Radiant city

Radiant city

1. RADIANT CITY SUBMITTED BY- BHARDWAJ KV-318106101031 MVKJ SRILEKHA-318106101033

2. INTRODUCTION: Ville radieuse (French pronunciation: Radiant City) was an unrealised project designed by the French-Swiss architect Le Corbusier in 1930. It constitutes one of the most influential and controversial urban doctrines of European modernism. Designed to contain effective means of transportation, as well as an abundance of green space and sunlight, Le Corbusier’s city of the future would not only provide residents with a better lifestyle, but would contribute to creating a better society. . Ville Radieuse: Le Corbusier’s Functionalist Plan for a Utopian “Radiant City”

3. THE DEVELOPMENT & SPREADING OF IDEA : The layout of Corbu’s ideal city was abstractly inspired by the arrangement and functions of the human body. Like a living organism, it consisted of organized parts that would work together as a whole. The basic strategy behind these various schemes was to create vertical architecture and leave plenty of shared open space in between for people to use and enjoy. The resulting horizontal areas would serve as traffic corridors as well as public landscapes with lush greenery. Pedestrians, cyclists, drivers and public transportation users were given dedicated routes to get around, set up (or down) at various elevations.

4. At the core of Le Corbusier’s plan stood the notion of zoning: a strict division of the city into segregated commercial, business, entertainment and residential areas. The business district was located in the center, and contained monolithic mega-skyscrapers, each reaching a height of 200 meters and accommodating five to eight hundred thousand people. Located in the center of this civic district was the main transportation deck, from which a vast underground system of trains would transport citizens to and from the surrounding housing districts.

5. Everything in the Radiant City would be symmetrical and standardized. At the center, a business district would be connected to separate residential and commercial zones via underground transit. Prefabricated housing towers would serve as vertical villages with their own laundromats as well as rooftop kindergartens and playgrounds. Apartments would have views out onto shared public spaces. Residents would enjoy peace and quiet, separated from industrial districts. Reaching a height of fifty meters, a single Unité could accommodate 2,700 inhabitants and function as a vertical village: catering and laundry facilities would be on the ground floor, a kindergarden and a pool on the roof. Parks would exist between the Unités, allowing residents with a maximum of natural daylight, a minimum of noise and recreational facilities at their doorsteps.

6. In accordance with modernist ideals of progress (which encouraged the annihilation of tradition), The Radiant City was to emerge from a tabula rasa: it was to be built on nothing less than the grounds of demolished vernacular European cities. The new city would contain prefabricated and identical high-density skyscrapers, spread across a vast green area and arranged in a Cartesian grid, allowing the city to function as a “living machine.” Le Corbusier explains: “The city of today is a dying thing because its planning is not in the proportion of geometrical one fourth. The result of a true geometrical lay-out is repetition, The result of repetition is a standard. The perfect form.”

7. Th ough highly influential (in both Corbu’s own work and the work of other city planners), the Ville Radieuse was never constructed. Its ideas did, however, shape Corbu’s approach to urban design and architecture, from European projects all the way to Chandigarh. These radical ideas were further developed by Le Corbusier in his drafts for various schemes for cities such as Paris, Antwerp, Moscow, Algiers and Morocco. Finally, in 1949 he found a state authority that provided him with a “free hand” - The Indian capital of Punjab. In Chandigarh, the first planned city in liberated India, Le Corbusier applied his strict zoning system and designed the central Capitol Complex, consisting of the High Court, the Legislative Assembly, and the Secretariat. SO, SOME OF THE EXAMPLES INSPIRED FROM THE IDEAS OF RADIANT CITY:

8. The Radiant City’s influence was not exclusive to the world of urban planning. In 1947, Le Corbusier designed the Unité d'Habitation in Marseille, which - inspired by The Radiant City’s Unités - contained 337 apartments in a single building, along with public facilities on the roof and ground floor. Due to the costs of steel production in the post-War economy, the Unité d'Habitation was constructed of exposed concrete and heralded the arrival of brutalist architecture. In the years that followed, four similar buildings were erected in France and Germany. This typology, which provided an answer to the Post-War housing shortage, was further adapted around the world in countless housing projects.

9. Le Corbusier created the general layout of this new Indian city, separating it into different functional sectors (or “urban villages”). He also worked on key structures, including the High Court, the Palace of Assembly, the Secretariat and a series of Open Hand sculptures. In the end, he wasn’t entirely pleased with the outcome, in part because he had to work with others who had competing visions. Still, Chandigarh arguably represents his most complete urban achievement. Palace of Assembly building in Chandigarh, Indi a “Open hand” sculpture

10. CONCLUSION: Today, in the aftermath of Modernism, Le Corbusier’s built cities are hardly ever described as Utopias. Brasilia, for example, has been harshly criticized for ignoring residents' habits or desires and for not providing public spaces for urban encounters. In addition to this, the Unité-inspired apartment blocks, which lie on the outskirts of nearly every major city today, have become incubators of poverty and crime; most have been thoroughly remodeled or demolished. Nevertheless, the idea of proposing order through careful planning is as relevant now as when Le Corbusier first published The Radiant City. Issues of healthy living, traffic, noise, public space and transportation, which Le Corbusier - unlike any architect before him - addressed holistically, continue to be a major concern of city planners today.

11. It is easy to look back on Corbu’s visions of concrete towers and overly large open spaces as being harsh and inhumane. But, for a time, he and Modernists thought they were building a better, more organized and functional world, crafting new cities as machines for living in.

12. And while his Radiant City was never realized as such, it did inform a number of projects, from Amsterdam’s massive Bijlmer to a series of structures Corbu designed to be urban villages in the sky.

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