history

A formal study of Le Corbusier’s spiral plan designs, arguing their

production out of Neo-Classical planning methods, and
examining parallel techniques in present-day design practice.

Forms and techniques: Le Corbusier,

the spiral plan and diagram architecture
Antony Moulis

While Le Corbusier’s spiral plan projects have long with symbolism dominates readings of his spiral
been debated for their symbolic and rhetorical plans, their production out of design methods
meaning – dealing with initiation, procession, ritual, understood as belonging to the nineteenth century
generative nature, unlimited growth and so on – remains generally unregarded. In revealing a history
little attention is paid to their actual production as of Le Corbusier’s spiral plans based on formal
1
designs. If we look for the emergence of the spiral technique, the paper argues how that technique
plan as a production of Le Corbusier’s studio then we has come forward to present-day concepts of
might begin with a sketch design for the Villa La diagram architecture.
Roche made in 1923 and not with the project for the
Mundaneum (1928) generally credited as the point at Early spiral plans
which the architect ‘invents’ the spiral type [1]. What appears as an initial experiment with the
Taking the Villa La Roche spiral experiment as a spiral plan occurs in a preliminary drawing for
tentative beginning marks a much longer history the Villa La Roche (1923) where an elliptical form is
of the spiral plan type in Le Corbusier’s work that shown in plan [2]. In accompanying sketch views, the
links the architect’s early domestic projects to later elliptical form appears as a ramped circulation route
major public building proposals such as the Venice climbing through a double-height volume. The form
Hospital (1964). That which binds these various uses does not dominate the plan entirely; it is simply tried
of the spiral plan over four decades and produces within the plan layout and does not materialise in
complementary plan forms as a result is a certain the final scheme.
understanding of design method – an alignment Further development of this spiral form appears
of formal arrangement and spatial effect that is a in an initial scheme for the Villa Meyer (1925). The
familiar technique of Neo-Classical planning – plan drawings show an unbroken ellipse positioned
often called up by Le Corbusier, albeit dismissively. at the centre of each level, which connects rooms
While Le Corbusier’s Modernist rhetoric and his play situated around it [3]. The ellipse indicates a spiral
ramp travelling through all the levels of the plan to
the roof garden. In this scheme, the spiral achieves
a more definitive form than was the case in the

1 Mundaneum, 2 Villa La Roche-

sections and various Jeanneret, sketch
plans, Oeuvre plan and views, FLC
Complète 1910–1929, 15254
p. 193

1 2

history   arq . vol 14 . no 4 . 2010 317

318 arq . vol 14 . no 4 . 2010    history

La Roche project, though it does not yet become the architect’s prior experiments with spiral plans
the whole of the plan. In a second scheme for the connect with his design of the Mundaneum can be
project, the ramp is removed from the centre of the imagined because of a direct connection between
plan and is positioned adjacent to the main floor this project and the Villa Savoye, which are literally
plates. Later schemes for the Villa Meyer dispense designed simultaneously. On this basis, it could
with the spiral ramp arrangement altogether and be imagined that the ramping spiral of the
the circulation is moved back into a more Mundaneum is a distilled version of the central
conventional stair arrangement. The elliptical route spiral motif proposed for the Villa Savoye, or
arrangement of the Villa Meyer has been likened to conversely, that the Mundaneum design becomes a
that of another project also being designed by Le place to test at a monumental scale the spiral idea
2
Corbusier in 1925. This project, for M. Mongermon, then being contemplated for the villa. Either way,
features an elaborate figure-of-eight circulation the fact that the projects have a similar central form
ramp shown in plan. and are worked on in parallel suggests a strong
In an early sketch drawing for the Villa Savoye relationship between them. This concurrence also
(1928), a spiral stair is positioned at the centre of the draws attention to what can be seen as broader
plan in an ellipse-shaped enclosure [4]. While the developments in Le Corbusier’s thinking about the
spiral stair becomes a curving dogleg stair in the use of spiral plans.
completed project, the spiral is notionally deployed In each instance observed, the spiral form is
in the form of the central ramp that famously clearly used as means of producing circulation and
dominates the organisation of the plan. At the same distribution between spaces. However, understood
time in the scheme for the Mundaneum (1928), the in the broader context of Le Corbusier’s writing
spiral takes definitive form rendered as a giant about architecture of the 1920s, it is evident that
circulation ramp formed into a ziggurat-shape. That the spiral plan form is seen to offer more – a
‘Picturesque-like’ experience of movement that is
favoured by the architect.

Curving movement
Before proceeding on this line of argument it is
important to note that the Picturesque is a difficult
term to pin down, particularly in relation to the
work of Le Corbusier. Jan Birksted has recently
questioned general assumptions about the
relationship between the architect’s concept of the
architectural promenade and the English notion of
the Picturesque, identifying instead Le Corbusier’s
direct uptake of Auguste Choisy’s pittoresque that was,
in its French cultural context, quite distinct from its
3
English counterpart. To this varied discussion of the
Picturesque we can also add the work of Christoph
Schnoor writing on Le Corbusier’s interest in
3 Picturesque townscape in the German context,
revealed in the notes and manuscript for La
construction des villes begun by the architect in 1911,
which drew directly upon the writings of German
architects and art historians such as Camillo Sitte,
Karl Henrici, Joseph Lux and Albert Brinkmann
4
among others. While Le Corbusier’s sources on the
Picturesque are certainly diverse, both Birksted and
Schnoor are able to show how those sources are
particular in their uptake and effect.
My interest in raising the issue of the Picturesque
here is different from theirs and also particular. It is
to argue a direct formal correlation between the
spiral-shaped plans produced in Le Corbusier’s
studio and his parallel interest in the experience of
curved forms as expressed in his discussion of
Picturesque townscapes conducted through text and
diagrams in Urbanisme (1925). In his discussion, Le
4 Corbusier specifically describes Picturesque effects in
townscape, famously contrasting the effect of
3 Villa Meyer, sketch straight roads and winding roads in layout and site
plans, FLC 10403 planning, suggesting that the straight road is better
4 Villa Savoye, plans,
used for motorised forms of movement whereas the
FLC 19700 winding street is best for ambulatory movement

Antony Moulis   Forms and techniques

 history   arq . vol 14 . no 4 . 2010 319

5
creating interesting visual effects for the stroller. constitute a method by which architects indicate
While the architect understands the effects he preferred forms of movement and imagine it as a
describes are ones properly related to arrangements product of their plans: used so often in the spiral
of gardens and townscapes (specifically referencing plans, they indicate how the architect’s preferred
the English example of Golders Green), he also makes thinking about movement and experience is
it clear that he is not interested in the winding road managed by the particular architectural form
as integral to a garden suburb aesthetic. His proposed. These drawn marks are a method of
professed interest is more abstract, related to the testing the efficacy of spiral plans, allowing the
singularity of the curve, the form that he architect to picture effects of space in the act of
11
understands as producing the layout. Pointedly, he orchestrating them; yet this is not an unbiased test.
observes how the Picturesque arrangement of Though they might seem to enact a ‘conversation’
detached houses in the garden suburb destroys the between the plan and its effect, these lines are, in the
pleasing effect of curved street forms because ‘the end, as formally determined as the plans in which
eye cannot see the curve as originally drawn on the they appear.
6
plan’. To illustrate his argument he makes diagrams
that show the singularity of the curve in plan, An inventory of spiral plans
derived from his Golders Green example, disrupted Considering Le Corbusier’s experiments with spiral
7
by the unsympathetic arrangement of house forms. plans as a whole, it is evident that the architect and
Le Corbusier’s apparent objection to the English his studio tried the spiral form in 21 projects
12
Picturesque garden suburb is revealing of his interest between 1923 and 1965. The total set of projects is
in ‘underlying’ abstract forms and tallies neatly predominantly for museums, yet the set also
with Birksted’s argument about Le Corbusier’s includes exhibition buildings, villas and an
uptake of Choisy’s pittoresque, an approach that is apartment building. From 1923 onwards, excluding
volumetric, spatial and optical rather than scenic
8
or painterly in the English sense. Nonetheless, what
the architect’s reading of an English garden city
Picturesque allows him to express, in both text and
diagram, is a particular preference for curving
circulation and movement.
Elsewhere, Le Corbusier unselfconsciously
describes the movement of an architectural observer
in terms of a series of curving movements, where he
observes how: ‘[t]he human eye, in its investigations,
is always on the move and the beholder himself is
9
always turning right and left, and shifting about’. 5
Again in Urbanisme, the architect makes reference to
the psychological importance of curved movement
in urban settings, observing how the eye requires,
‘rotation and change of scene … and your walks will be
10
neither tiring nor drowsy’. These references to
curved movements, rotations of view and
meandering walks in Le Corbusier’s writings of the
1920s give a distinctive tone to the architect’s
thinking about the way that the layout of
architectural spaces should stimulate viewers’
experience. Not only does the architect speak
appreciatively of the experience of curved building
6
forms, he also describes the movement of individuals
observing architecture as ‘naturally’, or at least
preferably, curved or meandering. This broader
thinking carries over directly into the architect’s
design work and his experiments with the shaping of
plans. The spiral plan form clearly produces the type
of curved movement Le Corbusier extols in his
writings, and his shaping of plans appears as a direct
manifestation of that thinking put into practice in
the design studio.
That thinking in design practice is further
evidenced by drawn marks made upon Le Corbusier’s
architectural plans. These freehand lines infer the 7
occupant of space within those plans – indicating
the type of spatial organisation determined for the 5 Museum, Cultural 7 Museum, Cultural
Centre of Ahmedabad Centre of Chandigarh
user as well as their experience of curving
movements. In themselves, such drawn marks 6 Tokyo Museum

   Forms and techniques   Antony Moulis

320 arq . vol 14 . no 4 . 2010    history

the period of the war, there is no more than a three-

year gap to the start of another project involving a
spiral form plan. Considering that projects might
take longer than a year to design and complete, there
is a remarkable consistency in the use of the spiral
plan, which appears as an ongoing project over the
life of the architect’s studio.
Spiral plan form projects were regularly proposed
but they were rarely built. Only three schemes based
on the spiral plan form were ever constructed: the
Museum of the Cultural Centre at Ahmedabad (1951)
[5], the Tokyo Museum (1959) [6] and the Chandigarh
Museum (1959) [7]. Other spiral schemes were for
proposed, but abandoned, projects. Still others were
used on architectural projects as initial schemes, only
to be superseded by other designs. Despite the fact
that these schemes were rarely built, the drawings of
them illustrate a significant amount of attention to
the uses and effects of the spiral plan form. Even as
design exercises, the spiral plans created by Le
Corbusier and his studio were not simply a standard
repetition of the same proposal – variation and
design exploration are evident concerns.
One surprising example of design exploration of
the spiral plan appears in an initial, but abandoned,
proposal for the Pavillon des Temps Nouveaux at the
13
Paris Expo (1937). Early conceptual sketches
illustrate this proposal, showing a vertically layered
space organised as a series of routes emerging from
8 a central point described as circular or square spiral

8 Pavillon des Temps

Nouveaux, sketches,
FLC 843

9 Pavillon des Temps

Nouveaux, sketch,
FLC 704

10 Pavillon des Temps

Nouveaux, plan,
FLC 625

11 Pavillon des Temps

Nouveaux, plan and
sketches,
FLC 871

12 Pavillon des Temps

Nouveaux, plan,
FLC 933

13 Pavillon des Temps

Nouveaux, plan,
FLC 934

Antony Moulis   Forms and techniques

 history   arq . vol 14 . no 4 . 2010 321

in form [8]. Another drawing shows the proposal as a adjacent to the plans. It is apparent that the two
diagram, indicating how the various displays might schemes were compared with notes on the drawings
be organised with respect to a series of spiral routes confirming that the spiral proposal is preferred over
[9]. In another drawing accompanied by notes, the the other. This preferred plan includes an overlaid
diagram is shown again and converted to a freehand mark illustrating an idealised curving
preliminary architectural plan that is based on the movement of the observer through space that can be
square spiral layout. referred back to Le Corbusier’s interest in the
The development of the diagram as a plan is the experience of curves emerging from his discussion of
subject of other drawings. These drawings show the Picturesque. The overlaid freehand line acts as an
arrowed and meander lines used for investigating arbiter of the plan in the design process – a means of
the routes through spaces. These are the freehand confirming choices through a type of graphical test
lines drawn over plans that were described earlier of the plan.
that indicate the idealised movement of occupants as
produced by the plan – a singular passage that The rhetoric of the spiral
meanders as it spirals [10]. In another notable In 1939, a scheme called the Museum of Unlimited
drawing [11], the preference for the spiral figure as Growth was proposed for Philippeville, North Africa.
constituting the preferred path of movement It exhibits a square spiral plan form as well as other
through the architectural plan (and not simply the features common to the museums based on this plan
form of the plan) is graphically illustrated. type. Like earlier schemes, entry to the museum is via
Another pair of drawings is significant for an undercroft and a double-height central hall. Also
highlighting the relationship between forms of like those schemes, the museum is designed such
circulation and the spiral plan form in the design that it might be extended in a continuous fashion
process [12, 13]. The drawings are both sketch plans, around the central hall. This aspect of the scheme is
illustrating a ground floor layout of the proposed illustrated in the elevations of the model, which
pavilion, including paths and garden spaces, up to
the boundaries of the site. The drawings present
different proposals for the layout. One proposal is for
a series of concentric square rings connected by
smaller paths, and the other presents a familiar
spiral pattern. Both layouts are rendered as diagrams

12

10

11 13

   Forms and techniques   Antony Moulis

322 arq . vol 14 . no 4 . 2010    history

14 15

show floor and ceiling beams protruding from 14 Museum of 15 Museum of

Unlimited Growth, Unlimited Growth,
behind temporary external cladding in anticipation diagram and plan diagram
of further construction. sketches. Le showing overlay of
Corbusier, Oeuvre spiral and swastika
The scheme for the museum is published in the Complète 1938–1946, forms
Oeuvre Complète 1938–1946 and on this occasion the pp. 16 & 17
spiral plan form is famously compared with other
forms of the spiral – a shell form and a geometric the visitors’.16 The discontinuity of circulation is
spiral based on the Golden Mean [14]. This presumably produced by the spiral because it makes
comparison comes fifteen years after Le Corbusier for a labyrinth-like effect that allows users to
begins experimenting with the spiral plan, a period concentrate on exhibits and their immediate
through which his use of the plan foregrounds his environment – the spiral being well known as a type
interest in generating curving movement paths of maze pattern.
rather than a long-held interest in shaping the plan The 1939 museum also shows the use of a
geometrically. Typical of Le Corbusier this secondary form in the plan, which the architect
comparison can be seen as a kind of architectural refers to as a swastika pattern. Le Corbusier writes of
rhetoric, one that certainly gives on to symbolic this plan formation as follows:
readings of the spiral plan that have dominated The means of orienting one’s self in the museum is
discussion of it. To align forms in geometry, nature provided by the rooms at half height which form a
and architecture in this way constitutes a powerful swastika; every time a visitor, in the course of his
means of promoting the spiral plan concept, evoking wanderings, finds himself under a lowered ceiling he will
the ‘organic’ and various related associations as a see, on one side, an exit to the garden, and on the opposite
17
strategy for the dissemination and advancement of side, the way to the central hall.
14
the concept. How those alignments have a Here, the four spokes of the swastika are given an
particular basis in the architect’s production of his explicit role in relation to the museum visitor’s
spiral designs is another question. For example, experience, namely, to allow continuous views across
investigation of the Le Corbusier Archive does not the plan. The swastika form is based on design
reveal graphic evidence that the geometry of the explorations in earlier spiral schemes for the Bata
Golden Mean was a deliberate preoccupation of the Exposition Pavilion (1935) and the Centre of
studio in devising the spiral plans. Indeed it never Contemporary Aesthetics (1936). In the later of those
appears as a figure drawn over a spiral plan in Le schemes, the swastika pattern does not yet take form
Corbusier’s lifetime, only appearing posthumously as a whole, rather it was referred to as a series of
18
overlaid on a model of his Museum of the Twentieth ‘diagonal or orthogonal crosspieces’. The
Century, published in the Oeuvre Complète 1965–1969, formation of those crosspieces into a single formal
and credited to his office associate André Wogenscky pattern, overlaid on the spiral plan, becomes a
15
who completes the project for publication. typical feature of subsequent spiral schemes from
1939 onward [15]. It is evident that the use of these
Another form emerges: the swastika forms in combination offers contrasting effects to
In the text that accompanies the publication of the occupants of space, namely orientating axial views
scheme, Le Corbusier’s interest in the occupant’s versus a maze-like containment. The 1939 museum is
experience of movement as determined by the plan therefore significant in consolidating over a decade
is again highlighted, where he states that, ‘the square of research into the possibility of integrating the
spiral, which starts from [the central hall] makes for spiral with the multi-axial swastika.
a discontinuity in the flow of circulation, extremely Le Corbusier’s use of a swastika pattern at this
favourable for attracting the required attention from point in the twentieth century has political and

Antony Moulis   Forms and techniques

 history   arq . vol 14 . no 4 . 2010 323

symbolic overtones that are at least problematic.

While reference to the swastika may raise pertinent
issues about the architect’s ambiguous wartime
alliances or the more arcane origins of its form,
it is also evident, in the context of the present
discussion, that Le Corbusier’s calling up of the
swastika pattern is in some sense incidental to
the formal investigations in plan out of which it
emerges – investigations that precede its eventual
consolidation or ‘discovery’ as a plan image. Here
we might note a distinction between a formal
planimetric approach (a desire for the patterning
of plans) and Le Corbusier’s strategy of symbol 16

making, which, as Birksted notes, is a means of both

promoting his architecture and an obfuscation of
19
any particular meaning.
Through the subsequent spiral projects, the
spiral and swastika patterns are often used in
combination, an arrangement that can be traced
to each of the built examples previously mentioned.
One curious exception is an apartment block scheme
for Meaux (1957). Based on a spiral ramp that ascends
through the entire block, the scheme is reminiscent
of the ramp arrangement proposed for the Villa
Meyer (1925), here used on a much larger scale. A
study drawing shows the diagrammatic arrangement
sketched out as a series of rings housed within
each other. In another drawing, a developed plan
of the block is shown which consists of three
concentric rings of space. The outer ring contains
17
the rooms of the apartments and the inner ring is
a lift core. The ring between these two indicates 16 Museum of the 17 Venice Hospital, plan
the continuous ramp that spirals up through the Twentieth Century, layout study, FLC
Nanterre, FLC 30016 28236
entire structure.

Late schemes: spirals and swastikas Plan form and design method
In early 1965, Le Corbusier was commissioned by Durand’s rational approach to architecture presents
André Malraux, the then French Minster of Culture, architectural design process in the nineteenth
to design a Museum of the Twentieth Century for century as a codified system produced through a set
France. Le Corbusier did make some initial sketch of clear graphical statements. The principal
drawings for this project, one of which shows the graphical statement within that process was the
familiar central hall and swastika pattern developed axial form, a method later consolidated in the Beaux-
out of the spiral plan type [16]. By this time, the Arts tradition. Marking the axis established a set of
swastika pattern had become an independent form properties of the project’s design in advance; literally
capable of its own re-use as is evident in slightly marking the centre of the main facade of the
earlier schemes for the Palace of Congresses for building and passing through all the principal
Strasbourg (1964) and the Venice Hospital (1964) [17]. spaces of the plan situated enfilade behind the
Yet the fact the swastika form developed out of facade. Marking the axis also fixed broader concerns
experiments with the spiral plan undertaken in the to be addressed through the design: distribution,
previous three decades remains clear, particularly in disposition, composition and marche – the walk through
the early sketches for the Venice Hospital. The spiral/ a building’s major spatial sequence. For Durand and
swastika plan – crystallised in the 1939 Museum of the Beaux-Arts that followed, orthographic layout
Unlimited Growth – is repeated and collaged and design process were entirely interrelated by
together to form the basis of the hospital plan. The codes understood in the design process. As David
swastika form is retained with the spiral formed Leatherbarrow argues, while axes were instruments
sections of the combined plan removed to be of projection (the means to describe built form), they
replaced by wards, offices and patient rooms. While were also instruments of composition (the means to
20
the act of collage evident in the design of the Venice orchestrate effects). As Alan Colquhoun further
Hospital appears as a clearly Modernist strategy, the notes, the fact that the codes of composition are
application of the spiral plan form and its iteration fixed in relation to particular plan forms, like axes,
21
through three decades of design work in Le creates an enclosed system of design. Le Corbusier
Corbusier’s studio can be seen to mirror techniques regarded the nineteenth-century method of using
of architectural composition developed in the axes as plan forms mechanistic, yet in promoting a
nineteenth century. new rhetoric of architectural values he clearly

   Forms and techniques   Antony Moulis

324 arq . vol 14 . no 4 . 2010    history

18 20

19 21

18 –21 Yokohama Port geometric formations of the plan. While arguments

Terminal
for continuity between nineteenth- and twentieth-
century methods in architecture are certainly
illustrates his understanding of this ‘false’ technique familiar, and often cite Le Corbusier as a Modernist
for relating the experience of spectators to geometric who deliberately inverted previous practices of
formations of the plan. In Towards a New Architecture design, it can also be shown that in the case of the
(1923), Le Corbusier wrote accordingly: spiral plans there is a continuity at the level of
When at the Schools, they draw axes in the shape of a star, technique which is more direct and far less self-
they imagine that the spectator arriving in front of the conscious or deliberately rhetorical.
building is aware of it alone, and that his eye must Looking over the spiral plan forms parallels to a
infallibly follow and remain exclusively fixed on the centre Neo-Classical tradition of architectural plan making;
of gravity determined by those axes. The human eye, in its the spiral plan evokes an enclosed system relating a
investigations, is always on the move and the beholder plan form to particular architectural concepts. Here
himself is always turning right and left, and shifting is a means to the production of a certain type of
about. He is interested in everything and is attracted circulation and experience similar to the
22
towards the centre of gravity of the whole site. conceptualising of distribution, disposition, composition
In this statement, Le Corbusier exemplifies the and marche by the use of axes. In both cases, there is
Beaux-Arts codification of the plan, particularly the evidence of an underlying method. Plan forms
highly formalised method of determining the provide a means to visualise and ground the effects
architectural experience of spectators according to of architecture. Le Corbusier’s idealisation of a
axes. For Le Corbusier, this type of method was false wandering spectator who turns their body in a
because it did not correspond with, or cater to, the constant curving motion while appreciating space
nature of spatial experience. Le Corbusier then gives expression to modern ideas, but the means of
reveals his own thinking about the ‘true’ spectator of producing that spectator are clearly parallel with
architecture. As he explains, that spectator is more traditional methods of plan making. The freehand
self-willed in their investigation of architecture, spiral lines describing a spectator’s movement end
having an eye that follows the movement of their up placing the walls that form them – like the axial
body rather than an eye fixed by the axes that an marche that forms a sequence of volumes in Beaux-
architect makes upon the plan. And yet, to manage or Arts planning. Le Corbusier dismisses the Beaux-Arts
arrange the way of experiencing buildings was not a intention that architecture be appreciated on axis as
project abandoned by Le Corbusier, particularly on doctrine; however, his spiral plans show he is
the evidence of his spiral plan projects, which just as nonetheless mindful of the method by which that
clearly relate the experience of spectators to outcome is achieved.

Antony Moulis   Forms and techniques

 history   arq . vol 14 . no 4 . 2010 325

This is not to label Le Corbusier as a covert structure characteristic of piers’.25 Their method is to
traditionalist or to see his Modernist practice of align the shaping of the whole with reference to
design as a self-conscious inversion of Neo-Classical modes and possibilities for circulating through
23
principles as others have noted. There is an obvious architectural space. As the architects describe below:
logic in observing continuity in architectural […] the project is produced as an extension of the urban
practice between the nineteenth and twentieth ground, constructed as a systematic transformation of the
centuries despite a greater and more obvious break lines of the circulation diagram into a folded and
26
in formal intentions. Certainly architects of the bifurcated surface.
twentieth century dispensed with the totalised This technique proposes an alliance between lines
system of design extolled by the Beaux-Arts yet describing human movement and the production of
retained, selectively, aspects of that practice that form. The plan now a ‘surface’ owes its form to a
were useful in pursuit of new intentions; their act of ‘systematic transformation of […] lines’ such that the
design undertaken through available techniques architectural outcome is choreographed for, and
rather than an always self-conscious dismissal of past from, the movement and experience of the body.
methods. In this respect, Le Corbusier’s spiral plans The relation between the movement line and the
point to subtle continuities of understanding in form is direct – one produces the other. The Port
architectural practice or, at least, to the difference Terminal’s concretising of meandering urban
between an apparent continuity of method and the pathways is not unlike Le Corbusier’s explorations of
comparatively greater changes taking place at the the ‘natural’ curving movements that eventuate as
level of intention or ideas that were part of the spiral-shaped plans [18–21]. More than this, there is a
Modernist agenda. distinct echo of nineteenth-century method. To
borrow from Leatherbarrow’s description, it is
Contemporary practice, diagramming and design evident in the diagramming of the Port Terminal’s
method design that an axis of composition (the line denoting
As much as Le Corbusier’s spiral plan designs circulation and movement) is made synonymous
evidence Neo-Classical methods as techniques to with an axis of projection (which constructs the
support a Modernist agenda, those same designs also geometry of the form). Those lines of circulation may
throw forward to contemporary agendas; providing have multiplied in the contemporary instance, but
something of an ur-project for diagram architecture. in both cases the management of lines is a
The formal precedent of Le Corbusier’s spiral plan production of the media of design – axial
experiments, his play with producing architecture as orthography in the case of the Beaux-Arts and the
a path of continuous meandering circulation, technological possibility of converting non-
provides a key reference for the architecture of Rem orthogonal lines into grids and surfaces in a
Koolhaas. In S,M,L,XL, Koolhaas presents the contemporary context. The technologies may differ
architecture of OMA’s Rotterdam Kunsthal (1993) as a but the working assumption – that a linear artifice of
series of cinematically framed moments along a circulation acts as arbiter of plan form – is greatly
24
continuous promenade of interior space. In his similar; indicating something of the internalised
Jussieu Libraries design project (1993) and the later rules or codes of architecture that make the
Seattle Central Library (2004), Koolhaas pointedly discipline cohere. Of course this is not to say that
incorporates Le Corbusier’s spiral circulation such contemporary architects are ‘Neo-Classicists’
experiments, most directly in the latter’s ‘Books but it is to observe certain continuities of
Spiral’ – a volume of space constituting the public understanding in design practice that have aided
collection as a continuous access ramp. architects since the nineteenth century in producing
However, beyond these formal references there are and picturing the effects of their architecture.
other more subtle similarities to be found in terms
of plan form and method, particularly where we Conclusion
witness the emergence of line diagrams of movement While Le Corbusier’s spiral plans have been studied
as generators of built form. With the use of software for their symbolic meanings, it is not for those
technologies to map circulation lines, diagrams have meanings that the projects have returned to favour
become material for the self-generation of in the contemporary practice of architecture. It is the
architectural forms constructed within computer techniques that form the spiral plan projects – their
environments. The kind of complex and hybrid actual production as designs – that mark them out in
architectural forms being created clearly signal a the current context. By evidencing a relation
broad shift away from typologically based between forms and techniques in architectural
approaches apparent in Modernism. Yet, beyond the design we might look past the more dominant
issue of type, there are certain parallels between discussion of ideas (symbolic or otherwise) to issues
contemporary methods and past ones – specifically of method and of the plan itself as an assembly of
those prefigured in the kinds of explorations techniques for the formation of buildings. The
undertaken by Le Corbusier through his spiral plans. premium on technique in the practice of design
A key example of diagram architecture is found in today – the currency of diagram architecture – also
the work of Foreign Office Architects who describe points, obviously enough, to the return of the
the design of their Yokohama International Port rhetoric of technique as well as to technique’s
Terminal (2002) as ‘generated from a circulation instrumentality in the process of design. While Le
diagram that aspires to eliminate the linear Corbusier played down the description of methods

   Forms and techniques   Antony Moulis

326 arq . vol 14 . no 4 . 2010    history

evident in his drawings and used his spiral plans to symbolic effects at which he proved expert. Beyond
present symbolic meanings or associations (organic this, however, it is precisely the methods – what
form, unlimited growth, ritual, procession and so appears as the relatively long term stability of
on), we might now appreciate the spiral type as planning techniques in the practice of architecture –
evincing both: exemplary of his deployment of long that best allow us to make sense of Le Corbusier’s
held planning methods towards specifically spatial spiral plans as we look from them, both backward
27
ends as well as being a show of rhetorical and and forward in time.

Notes (1936), Centre of Contemporary Materials (Cambridge: Cambridge

1. For example, see Alfred Willis, ‘The Aesthetics (1936), Pavillon des University Press, 1993), p. 15.
Exoteric and Esoteric Functions of Temps Nouveaux (1937), Museum 21. Alan Colquhoun, ‘The Beaux-Arts
Le Corbusier’s Mundaneum’, of Unlimited Growth (1939), Plan’, in his Essays in Architectural
Modulus (1980–81), 12–21; Kenneth Exposition Habitat 45 (1945), Criticism: Modern Architecture and
Frampton, ‘The Humanist v. the Urban Development, Saint-Dié Historical Change (Cambridge, MA:
Utilitarian Ideal’, Architectural (1946), Exposition Synthèse Des MIT Press, 1981), pp. 161–68.
Design 38 (March 1986), 134–36, or Arts, Porte Maillot (1949), Cultural 22. Le Corbusier, Towards a New
Giuliano Gresleri, ‘The Centre of Ahmedabad (1951), Tokyo Architecture, p. 191.
Mundaneum Plan’, in In the Museum (1959), Etude 23. For example see Alan Colquhoun,
Footsteps of Le Corbusier, ed. by Carlo d’urbanisation, Meaux (1957), ‘Displacement of Concepts in Le
Palazzolo and Riccardo Vio (New Museum at Chandigarh (1959), Corbusier’, in Colquhoun, Essays
York: Rizzoli, 1991), pp. 93–114. Cultural Centre, Chad (1960), in Architectural Criticism, pp. 40–57.
2. Tim Benton, The Villas of Le Corbusier Museum of the Twentieth Century, 24. Rem Koolhaas and Bruce Mau,
1920–1930 (New Haven: Yale Eisenbach (1963), Museum of the S,M,L,XL: Office for Metropolitan
University Press, 1987), p. 143. Twentieth Century, Nanterre Architecture (New York: Monacelli
3. Jan Birksted, Le Corbusier and the (1965), Musee de lotissement Press, 1998).
Occult (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, (undated). 25. ‘Foreign Office Architects:
2009), pp. 82–86. 13. This abandoned project for the Yokohama Port Terminal,
4. Christoph Schnoor, La Construction Pavillon des Temps Nouveaux was 1995–2002’, Lotus 108 (2001), 82.
des Villes: Le Corbusiers Erstes the subject of a 1995 conference 26. ‘Foreign Office Architects:
Stadtebauliches Traktat von 1910/11 paper which discussed the Yokohama Port Terminal,
(Zurich: GTA Verlag, 2008). contribution to the project of 1995–2002’, p. 82.
5. Le Corbusier, Urbanisme (8th French Le Corbusier’s cousin, Pierre 27. On the longer history of modern
edition) published as The City of Jeanneret. Danilo Udovicki, architectural planning see John
Tomorrow and its Planning (London: ‘Revisiting the Pavillon des Temps Macarthur, The Picturesque:
John Rodker, 1929). Nouveaux at the 1937 Paris World’s Architecture, Disgust and other
6. Le Corbusier, Urbanisme, p. 208. Exhibition: The Role of Pierre Irregularities (London, New York:
7. Le Corbusier, Urbanisme, p. 207 & Jeanneret’, Conference Paper, The Routledge, 2007).
p. 210. Society of Architectural Historians
8. Birksted, Le Corbusier and the Occult, (48th annual meeting), 5–9 April Illustration credits
p. 84. 1995, Seattle, Washington. arq gratefully acknowledges:
9. Le Corbusier, Towards a New 14. See Jan Birksted’s argument about Author, 5–7, 15, 18–21
Architecture (London: The Le Corbusier’s use of symbols that Le Corbusier/ADAGP. Licensed by
Architectural Press, 1987), p. 191. are deliberately enigmatic in Le Viscopy, 2010, 1–4, 8, 9, 10–14, 16, 17
10. Le Corbusier, Urbanisme, p. 62. Corbusier and the Occult, pp. 303–07.
11. Antony Moulis, ‘From Functionalist 15. Le Corbusier, Oeuvre Complète Biography
to Humanist Line: On Circulation 1965–1969 (London: Thames & Antony Moulis is Senior Lecturer at
Diagramming and the Work of Hudson, 1969), pp. 162–67. the School of Architecture, The
Alvar Aalto’, in Building, Designing, 16. Le Corbusier, Oeuvre Complète University of Queensland, Australia.
Thinking – 3rd International Alvar 1938–1946 (London: Thames & He teaches architectural design and
Aalto Meeting on Modern Architecture Hudson, 1964), p. 16. history of architecture and is deputy
– Proceedings, ed. by Karl Jormakka 17. Le Corbusier, Oeuvre Complète director of the atch Research Group.
and Esa Laaksonen (Jyväskylä, 1938–1946, p. 16. In 2008 he co-edited Shifting Views:
Finland, 30–31 August, 2008), pp. 18. Le Corbusier, Oeuvre Complète Selected Essays on the Architectural History
75–78, as well as an extended 1934–1938 (London: Thames & of Australia and New Zealand (uqp) with
discussion in Antony Moulis, Hudson, 1964), p. 154. Andrew Leach and Nicole Sully.
Drawing Experience: Le Corbusier’s 19. Jan Birksted, Le Corbusier and the
Spiral Museum Projects, PhD, The Occult, pp. 303–07. Author’s address
University of Queensland, 2002. 20. This understanding of the Dr Antony Moulis
12. Villa La Roche-Jeanneret (1923), instrumentality of axes in School of Architecture
Villa Meyer (1925), Mundaneum nineteenth-century architectural The University of Queensland
(1928), Museum of Contemporary practice is given by David St Lucia, qld 4072
Art (1931), Bata Boutique (1935), Leatherbarrow, The Roots of Australia
University Campus, Rio de Janeiro Architectural Invention: Site, Enclosure, [email protected]

Antony Moulis   Forms and techniques