Book Notes: "The City of Tomorrow and Its Planning" by Le Corbusier

The City of Tomorrow and Its Planning by Le Corbusier

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Le Corbusier presents what he calls a technical solution to existing problems. In the 1920s, these problems were predominantly related to the advent of the motor car, and the need to replace what he calls the "pack-donkey's way" with straighter, faster motorways. We see the same problem today with a rail network designed for the limitations of steam trains which now hinder the use of very long, modern freight trains. In many ways, Le Corbusier provides an historical institutionalist account of the problems of town planning. He admits that the great cities of the world are so located because this is where they should be. Rather than proposing new cities be built elsewhere, he suggests that the centre of the great city needs to be pulled down and rebuilt. History will be preserved in large gardens, like a peaceful cemetery or an art gallery, but otherwise, the value of such history is over-stated when one considers the appalling conditions, the tuberculosis, and so on, that inhabit the relics of the past. Critics of Le Corbusier point to the relative failures of his building projects, and typically his criticisms of disorderly cities such as New York did not win him any friends. Yet, if taken in an appropriate context, The City of Tomorrow and Its Planning reads like Machiavelli's The Art of War, where the diagrams of troop displacements are replaced by conceptual plans for future great cities. In The Art of War, the diagrams are regarded as historical relics that do not take away from the serious ideas that Machiavelli presents on modern warfare. Similarly, if one can look beyond Le Corbusier's diagrams of grand schemes, there is a kernel of truth that continues to haunt us to this day: Can our great cities be sustained? When taken in this context, Le Corbusier's work is brilliant. Indeed, there are so many contemporary solutions to congestion and living conditions focused on "working cities" and "sleeping cities" that simply echo what Le Corbusier was claiming almost 100 years ago. One cannot deny that history has "forgotten" many of the solutions Le Corbusier once raised to the extent that technical solutions to our town planning problems today seem somehow new - even innovative. Clearly, these are not new, only forgotten.



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Book Notes: "Walk a Mile in My Shoes" by Tom Collins

Walk a Mile in My Shoes by Tom Collins

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


My grandmother insisted I read this book when I was in my mid-teens, more than thirty years ago. I recalled the book recently and managed to purchase a copy; so this is my second reading. The book was originally published in 1981. This version was published in 2000. As I read, I could not help feel awkward about the conservative Queensland idea of doing "the right thing", something I struggled to escape from initially then later see for myself how I might make my own way with my own ideas about existence. My grandmother insisted that we did not know how hard it was back in the old days. Tom Collins insisted that we should know through his story. Having worked in the scrub in Far North Queensland and experienced physical hardship through work as a chain-man (surveyor's assistant) and later with the military, I feel I have some idea about hardship and physical toil, although obviously not the experience of the Great Depression. So as I read I often pulled a face at the moralising tone. Until the very end of the book. An epilogue, written by Collins' daughter, Cynthia, has been added to this later edition. In 1999, Collins was in a nursing home suffering from dementia. His tale had been told. Despite my reluctance, I have often recollected his stories throughout my life and I was sad to learn of his demise. But his story has been told. And well-received.



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Book Notes: "Towards a New Architecture" by Le Corbusier

Towards a New Architecture by Le Corbusier

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This translation of Towards a New Architecture, originally written in 1923, is prophetic in many ways. Le Corbusier writes of the “machine age” much like someone now might write of the “information age”. But he is somewhat poetic, repetitive and I would not be surprised if Tom Peters (ex-Harvard innovation guru) adopted something of Le Corbusier's style. While many of the architect's ideas were controversial, and may not have functioned as desired, he foresaw many of the things that are happening today in terms of construction materials. Although I do not doubt that the way these materials have been used meet the "cheapness" but not necessarily the "good work" he envisaged (p. 284). My favourite quote: "There is no such thing as primitive man. There are primitive resources. The idea is constant, strong from the start" (p. 70).



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