Le Corbusier Quotes

A house is a machine for living in.

Truth to tell, the modern man is bored to tears in his home; so he goes to his club. The modern woman is bored outside her boudoir; she goes to tea-parties. The modern man and woman are bored at home; they go to night-clubs.
But lesser folk who have no clubs gather together in the evening under the chandelier and hardly dare to walk through the labyrinth of their furniture which takes up the whole room and is all their fortune and their pride.

You know, it is life that is right and the architect who is wrong.

ROME AND OURSELVES Rome is a bazaar in full swing, and a picturesque one. There you find every sort of horror (see the four reproductions here given) and the bad taste of the Roman Renaissance. We have to judge this Renaissance by our modern taste, which separates us from it by four great centuries of effort, the 17th, 18th, 19th, and 20th. We reap the benefit of this endeavour; we judge hardly, but with a warrantable severity. These four centuries are lacking at Rome, which fell asleep after Michael Angelo. Setting foot once again in Paris, we recover our ability to judge. The lesson of Rome is for wise men, for those who know and can appreciate, who can resist and can verify. Rome is the damnation of the half-educated. To send architectural students to Rome is to cripple them for life. The Grand Prix de Rome and the Villa Medici are the cancer of French architecture.

Architecture is the learned game; correct and magnificent of forms assembled in the light

(...)mimarlığın, kendilerini bütünüyle ve ateşli bir biçimde ona adayanlara bir tür mutluluk getireceğini, düşüncenin doğum sancılarından ve ışıltılı dünyaya gelişinden doğan o kendinden geçmeye benzer duyguyu yaşatacağını sezemediler. Buluşun, yaratıcılığın gücüdür bu ve insana içindeki en saf şeyleri verme olanağını sağlar.

Una nueva sociedad crea su hogar, ese receptáculo de la vida.

Vous savez, c'est la vie qui a raison, l'architecte qui a tort.

The Despot is not a man. It is the Plan. The correct, realistic, exact plan.

L'architecture n'a rien à voir avec les «styles». Les Louis XV, XVI, XIV ou le Gothique, sont à l'architecture ce qu'est une plume sur la tête d'une femme; c'est parfois joli, mais pas toujours et rien de plus.

L'architecture arabe nous donne un enseignement précieux. Elle s'apprécie à la marche, avec le pied : c'est en marchant, en se déplaçant que l'on voit se développer les ordonnances de l'architecture. C'est un principe contraire à l'architecture baroque qui est conçue sur le papier, autour d'un point fixe théorique. Je préfère l'enseignement de l'architecture arabe. Dans cette maison ci, il s'agit d'une véritable promenade architecturale, offrant des aspects constamment variés, inattendus, parfois étonnants.

When the cathedrals were white, spirit was triumphant. But today the cathedrals of France are black and the spirit is bruised. The works of the new civilization are coming together in a symphonic crescendo. The guiding spirit is faltering. The young act, but they do not know. The old cling to their accumulated treasures, but are unable to accomplish anything further.

The problem of the house is a problem of the epoch. The equilibrium of society today depends upon it. Architecture has for its first duty, in this period of renewal, that of bringing about a revision of values, a revision of the constituent elements of the house.

The house is a machine for living in.

Education will always be torn between two fatalities: apostleship and egoism.