"The simple round shape reflects the functional ideals of Corbusier and the clean forms characteristic of his work as an artist and architect," - this is how Corbusier's glasses are written in the press. And indeed, the purist Le Corbusier was so scrupulous in observing his principles of harmony and proportion when creating furniture and architectural projects that the design of his glasses could not be accidental.
Le Corbusier in his Paris studio. 1920 © FLC/ADAGP
Le Corbusier and his "hermit's house" - a hut with an area of only 15 square meters. m, which he built in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin in 1952
However, critics of Le Corbusier (and he was both the most famous and the most criticized architect of the 1919th century, it was not for nothing that Joseph Brodsky sarcastically wrote: "Corbusier has that in common with the Luftwaffe, that both worked from the heart to change the image of Europe") claim, that Corbus's glasses are secondary and only copy a design invented for his movie character by comedian Harold Lloyd in XNUMX.
But at the Le Corbusier Foundation, everything is put in its place: in archival photos from 1912-1915, Charles-Edouard Jeanneret-Perret at the Villa Jeanneret-Perret (the first realized project as an independent architect - a family villa for his parents) already wears round glasses.
Charles-Edouard and his father against the background of Le Corbusier's first building, the Jeanneret-Perret family villa. © FLC/ADAGP
Yvonne Gallis and Le Corbusier. Photo: nicholasfoxweber.com
By the way, Corbui was not orthodox - if you carefully look at the portraits of the architect, it turns out that he changed the models of glasses several times during his life. The round frames became thinner, then thicker, and the place where the brackets were attached changed.
Glasses of the "Le Corbusier" model can be ordered at Maison Bonnet. And if you're willing to pay around 30 euros for a tortoiseshell frame (from old banned stocks!), then in a few weeks you'll get a pair that looks like the one the architect wore. There is a nuance: since Bonnet considers its craft to be an art, the proportions of the glasses will correspond to such individual parameters as the length of the eyelashes, the plasticity of the cheekbones, the distance between the pupils, etc., which is unlikely to coincide with the anthropometry of the skull of the great Le Corbusier.
A rare shot that allows us to see the architect's face without glasses. Image source: theeyewearblog.com
Le Corbusier in 1964. The shape of the frame is clearly different from the traditional one. Photo: Stedelijk Museum Sikkensprijzen. Image source: Wikimedia Commons
But what are we talking about glasses? In order not to be like Yvonne Gallis (who forbade Le Corbusier to talk about architecture at the table), let's recall the five canons that the meter formulated for residential buildings. And once again we will be surprised by their relevance:
- The house should be installed on supports so that the green zone continues below.
- The planning of the house should be free: internal partitions can be placed in different ways.
- The facade should be designed depending on flexible planning.
- A strip window, into which the window openings merge, is mandatory. In this way, not only the lighting of the premises is improved, but also the geometric pattern of the facade is formed.
- Above, there should be a flat roof-terrace with a garden, which seems to return the greenery to the city, which is taken away by the volume of the building.
Is it relevant? Sure! And how modern his characterization of brutalist aesthetics sounds: "Open concrete shows the smallest details of formwork, joints between slats, fibers, knots of wood, etc... But in men and women, you don't notice wrinkles and birthmarks, crooked noses, countless oddities... Defects are humane ; they are ourselves, our everyday life" (Le Corbusier. Oeuvre complete 1946–1952. P. 191).
Yes, Corbus, like a true genius, knew how to see through time and space. Involuntarily, you wonder - aren't the magic glasses the whole point?
