music critic William Ritter who lived in the neighborhood, a Parisian architect Auguste Perret who was his master in the building industry, and a painter Amédée Ozenfant with whom Le Corbusier collaborated in Purism movement and founding and publishing ‘L'Esprit Nouveau’ magazine.

At first, Le Corbusier admired them from the bottom of his heart and looked at them with a longing. It was evident even in his correspondences as he honestly wrote spelling out his respect for them. Especially when he was young, how he respected them was apparent in his behavior. However, as Le Corbusier gradually began to have different opinions from his masters and seniors, all the excitement and fever chilled down and dissipated, and he began to express his disappointment with them and to distance himself or even part his way from them (albeit, he continued to interact with William Ritter).

As he became recognized as a notable architect and started having more opportunities to intermingle with influential people and politicians in various fields, Le Corbusier, with his subjective preconception, started to develop a lot of high expectations for the favor from them, and made an excessive self-appeal and made various requests without hesitation. Accordingly, he insisted, “Since I am presenting such a wonderful plan, I ought to be the one in-charge of this project,” and, in the end, he even urged in an almost accusing manner, “all this time, I have been waiting for, but when will you award me with a job?” Subsequently, the usual disappointment came to him afterward. To begin with, it was Le Corbusier alone who got excited all by himself, but once realizing it would not work as he thought, not only did he mourn and grudge and was indignant, but also he even attacked them. His behavior like this made them only to be utterly confused, and eventually Le Corbusier was shunned.

One of the politicians who had suffered this nuisance from Le Corbusier was Claudius Petit. However, he somehow came to terms with Le Corbusier then, and when he became the mayor of Firminy later on, he commissioned Le Corbusier several architectural projects in the Firminy-vert district.

Upon coming to Paris, the Swiss compatriots gave support to Le Corbusier early on. Among those compatriots, especially a Swiss banker Raoul La Roche was one of those people who supported Le Corbusier throughout his life. And in his last years, he donated ‘Maison La Roche’ which was designed by Le Corbusier to the ‘Fondation Le Corbusier.’

These patrons who were strong supporters also bought out Le Corbusier’s paintings when he was in need to support his living. Likewise, sometimes he directly solicited ‘his request’ to them. Le Corbusier asked them to purchase the architectural models made in his atelier and potteries made by his acquaintances (at fairly high prices!), he even asserted brazenly to those wealthy supporters, “It is indeed a good thing for you to be able to buy this for this amount of money,” as he scribed in his notes to the buyers as if he were a peddler. Where on earth did this excessive confidence of Le Corbusier come from?

 

❏ Difficult sense of distance

Le Corbusier always wielded his fist against any opponent who attacked him so as not to lose. On the other hand, for those who kindly talked to him and those who approached him without calculating losses or gains, he showed his kindness by partaking a feeling of intimacy that exceeded their expectations and imparted some presents or checks even when he should not have much room to spare, and told them to come and seek his counsel anytime. For instance, he even wrote kind letters and sent presents to the friends of his wife Yvonne. Similarly, thinking about his housekeeper coming to his house, and truly worrying about her living when Le Corbusier was away on business trips for she would be without her job (and pay), so he asked his mother to look after his housekeeper during his absence. Also, he kept sending presents every year to the person (baby), of whom he became a godfather.

It seems that Le Corbusier tried to treat and connect with the other person at his own pace by making the distance to the other person extremely close for his overflowing joy of being able to do something to that person. Consequently, his such behavior might have, in some cases, developed into a sort of meddling, selfish kindness or an expression of condescending affection. It might have well been the flip side of Le Corbusier’s loneliness.

All in all, Le Corbusier’s sense of distance to the other people seemed to have been too close. He tended to shorten the distance to other people too much, hence, once something (wrong) happened, all kinds of chaos broke loose and the relation was suddenly broken away. In later years, Le Corbusier declined to attend or participate in such gatherings as parties as much as possible and preferred to be solitary, it might have been, in part, probably because he began to find it difficult and felt unease to interact with others.

 

❏ In his works of art

Now, let us see and examine how Le Corbusier expressed people or human figures in his works of art.

Le Corbusier had settled in Paris at the age of 30 years old, but prior to that time, and when he was still in Switzerland, his home country, he drew landscape paintings, and images of people and human figures that appeared routinely in the sketches he made during his journey. Furthermore, there are some works depicting scenes of Pieta as well as such motifs as female figures with scallop shells that appeared to be copies of typical Christian paintings. Additionally, reflecting perhaps the influence of the times, he left behind works of Futurismo (Futurism) and Fauvist portraits that were drawn with strong colors and intense brush strokes.

From the end of 1910s to the mid-1920s when Le Corbusier worked with Amédée Ozenfant, advocating ‘Purism’ movement. During this period, he only drew and/or painted still lifes filled with typical objects such as musical instruments, bottles, vases and glasses on the table. Exceptionally, he drew/painted self-portraits and portraits of people close and familiar to him (such as his family members as wife Yvonne, parents, older brother Albert, second cousin Pierre Jeanneret, as well as his friend William Ritter, Joséphine Baker, his colleague Amédée Ozenfant and his mentor Auguste Perret, and so on), nonetheless, there are no other portraits or works of art by Le Corbusier that depicted people or human figures in this period.

In the late 1920s, Le Corbusier departed from ‘Purism’ and started to seek new expressions. Once emancipated from the notion of ‘Machine Aesthetic,’ Le Corbusier chose to draw/paint poetic objects such as stones and shells as well as the female figures.

The human figures that appeared in his oil paintings had a shape or form akin to geometric typological objects, and had an extremely exaggerated roundness or a torso that looked like a cylinder. Collectively, Le Corbusier’s expression of images were reminiscent of the portraits and human figures painted by his friend Fernand Léger. Subsequently, Le Corbusier gradually adopted a change to draw in free curve lines, but as he still insisted on keeping his preferences for geometric modeling, he drove those female figures into a cramped framework of geometric composition.

Since the late 1920s, Le Corbusier’s main theme of his paintings became women. Those robust and vigorous women he encountered during his lecture tour around South America impressed him so unlike those Parisian women, and as new human figures possessing full of vivacity, they bestowed a source of inspiration for Le Corbusier’s creations. In this way, the women Le Corbusier drew/painted became dashing and full of life.

Before World War II, Le Corbusier had spent his vacances in Picquey on Arcachon Bay (close to Bordeaux) on the Atlantic side. Picquey is a fishing village and famous for oyster culture (farming), thus he depicted oyster picking women and women standing still with a fishing boat in the background. After World War II, Le Corbusier designed and built his ‘Le Petit Cabanon’ in Cap Martin on the Mediterranean coast and spent every summer there. There he depicted people relaxing at the beach and liked painting women singing and dancing.

The women Le Corbusier depicted became more deformed and lost their reality, so consequently, the human figure or body turned into an impossible shape and came to be disassembled into pieces. As the profile lines and colors of the human body were set autonomous, solely the amusing fun of curves and color planes came to be expressed. By this time, individual human figures were no longer of his interest, rather, depicting the curvilinear forms of women and drawing the characters he created became the main theme for Le Corbusier.

In his works of portraits, there are few works that expressed the individuality or personality of the subject people. His wife, Yvonne was the only one Le Corbusier repeatedly painted, nevertheless, even for Yvonne, the works that depicted the looks or physiognomy clearly were limited to those drawn around 1930. In his works from the 1930s onward, the women were depicted with the alluding facial features (such as large almond-shaped eyes and small mouth) and voluptuous figures. Wherefore it could be recognized that the women were drawn modeled on Yvonne. There are many works of Le Corbusier that were based upon tourist postcards, but most certainly, the women depicted never expressed their individuality.

For Le Corbusier, women eventually transformed into the existence of prayer. Accordingly, the series of works that depicted Yvonne starting from the ‘Portrait de femme à la cathédrale de Sens (Portrait of a woman at the Cathedral of Sens)’ (1944) and changing to the ‘Icône (Icon)’ series. Yvonne is depicted there in the form of praying in front of a candle. Additionally, the ‘Déesse de la lune (Goddess of the Moon)’ with the shoulders transfigured like wings could also be perceived as a transformation from Yvonne.

❏ An ideal human image

After having left his homeland, when Le Corbusier took ill in Paris, he got acquainted with Pierre Winter, a medical doctor, who was familiar with sports therapy. So, Le Corbusier, followed his therapy instruction and started working out and exercising on basketball, and physically trained his body habitually for many years. Le Corbusier developed a close relation with Pierre Winter who contributed to ‘L'Esprit Nouveau’ magazine and wrote a foreword to Le Corbusier’s ‘Œuvre complete (Complete Works).’

Le Corbusier not only engaged in sports himself, but also drew people training in sports in his architectural sketches. Healthy living became a pressing issue and theme in residential architecture in the first half of the twentieth century. Accordingly, Le Corbusier inevitably set up sports facilities in his urban design and provided terraces in the apartments so that residents could train.

A new addition to Le Corbusier’s work in the 1950s was ‘L'Homme Modulor (the Modulor Man).’ Stemming out of the researches he made during World War II, Le Corbusier devised the ‘Modulor’ which is a new anthropometric scale of proportions, by way of combining such ratio as human body sizes and a golden section. Accordingly, the ‘Modulor Man’ graphically symbolized the new scale, ‘Modulor.’ Thus, the ‘Modulor Man’ was, then, an idealized representation of human figure just like that of Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man (Homo Vitruvianus), as such, the relief images of the ‘Modulor Man’ were engraved on the walls of such buildings as ‘Unité d'habitation,’ his major architectural work.

Le Corbusier’s interest was prone to drawing ‘human’ forms more so than drawing the individual human personas. This inclination became more conspicuous in the post WWII period, as Le Corbusier repeatedly drew the figures that were limited to the characters from various stories (such as from the Greek mythology and characters he created), but indeed, not to the figures of those real existing people. So the ‘Modulor Man’ can be associated as one of those characters Le Corbusier created, and certainly, represented his own creation of an ideal human figure that which was standing tall with his hand raised, possessing a healthy and beautifully balanced human figure. Albeit with no facial expression.

 

❏ Le Corbusier and Fascism

It has been always pointed out that Le Corbusier were too ignorant of politics. Although Le Corbusier himself said he was indifferent to politics, the recent release of the materials that suggested his interaction with the fascists highlighted another aspect of Le Corbusier.

In the first half of the 1930s, Le Corbusier worked on such projects as ‘Centrosoyuz’ in the Soviet Union (USSR) and interacted with local Russian architects, and subsequently, he presented such proposals as his design plan for a left-wing new farming village. Yet still, Le Corbusier cooperated with the right-wing magazine ‘PLANS’ and “PRÉLUDE”, and was accused of being a ‘Le cheval de troie du bolchevisme (or the Trojan horse of Leninism).’ Furthermore, as the war approached, Le Corbusier schemed up to make a contact with Benito Mussolini (an Italian fascist dictator), and after Paris was occupied and fleeing from there, he attempted to get closer to the Nazi puppet Vichy government. Incidentally, at this time, his second cousin and work partner, Pierre Jeanneret had left Le Corbusier to join and participate in the French Resistance.

It has been pointed out that ‘La Villa radieuse (the Radiant City),’ which was proposed by Le Corbusier, was fascist inclined, and because his urban design plan was focused on overall unity and efficiency, it was considered synchronous to a totalitarian notion. Hence, this seeming totalitarian posture made up the reason why Le Corbusier’s urban design and fascism together were compatible. What was more, Le Corbusier interacted with a surgeon, Alexis Carrel through a connection with his friend Pierre Winter, a medical doctor. While Dr. Carrel was a Nobel Prize-winning medical doctor, at the same time, he was also known for criticizing democracy and advocating eugenics policies, and he became a member of the Parti Populaire Français (French Popular Party, known to be fascist and anti-Semitic). Accordingly, Dr. Carrel was known to possess a radical political idea in support of the (Nazi puppet) Vichy administration. In addition, it has been recently presented that Le Corbusier had made apathetic statements toward the Jews during WWII.

From these observations, saying that he was indifferent to politics might have been because he did not dare to expose his political position. In any case, Le Corbusier had shown up everywhere struggling to obtain a job. Finally, the war was over, and despite the reconstruction project had commenced already in France, the reason Le Corbusier did not receive right away any opportunity to be involved in it must have been because of his criticism and his attitude during the war. On the other hand, ironically, despite the fact that he was close to the Vichy government Le Corbusier was able to resume his work in due course just because he never really made any architectural achievements during WWII.

In the post-war period, Le Corbusier devised the ‘Modulor,’ which was a new anthropometric scale of proportions intended to afford a comfortable and happy space for everyone, and thus, it could be said to signify the creation of space by anthropometrism. Nonetheless, even here too, as he was still influenced by eugenics that was prompted by Alexis Carrel et al., Le Corbusier seemed to be attempting to apply the desired ideal dimensions he had from the inception onto the human body almost by enforcing. Such nearly cattivo and Machiavellian, shrewd observations were presented as well.

 

❏ Le Corbusier’s nature and humanity

Looking at how he related to others through reviewing the remaining words and works he had left, Le Corbusier appeared to have an unstable sense of distance to other people, which at times caused troubles and misunderstandings or discords. Le Corbusier tended to make numerous adversaries by taking contentious attitude stemming from his complex which in turn incited him to become envious and cynical or to blame others for his mistakes and failures. The fact he actually loved honors and medals notwithstanding, Le Corbusier hid his feelings and pretended to receive those honors as if to receive them reluctantly. Likewise, he was supposed to be stringent about money, but he was always worried about money. In the first place, Le Corbusier was the type of person who would think only about himself, so he would never really care about inner minds of other people. As such, he did not willingly volunteer to deal with others to understand them. In short, Le Corbusier was a rather bothersome person.

It would be too simplistic and hasty to name his family background as the sole factor for the development and formation of Le Corbusier’s nature and humanity. Nevertheless, at the root of all activities of Le Corbusier, seemingly, there was his unreciprocated love and feeling of longing toward his mother. Thus, there is no doubt that it had something to do with him having a feeling of loneliness and a desire for self-approval ever since his childhood. Then, it may well be said that what he had tried persistently to be recognized by his mother, indeed, made Le Corbusier a great architect.

With age, he was feeling lonelier, however, in Cap-Martin, in southern France where he built ‘Le Petit Cabanon,’ Le Corbusier developed close ties to the the Rebutato family of a nearby bistro ‘L’Etoile de mer (the Starfish),’ and to his neighbors. Having left Paris, his base of work and the work battle field, and arriving at a seaside rural place, Cap-Martin, just like it was so for Yvonne, Le Corbusier must have felt happy as he was able to make friends with common local people who cared about him there. When Le Corbusier realized at ‘Le Petit Cabanon’ in Cap-Martin that a convenient life as well as a life with honors and attracting attentions would not necessarily bestow happiness in life, his dearest wife Yvonne already passed away and was no longer there. Nevertheless, still, perhaps it must have been the last comfort and peace of mind for Le Corbusier to be able to end his life here in Cap-Martin. ■