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"Architecture or Revolution": Taylorism, Technocracy, and Social Change Author(s): Mary McLeod Source: Art Journal, Vol.

43, No. 2, Revising Modernist History: The Architecture of the 1920s and 1930s (Summer, 1983), pp. 132-147 Published by: College Art Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/776649 Accessed: 27/09/2009 20:04
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Revolution": or 'Architecture and Technocracy, Taylorism,


Social
Change

By Mary McLeod Corbusier's social and political position continues to be one of the most controversialdimensions of his career. On the one hand, Post-Modernist critics and architectsdenouncehis messianic social vision: his belief thatarchitectureis a tool for social redemption. Charles describes Jencks, for instance,sarcastically Le Corbusier's "heroic object of every deterday use" as the "new, revolutionary gent"; the editorsof HarvardArchitecture Review condemnhis utopianismwith their assertionthat "architecture can profitmore thanwhat by workingwith what 'is' rather 'should be.' "' On the otherhand, historians have often been skepticalof the claim thatpolitics played a significantrole in the formulation of Le Corbusier's work. Reyner Banham and Colin Rowe call attention to the academic strains in Le Corbusier'sthinking;more recently, Wilpublishedthis newspaper liam Curtisdismisses politics as irrelevant Fig. 1 "If Parisbecomes Americanized."Le Corbusier moderne(1925). in d'architecture L'Almanach Voisin Plan (1925) discussing clipping to the generation forms.2 of Le Corbusier's In contrastto the position of currentarchiIt is a techthe ThirdInternational. tectural polemics, the standardbiograph- Le Corbusierhimself would have gladly nical work.... ical interpretation maintainsthathe was an endorsed this assessment-at least until essentially apolitical man, governed by 1930. Throughoutthe twenties he veheaesthetic considerations and an all- mently denied any party affiliations; he Things are not revolutionized by revolutions. The real revocited the various humanism.3 Peter Blake's The making epipolitical frequently embracing lution lies in the solution of existing Master Builders makes explicit this inter- thets given to him-Bolshevist, Fascist, petit bourgeois-as proof of his own neupretation: problems.5 trality. He was, he declared,strictlya pro- His task, like that of the "healthy and The facts are that Corbu is totally fessional man. At the conclusion of virile" disinterestedin politics;thathe finds engineer, was to measure,analyze, Urbanisme,he states: it necessary, at times, to deal with and propose solutions-a role, Le CorbuI am an architect;no one is going to sier believed, removed from the vagaries politiciansin orderto achievecertain make a politician of me. Everyone, and fluctuationsof parliamentary politics. objectivesof planningand important in his own domain where he is an Yet this purportedneutrality,as Postredevelopment; and that his own did Modernists have intuitively "political" philosophyhasto do with understood, expert, can apply his special knowlnot imply isolation or detachmentfrom such issues as the continuityof civiedge and carryhis solutionsto their was deeply engaged lization on earth and the need for society. Le Corbusier logical conclusion .... in social issues, althoughhis involvement assuring such continuity-concerns has no label, thatare not easily labeledin termsof [Ville Contemporaine] generally defies party labels. Words like it is not dedicated to our existing "technical," "logical," "solution," and today's political pressuregroups.4 Bourgeois-CapitalistSociety nor to "expert" all associate him with a general 132 Art Journal Le

ideological position current in postwar France that was predicatedon American models of industrial rationalizationand managerial reform. Both art and politics of professional were placedundertherubric expertise. Far from being void of specific thisvision politicalandsocial implications, -incorporating Taylorism, Fordism,and other models of so-called Scientific Management-frequently led to specificstances on international commerce, worldgovernment, trade regulations, productionhierarchies, and land ownership, all of which he conceived as essential componentsof a foreseen social regeneration.This vision linking technology and social change, as this essay will attemptto show, was fundaand mental to Le Corbusier'sarchitecture theory duringthe postwarperiod. Taylorism dimensionof this ideological An important stance was Taylorism, the Americansystem of Scientific Management.Like many saw Europeanprofessionals,Le Corbusier as a means of breaking with Taylorism componentof Taylorismwas the Fig. 2 A workshopplan in relief. An important prewar society, a key to social renewal. views and of the orderanddirectionof theproduction process.Perspective organization The word "Taylorism" appearsin almost flow of multi-story models were frequentlyused to illustratethe production workshops. every one of his books from Apres le cubisme(1918) to La Villeradieuse(1935); Ville Contemporaine and Plan Voisin, premiseduponspeed, efficiency, andeconomy, were architecturalvisions of the Americanindustrialutopiamade manifest (Fig. 1). in thefirstyears Taylorism, popularized of the century, was a methodof labordisbased upon cipline and plant organization of labor ostensibly scientificinvestigations efficiency and incentive systems. In the early 1880s the Americanengineer, Frederick Winslow Taylor, disturbedby work slowdowns, organized manufacturing plants and devised wage scales based on piecework, to improveefficiency and expand production (Figs. 2 and 3). His objective was to maximize the ratio of output to input, benefits to cost; rationalhe believed,wouldbring ized management, optimalproduction. The most originalfeatureof his system, however, was the applicationof efficiency engineering to labor relations;Taylorism entailed, to use the words of its zealous followers, "a complete mental revolution." Both laborers and management, Taylor explained, "take their eyes off of the division of the surplusas the important matter, and together turn their attention "6 towardincreasing the size of the surplus. The increased productivity would ultimately benefit all. With scarcityand constraint eliminated, there would no longer be bitter confrontationover the divisions

subsumedby a rational technologyof political and economic choice. As the historian CharlesMaierhas shown, it was this political andsocial implication,morethanTaylorism's strictly technical features, that interest.7 generateda European Before World War I Taylorism was alreadyknown in Franceby a small group of technicians.Theirinteresthadfirstbeen sparked at the Paris Exposition of 1900, where Bethlehem Steel exhibited highhailed speed steel. The Frenchindustrialists this example of Taylor's experimentsas a great scientific invention, andby 1914 the metallurgistHenri Le Chatelier, "le barnum frangais de Taylor," had translated three of Taylor's majorworks:On the Art of CuttingMetals (La Coupe des metaux), Shop Management(La Direction des ateliers), and The Principles of Scientific (Lesprincipesd'organisation Management inscientifique). In 1907-08 industrialists troducedTaylor's time-studymethodsinto factories, but these earlyefforts, knownto the workersas "systematizedsweating," generateda spate of unfavorablepublicity and ended abruptlyin a series of violent strikes throughoutthe region of Paris in 1913.8 World War I, however, completely reversed this situation. The demands for rapid, precise production,the loss of manpower, and the introductionof new, unskilled (andoften weaker)workersinto the labor force encouragedinterestin American industrial innovations; in 1916 the publication of the French engineer Henri Fayol's Administration industrielle et generale addedimpetusto the "scientific" organization of war-related industries. Newly rationalizedenterprisesincludeda majorstate plantfor gunpowdermanufacture, large sectorsof the steel industry,the yardsof Penhoet(the builders shipbuilding of the great Frenchliners Parisand the Ile de France), and a military automobile repair shop, the last celebrated in 1918 througha series of lectures sponsoredby of Nathe Society for the Encouragement tional Industry.The governmentitself was of the precepts a leader in the introduction AlbertThomas, of ScientificManagement. the Minister of Armaments,spoke of the war as an "enormous industrialrevolution" for France and pleaded with labor and managementto intensify production, ignore class differences, and accept Taylorism. In early 1918 Clemenceauhimself signed a decree asking that all heads of military establishmentsstudy new industrial techniquesand proposedthe creation of a Taylorite "planning department"in every plant.9 But it was not only the demandsof war production that generated the impulse towards industrial innovation;the formidable task of reconstructionencouraged exploration of more general applications of modern productivetechniques. By the 134 Art Journal

France,November1918. Fig. 4 An invadedareanearLens in Northeastern

with its pitched This gardencity development Fig. 5 The new city of Lens-Mericourt. effortsfollowing the roof houses and picturesque plan was typicalof the reconstruction war. Erectedby the railroadcompanyNord, it was one of severaltownsdesigned authorization, beganone weekaftergovernment completely by engineers.Construction May 9, 1919, and in six months800 houses were constructed. war's end, the devastationwas immense: in the 4,329 communesthathadbeen occupied or evacuated,some 6,147 publicbuildings-townhalls, schools, andchurcheswere razed;293,039 dwellings were completely destroyed;another435,961 homes severely damaged;and 52,734 kilometers of highways needed to be rebuilt.Muchof northeast France was reduced to rubble: some 100,000 wagonloads were required to clear the debrisfrom the city of Armentieres alone (Figs. 4 and 5).10 Although afterthe war manysimplywantedto recapture the past and returnto "normalcy," therewere dissidents,amongthemprogressive industrialists, officials, andtradeunion groups, who sought to adapt the innovations of war to a peacetime economy. In February1919 Louis Loucheur,the Minister of Reconstruction,decreedthat "there must be fromnow on only one hymnon the lips of every Frenchman-the hymn to Secretaryproduction,"andLeonJouhaux, Generalof the principaltradeunionfederation, the CGT, condemnedthe toleration of "the worst prewarmethodsand follies, the practices that made our industrypuny and shabby."1 l As earlyas 1917, Lieutenant Colonel G. Espitallier declared that shouldbe a pointof depar"reconstruction ture for progress towarda more scientifically modem [form of] organization."12 artworld, Le Corbusier In the avant-garde and Jeanneret) (then still Charles-Edouard Amedee Ozenfantwere among the first to of new indusannouncetheirendorsement trial methods: The war has ended;all is organized; all is clear andpurified;factoriesare built;nothingis just like it was before the War; the great Struggle tested everything, it destroyedsenile methods and replaced them with those which the battleprovedbest. [Taylorism]is not a questionof anything more than expoiting intelligently scientific discoveries. Instinct, groping, and empiricism are replaced by scientific principles of analysis, organization,and classification.13 Taylorism, a fundamentalcomponent of the Purists' l'esprit nouveau, now became a pervasive call in discussions of reconstruction, just as it had been in plans for war production.As a writerin Revue des Vivantes explained, "The war made the Taylor method the orderof the day. . ... The nameTaylor,whichwas barelyknown in Franceby well-informedpeople only a few years ago, is now mentionedby everyone: owners, engineersandworkers."14 Also importantto the introductionof Taylorism, however, was a long-standing

familiar with the principles of Scientific Managementduring the war years, when he studied extensively at the Bibliotheque Nationale. In 1917 he wrote to his Swiss friendWilliamRitterthathe was immersed in Taylorism,butnot withoutsome ambivalence: he called it "the horribleand ineluctable life of tomorrow."20 But his

doubts had clearly subsidedby the time of the publicationof Ozenfant'sandhis Apres le cubismethe followingyear, andthroughout the partners'culturalreview L'Esprit Nouveau (1920-25) references to mass andeconomicefficiencyabound production (Figs. 6 and 7). Evenin its advertisements, "Taylorism" is cited.21 Le Corbusier's interest in Taylorism, however, was more than theoretical. By December 1914 he hadalreadydeveloped, in response to the immensedevastationof the first months of the war, the Dom-ino system, one of the earliest applicationsof mass-productiontechniquesto housing.22 After his arrivalin Parisin February1917 for he served as an architectural consultant the du S.A.B.A. (Societe d'Application for a cement-gun,L'EspritNouveauno. 28. Le Corbusier Fig. 6 (left) Advertisement Beton Arme), an associationof engineers used the cement-gunto cover thepressedstrawwalls of the EspritNouveaupavilion,as involved in the construcand industrialists well as the gardenwalls of his housingprojectat Pessac. tion of national defense projects. Shortly eventssection, November afterwards,he also foundedhis own enterFig. 7 (right)A page fromL'EspritNouveau(no. 27), current Inin Versune prise, S.E.I.E. (Societe d'Entreprises 1924. Le Corbusier hadpreviouslypublishedtheupperseriesof photographs dustrielleset Etudes), which includedboth architectureto illustratethe evolutionof a "standard."He took the lower-right fromL'Illustration(July 12, 1924), a Frenchpicturemagazinethatcovered a small concrete block factory and a rephotograph search section devoted to the studyof conclosely the developmentsof the automobileindustry. crete and refrigeration.Le Corbusierdeideological strain in French politics of (1931) were among Le Corbusier'smost scribed his enthusiasmfor this new industrial endeavorto Ritter: rationaladministrative reform-in partic- heavily annotatedbooks.16 ular, Saint-Simonianism.The nineteenthBy 1923 Taylorismwas popularenough The scene magnificent: enormous gas Henride Saint-Simon to be the subjectof an elaboratesatirepubcenturysocial thinker four huge chimneys to the meters, hadproposeda systemof organicinequality lished on the frontpage of L'Intransigeant. east. I breatheproudly on my site: with "productive" and "industrial" ele- Shortlyafterwards, Le Quotidienserialized the bureaucrat,the agent, the funcments replacing useless aristocrats and Henry Ford's memoirs and in 1925 pubtionary, the eunucharchitectwill be landowners;in his 300-memberChamber lished a Frenchedition of My Life and My one day, finally. I will obliterated 17Fordismhadjoined Taylorismas of Inventionssome 200 places were occu- Work. make beautifulprintsof my factory pied by engineers. American theories of a model of rationalization;the assembly and I will be able to talk of "my reform were strongly reminiscentof this line, standardization, andthe expansionof stocks" and "my sales" like a rice nineteenth-centuryutopian plan in their a mass marketthroughhigher wages and or coal merchant!23 proposalof the engineeras social manager, lower prices gave impetusto the belief that their condemnationsof waste and ineffi- social problemscould be alleviatedwithin At S.E.I.E. he continued his pursuit of low-cost housing"for reconciency, and their belief that an increased the boundariesof capitalism.The French, prefabricated aggregate wealth would be beneficial to like the Germans, appeared to take the struction in the devastatedregions" and all. After the war Saint-Simonianism claims of Ford's ghost-writtenbooks at gained first-handexperience with Taylorgained a small following with Gabriel face value, seeing them as "primitive ism in the tasks of industrialdesign and Darquet's publication of Le Producteur socialism"; Ford's prognosticationof a production. Although the factory venture in (1920-33), named after the nineteenth- car for every family was a sign of the soon raninto difficultiesthatculminated bankruptcyin the early twenties, Le Corcentury periodical.15 This strict revival well-being to come. 18 found an echo in the generalendorsements Also popular,althougheventuallyover- busier maintainedclose contactwith engiof production, modernization, and new shadowed by American methods, was a neers and industrialists. rationaltechnology by such prominentfigures as native Frenchtheoryof industrial Throughoutthe twenties Le Corbusier, the popular mayor of Lyon and Radical ization, Fayolism. In contrast to Taylor like manyof his German contemporaries,24 leader, Edouard Herriot; Clemenceau's and Ford who concentratedon the opera- regardedTaylorism and serial production Ministerof Commerce,EtienneClementel; tional levels of industry, Henri Fayol fo- as fundamentalcomponents of social rethe editor of Figaro, Lucien Romier;and cused on issues of management andadmin- newal. While the aesthetic suggestionsof the residentgeneral of Morocco, Marshal istrative reform. His Administrationin- mechanisticrepetitionand standardization Lyauty. One of the most important popu- dustrielle et generale especially attracted echoed many of his own formalprinciples, larizersof the Americanindustrial methods French employers who had initially been the promise of industrialefficiency and was a workingmechanicandunionleader, put off by the excessive technicaldetailof greater productivityallowed him to conceive of architecture as a social tool. Only Hyacinth Dubreuil, whose two studies the first articleson Taylorism.19 Standards(1929) andNouveauxStandards Le Corbusier probably first became with the applicationof modem industrial Summer 1983 135

techniques, Le Corbusierbelieved, could architecture be produced cheaply, andthus become availableto all. This argumentbecomes one of the predominant themes in his famous polemic Vers une architecture.As ReynerBanham has demonstrated, the text, composed largely of a series of articlespublishedin as a L'Esprit Nouveau, can be interpreted dialectic between old and new, classical and mechanical, architectureand engineering, which concludesthatarchitecture must incorporatethe lessons of mass productionor perish.25 Althoughits links with the past are deep and explicit, the book strongly proclaims a commitment to an industrialfuture.It is, in fact, in a passage to theAcropfollowing his nostalgictribute olis that Le Corbusierintroduceshis most significant and originalargument,"MassProductionHouses". Here he specifically advocatesTaylorismandmodemindustrial methods, and at the same time illustrates his own studies for low-cost prefabricated housing: Dom-ino, Monol, Citrohan,and the Immeuble-Villas. The section opens with the assertionthat Bonnevay and Loucheur'sreconstruction plan for 500,000 low-cost dwellings is an "exceptional event," and continues with the statementthat the building industryis completely unequipped to meet such a program.26The only solution, Le Corbusier asserts, is the abandonment of handcrafted production and the widespread adoption of modem industrialtechniques -technical specialists, workshops, stanthe innovadardization,mass production; tions of war manufacturing mustbe applied to housing. The war has shaken us all up. One talked of Taylorism. It was done. have bought new plants Contractors -ingenious, patientand rapid.Will the yard soon be a factory?Thereis talk of houses made in a mould by pouring in liquid concrete from above, completed in one day as you would fill a bottle .... Nothing is ready, buteverythingcan be done. In the next twenty years, big industrywill have co-ordinated its standardized materials,comparable with those of metallurgy;technical achievementwill have carried heating and lighting and methodsof rationalconstruction far beyondanything we are acquaintedwith. Contractors' yards will no longer be sporadicdumpsin which everything breathes confusion; financial and social organization,using concerted and forceful methods,will be able to solve the housing question and the yardswill be on a huge scale, runand exploited like government offices.
Dwellings . . . will be enormous

an isolated discipline. In contrast to the and square-built andno longera disBeaux-Arts practioners who rarely conmal congeries;they will incorporate in the prewarperiod the issue of sidered the principleof mass-production and or new materials, Le Corbusier housing large-scaleindustrialization.27 was arguing for an expansion of the very This vision of the futuremodelshousing conception of the architect's role to emof social problems. production on airplane and automobile bracethe consideration manufacture.Just as HenryFord's assem- Taylorismandnew industrial methodswere bly line was to resultin lower-priced goods the only way the architectcould continue and more available commodities for the to be relevantin a society threatened with worker, so, too, industrializedbuilding potentialdestruction. Le Corbusier stated this with greater processes were to reduce housing costs and provide a "maximum dwelling" for zeal and to a largerlay audiencethan did all. Even the relationshipbetween tenant any of his Frenchcontemporaries, but he and landlord was to be changed in the was hardlyalone in his perceptionof hous"inevitablesocial evolution." Lowercosts ing as "the problemof the epoch" and "at would permita system of rentpurchasein the root of social unrest."32With the exwhich tenants would take shares in the ception of the Communists,all sides of the enterprise.28Similarly, a more efficient political spectrum-republican, socialist, urbanism,includingrationaltransportation clerical-were in accord. In Paris, about systems and an increased density of ser- two fifths of the populationwere said to be vices, would lead to greater economies dangerouslyhoused;seriousovercrowding and increased land values. One need not and general deterioration of living condiworry about sacrificing the rich to solve tions were common. Some 16,000 deaths, the social problems of the poor. The sur- in the 1920s alone, were attributed to these was laterto explain, conditions. The severity of the housing pluses, as Le Corbusier would be sufficiently large to compensate crisis threatened to drivetraditionally stable the owners "up to the present value of middle-class supportersof the Third Retheirproperty.''29 Additionalfundswould public into a precariousfinancialposition still remainfor greaterpublic services. Le as housing costs soaredwhile income stagCorbusier's "technical solution," like nated.33 It was not illogical to see these Taylor's "mental revolution," offered an conditions as leadingto social unrest.Like Le Corbusier, Loucheur saw large-scale improvedenvironmentfor all. The social urgency of implementation constructionof low-cost housingas one of becomes the focus of the last chapterof the only means of preservingthe weak and Nor were otherarchiVers une architecture,writtenspecifically totteringRepublic.34 for the book's publication.Le Corbusier's tects completely unawareof the necessity analysis was based upon the assumption of coping with thisimmenseproblem.Long that the physical environment-namely, before the war ended, as Kenneth Silver housing-was the major social ill facing has shown, architects argued for an exFrance. "The balance of society comes panded conception of the profession's sodown to a question of building."30 Both cial role.35The architect AdolpheDervaux, workers and intellectuals(such appealsto for instance, claimed: a professional elite were common to both a city, Now to createorreconstruct Le CorbusierandTayloristadvocates)sufis assuredly an issue of national fered seriouslyfromthe lack of appropriate economy, but it's also architecture! dwellings: tuberculosis, mental demoralTo sanitize a tightly populated ization, and the destructionof the family to join a river's bankswith a region, were among the dire consequences;social that's architecture. bridge, upheavalwas imminentin postwarFrance. To plan conveniently a locale, to The book concludes with his famousrhetsocial customs study the inhabitant's orical plea for reform: and needs to ease their labor, their education, their rest-that is, to Society is filled with a violent deinvolve onself with individual and sire for somethingwhich it may obtain or may not. Everythinglies in collective psychology-that's still architecture.36 that:everythingdependson theeffort made and the attentionpaid to these And the large exhibitionLa Cite Reconstialarmingsymptoms. tuee, held in the Tuileriesgardensin 1916 Architectureor Revolution. and organized by such prominentpractiRevolutioncan be avoided.3' and tioners as Agache, Jaussely,Jourdain, This statementof strongprotestwas still Plumet, focused on the problem of refar less radicalthanthe conclusions of the constructionand the use of new industrial growing CommunistParty. But although building methods "to spread the fruitful Versune architecturewas a call for reform principles of association, cooperation,renot violent revolution, for workingwithin grouping, which will conspicuouslyfaciliexisting political and economic structures tate the realization of plans of develop37 rather than overthrowing them, it was ment .. into architecture as Although culturally, conservative fachardly a retrenchment

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tions seem to have dominatdin the postwar period-regionalism was particularly strong in the early twenties38-Le Corbusier's endorsement of scientific management was in fact echoed throughoutlarge segments of the Parisian town-planning movement. Leftists such as Henri Sellier, Maxime Leroy, and GeorgesBenoit-Levy, as well as more conservative spokesmen such as Louis Renault,PierreLhande,and Louis Loucheur, all advocatedsome form of "municipal Taylorism."39 They beof lieved thata more efficient organization and services would produce transportation less fatigued workersand thus preventthe of human "degradationand disintegration capital."40 For most of these reformers, garden city towns, located close to indussolution.Benoittry, were the mostrational Levy, for instance, whose work La Citejardin (1904) Le Corbusier had studied closely, carried the notion of efficient functional segregation (somewhat analogous to Taylor's division of labor) to an extreme. He divided each new town into "hamlets," with everyhamletrepresenting a different specialty:therewas to a hamlet for ironworkers, for carpenters, and for men of letters.41 Also popular was the notion of the home as a model of managerialefficiency, an ideaanticipated by Alfred de Foville and othersof the Musee Social. The ScientificManagement advocateFayol explained: Like any other enterprise,the home has to be managed, i.e., it needs foresight, organization, command, co-ordination, and control.... Then only will the home play the part which befits it in the management trainingof youth.42 the But for most architectsandurbanists application of industrialmodels to urban planning and house design was limited to studies of efficient organizationand management of the physical plan. Mass-production procedureswere largely ignored. Their interests in Taylorism, like those of most Frenchindustrialists,were morepsychological then technical, moreconcerned with theory than substance. Dubreuil, an eyewitness to both French and American experiments, observedthatTaylorismhad not fully penetratedeven Americanfactories and was no more than a superficial gloss on the operations of most French enterprises.43Loucheur and Renault, for in war instance, despitecertaininnovations and automobileproduction,madeno effort to propose prefabricationin the housing industryitself. Le Corbusier'stechnocraticstance was more radical than that of most architects and town planners in its endorsementof not only efficiency but also mass production. Fordas muchas Taylorwas his model; standardization and prefabricationwere predominantconcerns, however naive his

of the economic variactualunderstanding ables of the construction industry may have been. Among the Frencharchitectsof the early twenties only Perret and Gamier, inL'EspritNouveau,shared both illustrated his interest in new industrialmethods.44 Yet, in other respects Le Corbusier's approachto social change resembledthat of the more official town-planning reformers. Economic ratherthan political measures were the meansto social reform.Big business-"a healthy and moral organism"-more than parliament,was likely to be the generatorof reform. Business has modified its habitsand customs. . ... Industryhas created new tools. . . . Such tools are capable of adding to humanwelfare and of lightening human toil. If these new conditions are set against the past, you have Revolution.45 In short, Le Corbusier envisioned the "Revolution" of Fordism and Taylorism as an improvedcorporate capitalism,premised on efficiency and econony. For the advocates of Taylorism, social justice was a product of technical rationalization,not of materialequality. The specific political and social implications of this technologicalvision become more evident if one considers Le Corbusier's writings in the context of L'Esprit Nouveau as a whole. Althoughthe review dealt predominantlywith the arts, it also examined science, industry, economics, sociology, and foreign affairs as topics of important concern. By the fourth issue, January 1921, the subtitle changed from Revue internationale d'esthetiqueto Revue internationale illustree de l'activite contemporaine; later, in fact, L'Esprit Nouveau was to publish a L'EspritNouveau, revue internationale hebdomadaire d'economique.46As the editors explained in the preface to an article "Wilson et l'humanisme frangais," A few of our readerswere surprised thatl'EspritNouveaushowedinterest in economic and sociological questions. L'EspritNouveau wantsto be the great Review of connection for people who think, . . . who can not but realize thatin this day andage all subjects are more than ever of great relevance and that intellectual and spiritualquestionsareclosely related to the social situation.47 In the spectrumof well-known French cultural reviews of the epoch, L'Esprit Nouveau appears as one of the most aestheticallyand politicallyprogressive.Only Clarte and the laterRevolutionSurrealiste were further to the left. At a time when many artisticpublicationswere calling for a resurgenceof regionalstyles anda return to la tradition latine,48L'EspritNouveau was unequivocal in its endorsement of

modern technology and an accompanying social change. In the elections of 1919, the parties of the right, grouped in the Bloc National, won 433 seats in the Chamber, against a mere 86 for the Radicalsand 104 for the Socialists; for the first time since the 1890s, clerical and reactionarysegments dominated. Particularlydisturbing to this conservative public, yearning for stability after the wartime upheaval, was orienL'Esprit Nouveau's internationalist tation and its commitmentto landreform. Although for some Frenchindustrialists the advocacy of new, productivemethods was a protectionistcall, a means to insure France's industrial preeminence, for Le Corbusier,as for the technocratsinvolved in the Pan-Europe movement,it was intrinsically tied to a broaderworld vision.49 Taylor's orderly factory creating orderly men was eventually to lead to a more orderly world. Le Corbusier'sfuture, like that of the earlier Saint-Simonians, was one of order on a series of ever grander wouldspreadin even scales; rationalization wider spheres, resultingeventually in the attainmentof universalharmony.International cooperation and reduced trade restrictionswere essentialcomponents of this projection. Just as traditionalclass structureshad little relationto appropriate managerial hierarchies in Scientific Managehadonly ment, so, too, nationalboundaries marginalconnection to issues of industrial production and economic exchange. The architect'sendorsement of an international stylistic vocabularyrelateddirectly to his conception of industrialefficiency and a network of rationallyunified enterprises. A standardization of architecturalelements, Le Corbusierstated in his article "Nos moyens," would not only result in greaterformalunity, but also lead to "universal collaboration" and "universal methods."50 The larger-scaleproduction and wider access to technologicalinnovations resultingfroma broader market would lower costs and benefit all. Le Corbusier cited the Barragede Barberine,with parts coming from Germany, Switzerland,and the United States, as an example of the kind of "greatwork" emergingfrominterit embodied"the sum nationalcooperation; of man's knowledge." Subsequently,he suggested in Urbanismethat Paris should be rebuilt with foreign capital; German, American, Japanese, and English investment would insure the city against future attack.51In short, rationalbusiness practices meantworldpeace. CamilleMauclair, the art critic of Figaro, was particularly sardonic about this suggestion for "the of the centerof Paris": internationalization This immense value of the builtcenterof Paris-it wouldbe goodfor one section of it to belong toforeigners. If, of the numerousbillions of gigantic glass towers to be raised, a large Summer 1983 137

partbelongedto AmericansandGermans, don't you thinkthattheywould prevent the towers from being destroyedby long-rangecanons.... The interestingthing is not to decide whetherthis genius is recovering with the help of psychiatry,but whetherthis Picasso of concrete is not ratherLenin.52 Le Corbusier, perhaps in anticipationof such attacks, was carefulin L'EspritNouveau to show examples of "Frenchrationalism"-Perrault's east fagade of the Louvre or Gabriel's Place de la Concorde -and to defendthestraight lineas French.53 But more than most contemporary French architectshe resisted the nationalismthat was to characterize the Expositiondes Arts Decoratifsof 1925. Otheraspectsof L'Esprit Nouveaureiterated Le Corbusier'sinternationalism. The review publishednumerousarticlesby foreigners (Loos, Gropius,Rathenau,and the Czechoslovakian Siblik), cited foreign periodicals frequently, and devoted considerablespace to the discussionof foreign literatureand painting. Erik Satie, in his "Cahiers d'un mammifere,"ridiculedthe chauvinism that permeatedFrenchartcircles: "He who does not love Wagnerdoes not love France."s4 The review in its articles devoted to "economique" and "sociologique" and in its one issue L'Esprit Nouveau Economique unequivocally rejected protectionist policies in favorof free trade and greater international exchange. Modern industryand commerce were envisioned as transcending nationalboundaries andregionaldifferences.R. Chenevier, the review's political spokesman, was harshlycriticalof the Versaillestreatyand proclaimedthe Leagueof Nationsa symbol of "l'esprit nouveau." At a time when anti-Bolshevist sentiment was strong he with argued for economic rapprochement the Soviet Union.55On a morehumanitarian plane the review waged a campaignfor contributions to fight the famine in the U.S.S.R., and afterLenin's deathin 1924 it paidtribute to themanwho "hadknocked out old Russia".s56 Lenin himself had strongly advocatedTaylorismas a means of developing the new Soviet state. Henri Hertz, Chenevier'ssuccessor, also vocally supportedworld government,and in their preface to his article "L'Acheminement vers les grands conseils internationaux," Ozenfant and Le Corbusierendorsed his aspirations: He gives a comprehensiveview of the actual embryonic state of these organizations-news in theeconomic and political history of mankindwhich are vast organizations of power, directing nations. These organizations tend to impede the individualactionof the organization 138 ArtJournal

member;we are expecting from the of international meetingsa regulation relations, restraintof individualdesires, a startin thwartingindividual impulse, and thereforethe limitation of impulsive declarations of war, the creation of a more stable state of peace-peace being the only stateof society favorableto the blossoming of works of the new spirit in all its forms.57

The editors hoped that ultimatelya series of rationally conceivedorganizations would lead to world federation,broughttogether by the ties of multinational,rational,productive planning. Although this social vision represented a liberal humanism based on "rational" analysis ratherthan anythingapproaching Communist policy, critics were quick to indict the review's position on foreign affairs. Both Camille Mauclairand Alexof the infamous anderde Senger, the author diatribeLe Chevalde troiedu bolshevisme, meaning.63 called L'EspritNouveauBolshevistpropaganda. De Senger, particularly perturbed Herriot, who as mayorof Lyon had sponof Jewishcontributors, sored many of Tony Gamier'sgreatpublic by the largenumber cited GuillaumeApollinaireas "a typical works, was himself a strong advocate of representative. . . a bank employee Taylorism; in his book Creer of 1919 he whose mother is Lithuanianand whose called for a technologically inspired father is unknown, and whose name is "fourth republic" thatwould abandonthe Kostrovitsky."58 party intrigues, local patronage,and cafeto existingFrench comptoirecomites thathaddominated Even morethreatening precapitalist society, althoughnot as widely war Frenchpolitics.64Despite the promise addressed perhapsbecause of its obvious of such rhetoric, the Radical-Socialists' utopianism, was L'EspritNouveau'sposi- power base of small-town and peasant stated interests necessarily put into questionany tion on landownership.Le Corbusier thatprivatepropertywas a "serious barri- hope for reform. of housing and er" to the transformation The progressive dimension of L'Esprit the urbanenvironment.Although he was Nouveau's industrialutopiaemerges in its on endorsementof world government,of the careful, as always, to base his argument professional, not political, groundsand to modificationof property and arrangements, stop shortof calling for the completeaboli- of the election of Herriot'scoalition. More tion of private land ownership, he con- conservative strains, however, can be demned inheritance and the landlord's detected in its conception of social order. escape from "the rough war of competi- Most apparentof these was the proposed tion."59 Paul Lafitte's article "A propos hierarchy of power. Taylorism, which de la Grand Crise," however, was more purportedto transcendpolitical divisions specific: state ownership of land was the in its guise of professionalneutrality,was block- by no means egalitarian. Casting aside technician's solution to the barriers ing efficient urbanplanning;it "provides traditional of power-wealth, determinants cities with a certainflexibility, which per- family, and class-the system, like Saintmits them to adapt to all their changing Simonianism, predicatedrankon capacity needs, and to all the requirementsof a and expertise. As Le Corbusierhimself progressive society."60 Ozanfantand Le explained: CorbusierintroducedLafitte as a "subtle the right man for the right job is theoretician"with "a prudent,clever, and coldly selected; laborers,workmen, "61 reasonableeconomic program. foremen, engineers, managers, relucLe Corbusier's personal Despite administrators-each in his proper tance to label himself, the review also exand the man who is made of place; hibited leftist, though hardly socialist, the right stuff to be a managerwill sympathies with regard to parliamentary not long remain a workman; the politics. In the issue releasedjust afterthe higherplaces areopen to all.65 1924 elections, both Henri Hertz and the artistJeanLurgat,in a statement represent- This vision of a hierarchyof talent takes and ing an obscure Cartel des Independants, materialform in Ville Contemporaine in the final issue of declared their endorsement of Edouard Plan Voisin, illustrated Herriot's Carteldes Gauches, which com- L'Esprit Nouveau. Engineers, industrial-

prised both Radicalsand Socialists.62To a greater extent than its predecessor, the conservativeBloc Nationale,Herriot's new government promised to spend funds on social reformand to redistribute taxes; the Radicals offered, as Hertz explained in words reminiscent of Vers une architecture, "une revolutionpacifique."But both Lurgatand Hertz voiced strongqualifications in their support of the great party built up by Gambetta: Radicalism is the humus of the republic. Withinit, among its many impurities, is the seed of a political spirit. The elections of May 11 are an excellent example of this. The possibility of renewing and re-erecting the public spiritrests in this big and crass party, and resides only in it. A laborious and crude amalgamation of currentlife, it representsvaluable plans and values, to which it alone is in a position to give intelligent

At the enterof the town, at the crossingof the two highwaysis the greattransportation Fig. 8 Dioramaof Ville Contemporaine. center. The towers, locatedon eitherside, containbusinessandcommercialfacilities. Among the hills on the horizon,just beyond a wooded "protected" zone, are the GardenCities, housingworkers. ists, financiers,andartistsworkin the great skyscrapersof the city center, "clothed in a dazzling mirageof unimaginable beauty (Fig. 8). Other activities, like those in Benoit-Levy's hamlets, are carefully segoutskirts.The regated in the surrounding further planningof the residentialquarters enforces the rigid hierarchy of physical Workersand suband social stratification.
ordinates, "their destinies . . . circum-

scribed within the narrower bounds of family life," live in gardencities; the professional elite reside close to the city center.66The urbanplan, as rationallydetermined as the Tayloristplant, does embody in income, a new socialorder,butinequities habitation, and work conditions remain. Forthe Taylorists,efficiency-not equality -was the means to social renewal. oriL'EspritNouveauwas unabashedly ented towardsLe Corbusier'sfuturetower described statement occupants.An editorial syndicalism(the Frenchtradeunionmovement) and Bolshevism as being under the tragic aspect from which one mustnot miss seeing the pathetic attemptat a neededre-establishment of values, necessitatedby persisting anomaliessuchas warand monstrous the armsrace. In contrast,the espritnouveauwas createdby faith in the possible organization of all factors of progress; the prodigious intellectualeffort of the period has created an elite of marvelousfecundity;an elite which has yet to find a place in the social machineryor in the governmentand which is dying of hunger.67 The review aimed, as the editorsreiterated on numerous occasions, to addressthese conleaders, to provoke"an indispensable nection between the elites"-an appeal Prothey sharedwith the Saint-Simonian differed ducteur.Althoughthis publication

from L'Esprit Nouveau in its syndicalist orientationand its aim to destroythe "financial plutocracy," Le Corbusier and Nouveau's Ozenfantincludedit in L'Esprit andcalled list of recommended publications At least one it essential for theirreaders.68 of the Producteur'swriters,the economic theorist Francis Delaisi, also contributed to L'Esprit Nouveau. Le Corbusierhad hoped that Delaisi would write the last chapterof Urbanisme,"FinanceandRealization.'69 Concomitantwith this elitist orientation with ends, not means; was a preoccupation an emphsis on materialresults, not parliamentary procedures. For the Taylorists, decisions were basedon science andratioandabstract rightswere nality;participation in the face of expertise.Throughirrelevant alterout L'EspritNouveau, Le Corbusier nated between naively wishing for implecontrol. mentationand urgingauthoritarian Colbert, Louis XIV, Napoleon I, and Haussmannwere proposedas the heroesof Paris. The concludingplate of Urbanisme shows Louis XIV commandingthe building of the Invalides, andthe captionunderneathreads: Homage to a great town planner. This despotconceivedimmenseprojects and realized them. Over all the country his noble works still fill us with admiration.He was capableof saying, "We wish it," or "Such is our pleasure."70 Aware of the possible negative connotations, Le Corbusieradded in parentheses "this is not a declarationof the 'Action Frangaise,'" thereby disclaiming any connection to Charles Maurras' royalist group.71In a laterproposalfor a statuein a working-class neighborhoodthe architect reconciled his technocraticand authoritarian tendencies by placing casts of his heroeson a pedestalcomposed monarchical of variousautomobiles.But simultaneously

he asserted,thoughnot convincinglyto his critics, thathis demandsfor contemporary radical expropriationand indemnification were "within the bound of practicalpolitics" and "possible underourown democracy."72 Georges Benoit-Levy, the President of the French GardenCity Association, had fewer hesitationsaboutexpressing the authoritarianstrain underlying much of the rationalist doctrine of the town-planningmovement. The inadequacy of a democratic regime in such affairs can easily be pointedout. One regretsthe absence of a Napoleon III, orderingthe conservationof open spaces, of the forts and fortifications, or a Haussmann who commandedfor 17 years at the Hotel de Ville. One regrets the absence of a Mussolini, telling the Mayorof Rome: "Governor,in five years I will have razed the entire heart of the old city and the model city of Rome-Ostia will have been
built. "73

with the parliamentaEchoes of frustration ry governmentof the ThirdRepublicwere, in fact, heard throughoutFrenchsociety. In the mid-twenties the rampantinflation the general and severe marketfluctuations, sense legislativeparalysis,andthelingering that the GreatWar demandedprofoundif to the undefinedalterationsall contributed overtones manifest in anti-parliamentary the resurgent popularity of the Action such Frangaise.Even a radicalsympathizer as Hertz complained in his series "Balbutiements de l'esprit politique" of the displacement of "esprit politique" with "esprit politicien." Despite the victoryof the Carteldes Gauchesin 1924, Hertzsaw universal suffrage as an embodimentof misandtherefore politicians'opportunism trusted it.74 Almost all political groups voiced in some variationLe Corbusier's executive. Forthose demandfor a stronger Summer 1983 139

on the right, there was the promise of a and stable social more rigidly hierarchical order; for those on the left, the potential triumph, in Max Weber's terms, of the rationalizing bureaucratwho upheld the individualism. public good over capitalistic Le Corbusiersharedthis ideal of a "man of good will" but also the conservatives' strongyearningfor order. tendAccompanyingthese authoritarian attitudes encies were somewhatambivalent in L'Esprit Nouveau towards the family and its importanceto social equilibrium. of the house Le Corbusier'sproclamations as a "machine-for-living," his rejection of the hearth and dining table as formal foci, andhis choice in Ville Contemporaine to design the central business city rather than the family-orientedgardencity suggest a disdain for, or at least indifference to, the French devotion to family life. In Houses" Le his article "Mass-Production Corbusiermade it clear thatserialproduction and Taylorism inevitably demanded the destructionof certainvalues based on traditionin the interestsof efficiency: The house will no longer be an archaicentity, heavily rooted in the built "firm soil by deep foundations, and strong," the object of the devotion on which the cult of the family and the race has so long been concentrated.75 This challenge to traditionalnotions of "maison," "famille," and "patrie" was exaggeratedin the mindsof Le Corbusier's critics by L'Esprit Nouveau's interest in psychoanalysis and sexuality. Libertine literature was often reviewed favorably; called "a very AndreGide's L'Immoraliste beautifulbook filled with the most diverse
virtualities. "76

didnotrejectthefamily But Le Corbusier outright; he only discarded some of its forms and customs. In fact, like most of the garden city planners, he upheld the Proudhonnianideal of the family as the unit and as a model for primarystructural other social relationships.77Part of Le Corbusier's argument for standardized architecture,paradoxically,was based on the preservationof this dimension of the moderne(1925), the catalogueof the d'architecture Fig. 9 A page fromL'Almanach statusquo: Esprit Nouveaupavilion. his town, his street, his house or his view- poorest sectors of society per se. combinedprogressiveandtraditional flat. . . hinder him [man] from folAs in many of the Americanistvisions He was at once willing to uproot points. lowing in his leisure the organic "firm andstrong"Frenchfamilytradi- of social reform,thereis in Le Corbusier's the developmentof his existence, which tions while upholdingthe benevolent pater- view a blurring of distinctions between is to create a family and to live, like of the French right and left. He denied the existence of nalism characteristic long every animal on this earth and like housing-reform movement. The techno- class struggle and simultaneously deall men of all ages, an organized in internalogically innovative Ville Contemporaine manded major transformations family life. In this way, society is tional policy and propertyownership. It to fit channeled social interaction patterns helping forward the destructionof to transcend of social hierarchyand family structure. was a position thatpurported the family, while she sees withterror in social orderresultedpri- political categories;yet, in contrastto the Any changes thatthis will be her ruin.78 marilyin benefitsfor the progressivecadre apolitical cast of Beaux-Artsacademicism of the As with Le Corbusier'spolemical juxta- of modern industrualsociety. Lacking in (involving the passive endorsement and the automo- his technocraticworld view was any con- statusquo), it was deeplyengagedin social position of the Parthenon bile, his discussion of social structure cept of improving the condition of the and political issues. For Le Corbusier,as 140 Art Journal

most likely to be sympatheticto standard- helped solve some of the legal problems ization and mass production. He named surroundingPessac. But the government as a source to Le Corbusier the prototype Citrohan-house(1920-22) hardlyappeared Andre of innovation. He consideredthe H.B.M. after the automobile manufacturer Citroen,82and in 1925 he honoredGabriel (Habitations a bon marche) complexes, Appel aux industriels Voisin with the nameof his plan for Paris, built of masonry constructionwith tradiLe Corbusier's efforts to implement his after Peugeot and Citroenhad rejectedhis tional apartmentplans, to be "slums."86 vision werenaiveandscattered technocratic of Deputieshad the Chamber for financial Earlier,in Furthermore, requests at best. Believing profoundlyin the ratio- the second issue of support.83 Nouveau, he not succeededin passinganymajorhousing L'Esprit nalityanduniversalityof bothhis architec- had praised the prefabricated "Maison legislationuntil 1928. In contrast, Michelin tural and social ideas, he assumed that Voisin" as "light, flexible, and strong"; et Cie., one of the first Frenchcompanies demonstrationof his program would in its resident as "animated by 'l'espritnou- to introduce Scientific Management,had itself generate wide-scale acceptanceand veau.' "84 The Voisin firm donated25,000 constructedby 1925 a large-scaleworkers' realization. Like Henry Ford, he might francs towards the construction of the housing complex at Clermont-Ferrand, have declared: Esprit Nouveau pavilion, and both Voisin using methodsof TaylorismandmassproI am quitecertainthatit is thenatural of Aeroplanes duction.87The Voisin plantdevelopedthe and Mongemon, the director it so code and I want to demonstrate MaisonVoisin, usingairplane Voisin, attendedthe opening ceremonyof transportable thoroughlythat it will be accepted, the pavilion. Even the advertisementsin technology, and Louis Renault, though not as a new idea, but as a natural techL'Esprit Nouveau for industrialproducts more conservativein his construction code.79 -Ingersoll-Rand cement guns or Roneo niques, sponsored a considerableamount Most of Le Corbusier'swritings, theoreti- metal doors-often designed by Le Cor- of working-classhousing.88 cal projects,andexhibitionsin the twenties busier, servedas "appelsaux industriels." were devoted to just such a demonstration, Only once in the twenties, however, was RedressementFran;ais but unlike Ford, he had at that time no Le Corbusierable to persuadean industri- One of Le Corbusier's most important contactswas with ErnestMercier to provethe alist to build standardized low-income industrial factoryor industrial enterprise economic or technical feasibility of his housing; the sugar manufacturerHenri and his organization Redressement premises. As the EspritNouveau pavilion Fruges commissioned him to design 135 Frangais, and his participationwith this so clearly reveals, his maison types were workers'residencesat Pessac, a smalltown organizationperhapsbest exemplifies his polemical statements, not actual realiza- outside Bordeaux (Fig. 10). There, Le technocratic stance during the nineteentions of mass-production procedures.The Corbusierwas able to constructa few of twenties. For Le Corbusier,Mercier, the modularstorageunits, streamlined bicycle his prototypedesigns and use some of the managingdirectorof France'sleadingutilstair, and factory-type windows were all products and techniques, if with only oc- ities company and later president of the custom manufactured. Perhapsmost ironic casional success, advocated by L'Esprit Compagnie Frangais des Petroles, was of the new elite thathe envirepresentative were the speciallymadecopies of Maples's Nouveau.85 Le Corbusier'sappealsfor mass produc- sioned leading France, a man "capital et modelswere leatherclub chairs:the market too large for Le Corbusier'snew "stan- tion, reflectingthe Americantendenciesof general."89 In the midst of the critical to financial crisis of 1925, Mercierdecided the period, were directedpredominantly dard" doors.80 to initiate a movement for generalreform officials. not public artisticmilieu, most private industrialists, Beyond the Parisian of Le Corbusier'ssocial and professional He had contacts with both Anatole de that would enlist the "directingclasses" and inno- Monzie, Herriot'sMinisterof PublicEdu- of the nation. Called the Redressement contactswere with industrialists vators in the business world. After the cation and the Arts, and Louis Loucheur, Frangais, it sought to overhaulthe Third collapse of his own short-livedindustrial who had become Poincare's Minister of Republic along technocraticlines through endeavors, he envisioned himself as a de- Commerce in his reshuffled cabinet of a dynamic economy premised on mass thecon- production and a governmentheaded by tached "technical" advisor. His "appel March1924. De Monziesupported aux industriels,"the sloganof L'Almanach struction of the Esprit Nouveau pavilion, experts.Mercierhadjust visitedthe United d'architecture moderne (1925) (Fig. 9), and his mother was one of the original States andwas convincedthatthe futureof had Francedependedon following the Ameriwas a mixture of flattery, demand, and clients of the villa at Garches.Loucheur simple example. His letter to the glassmanufacturing company Saint-Gobain, after its failure to realize his project for workers' housing near their factory at Thourotte,is typical of this presumptuous approach: I am sendingyou a copy of No. 13 of the magazine L'Esprit Nouveau which contains an importantarticle on mass-produced housing,under my pseudonym,Le Corbusier-Saugnier. When I did a projectat yourrequest, for Thourotte, I was sorry that the programwhich was given to me did not permit me to put forwardideas similarto those containedin this article. Those ideas appear subversive today and yet they will be current ModemesFruges,Bordeaux-Pessac,1924. In the later Fig. 10 Le Corbusier,Quartiers practicetomorrow.81 editions of Versune architectureLe Corbusier includesthe Pessacprojectas an In particular,Le Corbusiercourted auto- illustrationof "Mass-Production Houses." The firsteditionof the book, Le Corbusier workers'housing. mobile manufacturers,whom he saw as claims, inspiredHenriFrugesto commissionhim to construct for Hertz, there was a distinctionbetween esprit politicien and esprit politique. The architect'sprofessionalrole mightexclude the former, but not the latter. Summer 1983 141

Supplement Franais, 1, May Pour baitir: standardiser Figs. 11 and 12 Le Corbusier, et tayloriser,Supplement auBulletinduRedressement May 1, 1928. Frangais,

Fi. 11 and

2 Le Corbusier,

Pourbtir:

standardiserettayloriser

au Bulletin

du Redressement

1928.

can economic model. The appointment of the movement's primaryspokesmananda Hoover as Secretary of Commerce had patronof C.I.A.M., fearedthatthe miseraddedpotency to thatnation'simageas the able dwelling conditionsmade many resibearerof standardization andthe eliminator dents ripe for Communistpropaganda.In of waste. Mercierembracedthe Taylorist the first series of the Cahiers, publishedin belief in enlightenedindustrial production 1927, JeanLevequeandJ.-H. Ricardwrote as a weapon against social injustice and on housing and Henri Prost and Gaston indeedhopedfor the victoryof "Fordover Monsarrat on urbanplanning.93 Marx." The Redressement's slogan was Le Corbusier contributed twopamphlets, which were published as supplementsto "Enough politics. We wantresults."90 The organizationquickly gained a siz- the Februaryand May 1928 Bulletin:Vers able following, and in 1926 it began pub- le Paris de l'iepoquemachinisteand Pour et tayloriser.94 lishing a monthly Bulletin. On the cover bdtir:standardiser As their was a symbol of nationalregeneration,a titles suggest, these reports were among wounded Gaul rising from the earth to Le Corbusier'smost explicit espousals of rejoin the battle. Inside were articlesana- technocraticdoctrine. The first reportelaboratesthe ideas of lyzing current events and reporting on organizational news. Some 25,000 to Plan Voisin. In contrastto his earlierpub30,000 copis of the periodical were dis- lications, however, thereareneitherphototributedwithoutchargeto France'sruling graphs nor drawings:only functionaland elite. The Redressementenlisted various economic arguments-with limited quan"men of action"-journalists, lecturers, titative support-for the reconstruction of to theBulletin Paris and the development of mass-proprofessionals-to contribute or to participatein its study committees, duced housing in gardencities. Le Corbuwhich produced a series of reports, the sier criticizes a recent proposalfor a new Cahiers. Among its most distinguished transportation route extending the Grand members were Marshal Foch, Etienne Voie along the axis of the ChampsElysees Clemental, the syndicalist spokesman because it ended in a cul de sac, the TuilerHubertLagardelle,the executive Edmond ies Garden.Any effective solutionto modGiscardd'Estaing, and the Conseil d'Etat em traffic conditions, he argues, requires memberRaphaelAlibert.91 more significant transformation; he proLe Corbusierwas enlistedto participate poses instead a major new cross artery on an urbanstudy committee.92From its further north, as in Eugene Henard's maintained that scheme of 1904 and his own Plan Voisin. inceptionthe Redressement housing was the major problem of the He reiterateshis argument for quadrupling Parisian working class. Lucien Romier, the densityof centralParis,while reserving 142 Art Journal

85-95 per cent of the land for vegetation. In this documentfor technicians,he makes no reference to the aesthetic possibilities of the new business quarters; the industrialization of construction,not classical tradition or Platonicpurity,becomesthe sole justificationfor aestheticdecisions: The consolidationof blocks reintroduces an orthogonalsystemandpermits the applicationof standardization, industrialization,and Taylorization to building.95 The same tone characterizes the architect's critique of the picturesquegarden cities, such as Suresnes and Stains, that were being built aroundParis. The "mys"la petitemaison," he tique" surrounding claims, is a majorinhibitionto industrialization:"the effect is to establishvehement opposition to all attemptsto change the concept of both the overall organization andthe detailsof garden cities andworkers' houses." One's model for emulation instead should be ErnstMay's 4,000 dwellwhich were the resultof ings in Frankfurt, a "remarkable industrial process."96 This advocacy of Neue Sachlichkeitis given furtherforce, and also an autocratic slant, by the inclusion in the Bulletin of specific legal recommendations.Among them were a law giving the state unrestricted eminent domain with the purmarketvalue chasing price fixed at current and a dictate establishinga new "authority" with powers surpassing traditional

cratic ideals. In 1931, undera photograph ministerial jurisdiction to implement the 1930, Architectureand Revolution urban program. This authority,a modern During the next two years, however, Le of Wall Streethe placedthe caption 'All is Colbert, would stand apart from parlia- Corbusierlost his faith in the capacity of paradox, disorder; the liberty destroying mentarypolitics "to work out the future." the Third Republic to rejuvenate itself. collective liberty. Lack of discipline." 105 "The breadthof his vision would be the The Loucheur planhadnot solvedthe social Both formaldisarrayandfinancialdisaster crisis: no rational urbanplan or commit- resultedfrom the lack of a collective sensi"97 greatnessof the country.' In the second pamphlet Le Corbusier ment to industrialized production had bility. The conditions of the Depression demonstratesthe resultsof standardization emerged. Rather,as AlexanderWerth,the had underminedthe faith of many French and Taylorization with photographsand Paris correspondent for the Manchester intellectuals in the American industrial much utopia. Fordism and Taylorismno longer drawings of his projects at Stuttgartand Guardianobserved, it "transformed Pessac (Figs. 12 and 13). With the excep- of the countryroundParisinto a mass-an seemed such certain means for obviating tion of the temporary EspritNouveaupavil- incoherentmass-of ugly red-roofedsub- class tensions once the prospectsof abunion, these two projectswere his only exe- urban houses and villas."101 After more dance were in doubt;and with Hoover, the andproselytizing, Great Engineer, impotent in the face of cuted designs for prototypical housing. thana decadeof research This Bulletin supplement is again much Le Corbusier became convinced that his nationaldisaster,the mystiqueof the manaor Revolu- gerial elite was shattered.The disillusionmore specific in its technical details than earlieranswerto "Architecture were Le Corbusier'searlier contributions tion" had been incorrect. Ironically, the ment with technocracyhad almost immeto L'EspritNouveau. Unlike his articleof reassessmentof his stancewas the resultof diate repercussions on French economic and political life. Tardieu, the Saint1921, "Maisons en serie", whichincluded the same professionalattitude: Simonian hero, failed to obtain a parliaonly diagramaticplans and roughperspecBy a strictly professional route I tive sketches, Pour batir: standardiseret mentary majorityfor his five-yearprogram conclusions. arriveat revolutionary for economic modernizationand technotayloriser demonstrates various assemSince I am a professionalman, I cratic and he soon repudiated streamlining, blages of room unittypes andgives dimenmake plans accordingto my profeshis association with the "leftist" Resions of structural components.Itconcludes sional concepts; this is where my with a demandfor action: dressement.106 The movement itself had is If did judgment good. everyone lost its dynamism. With France's own In order to BUILD: STANDARDthe same thing and the plans were ensuing depression, the renaissance of in IZE to be able to INDUSTRIALIZE coordinated an by authority charge Saint-Simon came to its end. AND TAYLORIZE of the public interest, the result In certain respects the reaction to the .. Thatis the most urgentprogram would, of course, be a Five-Year crash and the subsequentdisillusionment of town planning. Plan, impossible to implement. with Taylorism and Fordismreflectedthe One must begin at the beginning!98 Impossible because of our present vision superficialhold thatthe technocratic social system! So now what? At this point Le Corbusier,like most of had had on French The society. repeated Now what?Dilemma.The present the membersof Redressement was calls for Taylorismhadled to littlepractical Frangais social system preserves the status still confidentthatthisprogram couldoccur commitment. Herriot'spleas in 1919 for a quo, opposes any action, eliminates within the frameworkof the ThirdRepubadvanced "fourth repubtechnologically or rejectsproposalsbothpressingand lic. Indeed, the victory of the Union Nalic" and Clementel's effortsto formulatea in interest.... the necessary public tionale in April 1928, to which the Remodel for industrial administrationin a Let's change the system. dressement had strongly contributed,and des Syndicats encounteredreFederation Such an act would be called revothe passage of the LoucheurLaw laterthat sistance from politicians and businessmen would There are those who lutionary. summer gave, for the moment, some who wanted to return to the security of make the word "revolutionary" their prewar practices.107The call for a grounds for this optimism. The housing mean "destructive." bill, which the Redressementclaimed as technocratic elite premisedon production, Untrue; it is a completely con"the pure and simple application of our it had a precedent in the two 102 although structivepoint of view. ideas," provided public aid for the conNapoleonic eras, was threateningto the structionof 200,000 low-pricedand60,000 Now, his plea was "Architecture and traditionalEuropeanclasses-the aristocmedium-priced dwellings and was suc- Revolution."103 A more activist stance, racy, clergy, army,academicians, andeven cessful in instigating an unprecedented one thatwould soon leadto his participation civil service personnel-who were conbuilding boom all over France.99Le Cor- in the RegionalSyndicalistmovement,was cerned only with self-preservation and the busier himself probablyagain saw an ally required.104This movement,emphasizing maintenanceof theirfossilized institutions. in Loucheur,who as a leaderof the Gauche regional groupingsand naturalhierarchies As Gramsciarguedin his essay on "AmerRadicale party became the parliamentary based upon climate, topography,andrace, icanism," rationalization of production floor spokemanof the Redressement.In an encourageda morelimitedendorsement of was essentially irreconcilablewith Euroarticle for the Revue des Vivants, August technology. Insteadof standardization and pean "tradition" and "civilization," 1928, Le Corbusier expressedhis optimism uniformity, these latter-day syndicalists which he saw as intrinsicallylinked to the about the new law: stressed regional diversity and local tradi- existence of a parasitic class with essentions. Likewise, Le Corbusierin his own tially no function in production. Despite This certainlyhadto happenone day! designs, particularlyfor the small houses its pervasiveness, Americanismwas in the The LoucheurLaw (which was sugErrazuris,Mandrot,and Mathes, beganto face of France's long-standing historical for the in first time 1922) gested "as strident andjarring employ local building materialsand tech- and artisticstructure places the country in the face of a the Just as as the on the of face an aging rational, niques. geometric make-up gigantic, magnificent, and sensitive forms of the twenties were a manifestation femme du monde."108 problem, if the spiritwould seize it, of his faith in technology and American Le Corbusier's own fate was symptoenlighten it, and stirit to give France systems of Scientific Management, the matic of the deep resistance to the actual a historicrenown, in the way thatthe rustic, more primitiveworksof the thirties implementation of rational productive works achievedby the MiddleAges, were a rejection of the supremacyof this methods. The French government had Louis XIV, by Napoleon, by by selfsame viewpoint. ignored his urbanplans and proposalsfor Haussmann havebecomehistoric. lo00 The Americanstock marketcrashwas a land reform;privateindustryfailed to deconstructionpractices; crushing blow to Le Corbusier'stechno- velop standardized Summer 1983 143

Pessac, his one mass-housing project,stood empty for five years as local officials refused to grant an occupancy permit;and finally, the jury of the League of Nations competition awarded the commission to four academic architects,who enshrouded Le Corbusier'sown proposal in masonry construction andhistoricist details.Leandre Vaillat's commentson the EspritNouveau pavilion were typical of the suspicionthat many Frenchmen had of Le Corbusier's advocacy of the mass-produced dwelling, the "house-tool": If this pavilion is in the author'sintention a demonstration to teach the public, which has forgotten it, the of construction overornasupremacy ment, then I approveof it, with the reservation that none of this is so new that one wishes it affirmedfor us; but if he intends to persuadeus, with a forcefulness that has nothing persuasiveaboutit, thata house is a "machine for living," no. A house is not a factorywhereone worksand where, in orderto earna little paper money, one performsa few mechanical gestures, always the same. A house, to be sure,mustbe answerable to logic, reason, and good sense, and we find, thankGod! enough of these qualities in our national and regional traditions,without seeking themin German-Swiss rationalism.109 Critics, forever aware of Germany's industrial superiority,often condemnedefforts to implementScientific Management as not French. Indeed, WalterRathenau, and Germany'sMinisterof Reconstruction one of Europe's most significantthinkers on industrialorganization,hadcontributed an articlein the midstof reparations anxiety to L'EspritNouveau "Critiquede L'Esprit Allemand."110 The Figaro writer Mauon de Senger'sargument, clair, elaborating relatedthe anonymityand regularity of Le Corbusier'smass-produced architecture to the objectivesof Bolshevism. Both wanted to destroyman'sspiritual core:to reduce the " 1l to an "animalg6ometrique. Frenchman To some extent, however, Le Corbusier's failure to attain a mass-produced was his own. LikeMercier,he architecture hardly chose the most effective means of exerting his influence. His hope to influence policy decisions while maintaining independence from politics was naive. Techniciansand architectshad been effective functioning as officials or advisors withinthe government-for instance,Ernst or Henri Sellier in Paris May in Frankfurt and Suresnes-but Le Corbusiernaively believed that he could shape government policy simply by offering unsolicited advice. The leadershipof the Republic, responding to a much larger constituency and one that was often hostile to innovation, had little reason to initiateeither Le
144 Art Journal

Corbusier's or the Redressement's reforms. Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, BaltiMercieradmittedhis failure,butattributed more, Penguin, 1971, and Sigfried Giedion's of his colleague, Space, Time, and Architecture, Cambridge, it, in languagereminiscent Mass., Harvard University Press, 1967, to the public's insensitivity to "wisdom, largely ignore the political implications of moderation, prudence, and disinterestedLe Corbusier's work. CharlesJencks'sbiogness." As Kuisel points out, Albert Thiraphy, Le Corbusier and the Tragic View of baudet gave anothermore convincing exArchitecture, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard planation for the technocrats' failure to University Press, 1973, after a brief recapitachieve reform: Neo-Saint-Simonianism, ulationof Le Corbusier's contradictory polithe claimed, had allied itself too strongly ical positions, dismisses his "quasi-fascism" with the defense of economic intereststo on the grounds of artistic purity. In recent as a broadideological speak with authority years, however, several scholars have begun 112 movement. to explore more extensively Le Corbusier's For Le Corbusier as an architect, the political connections. See especially Robert frompartypoliticswas perhaps detachment Fishman, Urban Utopias in the Twentieth a special temptation.Visions of industrial Century: Ebenezer Howard, Frank Lloyd utopia, unlike Marxism, offered both the Wright, and Le Corbusier, New York, Basic promise of social redemptionand a means Books, 1977; Jean Louis Cohen, "Le Corby which to continueto practiceone's art. busier and the Mystiqueof the U.S.S.R.," Although by 1930 Le Corbusier'sfaith in Oppositionsno. 23 (Winter 1981), pp. 85America's model of industrial 121;GiorgioCiucci, "A Rome con Bottai," productivity was shaken, the search for this dual goal Rassegna 2, no. 3 (July 1980), pp. 66-71; Thilo Hilpert, Die Funktionelle Stadt Le was to persist. The new ideology of proCorbusier's Stadtvision-Bedingungen, duction had changed the architect'sconMotive, Hintergrunde, Brunswick, Vieweg, ception of his social role; housing, urban 1978. planning, and modem constructionmethods are in part the legacy of the perished 4 Blake, MasterBuilders,p. 109. hopes of the 1920s.
Notes

I should liketo acknowledge to myappreciation the Social ScienceResearch Councilandthe AllianceFrangaise Foundation (FulFribourg for providing bright-Hayes) fundingfor my in Paris1976-1977. research AlsoI should like to thank thestaffof theFondation LeCorbusier for their assistance,as well as SusanBall, Eleanor Kenneth PasSilver,Francesco Gregh, whose conversations santi,andAnthony Vidler, andwritings havebeenespecially to the helpful formulation of many of thearticle's ideas.Alan Marc Treib, RobinEvans, and Colquhoun, Richard Pommer havemost reviewed generously andcommented on mydraft. 1 "Beyond the Modem Movement,"The
HarvardArchitecture Review no. 1 (Spring

5 Le Corbusier, Urbanisme, Paris, Editions Cres, 1925; reprinted in Paris, Vincent, Freal, 1966. Translated into English by
Frederick Etchells in Le Corbusier, The City of Tomorrow and Its Planning, London, John Rodker, 1929; reprinted in Cambridge, Mass., 1971, p. 301. 6 Judith A. Merkle, Management and Ideol-

ogy, Berkeley, University of California


Press, 1980, pp. 14-15. 7 An important source for this account of Taylorism and, in particular, its ideological implications in Europe is Charles S. Maier's excellent article, "Between Taylorism and Technocracy: European Ideologies and the Vision of Industrial Productivity in the 1920s," Journal of Contemporary History 5, no. 2 (1970), pp. 27-61.

Jencks,TheLanguage 1980)6; Charles of

Post-Modern Architecture, 3rd ed., New

8 HenriLe Chatelier,Le Taylorisme,2nded.,

Paris, Dunod, 1934, p. 2. York,Rizzoli, 1981,p. 37. Thesecritiques aredirected at the ModemMovement as a 9 Paul Devinat, Scientific Management in whole. LaborOffice, Europe,Geneva, International K. Kuisel, Capi1927, pp. 233-37; Richard
talism and the State in Modern France, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1981, pp. 31-35. 10 These statistics, prepared by the French Ministry of the Liberated Regions, are from

2 Reyner Banham, Theoryand Design in the First Machine Age, 2nd ed., New York,

Colin Publishers, 1960; Rowe,"The Praeger Mathematics of theIdeal MatheVilla,"The


matics of the Ideal Villa and OtherEssays,

Mass., MITPress, 1976, pp. Cambridge, 1-27; WilliamCurtis,"Ideasof Structure andthe Structure of Ideas:Le Corbusier's PavillonSuisse, 1930-1931,"Journalof no. 4 (December 1981),pp.295-310. 3 See in particular Maximilien Gauthier Le
Corbusier ou l'architecture au service de
l'homme, Paris, Editions Denoel, 1944;

William MacDonald, Reconstruction in France, New York, MacMillan, 1922, pp.


24,28,93. 11 Kuisel, Capitalism, pp. 54, 61.

the Society of ArchitecturalHistorians40,

12 Lt. Col. G. Espitallier, Pour rebdtir nos maisons detruites, Paris, 1917, p. 3, cited
by Kenneth Silver, "Esprit de Corps: The

Le Corbusier,New York, StephenGardner, Viking Press, 1974;PeterBlake, TheMaster Builders,New York,AlfredA. Knopf, 1960.
Henry-Russell Hitchcock's Architecture:

Great War and French Art, 1914-1925," dissertation, Yale University, 1981, pp. 207-8.
13 Charles-Edouard Jeanneret and Amedee

Ozenfant, Apres le cubisme, Paris, Com- 24 Since its formation in 1907, the Deutsche Werkbund had encouraged collaboration mentaires, November 15, 1918, pp. 11,26. between progressiveindustries such as AEG 14 Charles Faroux, "L'exemple industrieldes and architects, including HermannMutheEtats-Unis," Revue des vivantes 1, no. 9 sius, Peter Behrens, and Walter Gropius. (October 1927), p. 443. The messianic hope in industrial methodsis 15 Marc Bourbonnais,Le Neo-Saint-Simonian- perhapsmost clearly(andnaively)expressed ism dans la vie sociale d'aujourd-hui, Paris, by Mies van der Rohe in the thirdeditionof de France, 1923. Les Press Universitaires G (June 10, 1924): "I see in industrialization the centralproblemof buildingin our time. 16 Le Corbusierowned six books by Dubreuil, If we succeed in carryingout this industrialseveral of which were warmlydedicatedto ization, the social, economic, technical,and the author.Dubreuilwas an adjunct secretary also artistic will be readilysolved." problems of the Frenchlaborunion C.G.T. (Confed("Industrial Building," Programs and erationGeneraledu Travail).His best seller ArchiManifestoes on Twentieth-Century Standards, Commentun ouvrierfrancais a ed. Ulrich Conrads, Cambridge, tecture, vu le travailamericain,Paris,Grosset,1929, Mass. MIT Press, 1970, p. 81). describes his largely positive reactions to workers'conditionsunderTaylorism,made 25 Banham, Theory and Design in the First aftera tripto theUnitedStates.ForDubreuil, MachineAge, pp. 220-46. the essential difference between assembly Le Corbusier,Vers une architecture,Paris, line work and ordinarywork was thatin the 26 EditionsCres, 1923;reprinted in Paris,Ediformer all the implementsnecessaryfor the tions Arthaud,1977. Translated into English workerlay at handat the rightmoment, and Frederick Etchells in Le Corbusier, by that disorderassociated with certainmanuTowardsa New Architecture,London,John facturingprocesses was abolished. Rodker, 1927; reprinted in New York, Le Corbusier also hadprofessional contact Praeger, 1960, p. 211. The chapter"Masswith Marshal Lyauty and Lucien Romier. Production Houses" was originally pubLyauty attempted to publicize Scientific lished in L'EspritNouveauno. 13. Managementin the Frenchcolonialarmy.In Loucheur(1872-1931) came from northhis Sketchbooks,vol. 1, Cambridge,Mass., eastern France, where he had substantial MITPress, 1981, p. 21, Le Corbusier praised in the railroadsservingthe mining holdings sensitive modernization of MorocLyauty's regions. Immediately following the war, he co. Lucien Romierwas the primaryspokesserved as Minister of the LiberatedZones man of RedressementFrangais, an organandled reconstruction effortsin the north.In ization in which Le Corbusier was also 1920, he proposedwith Bonnevaya law for involved. See the discussion, later in this the constructionof 500,000 units of lowarticle. Le Corbusier's library included cost housing. Althoughrejectedat the time, Romier's work Esquisse des consequences the proposal later became the basis of the duprogres, Paris, 1929. 1928 Loucheur Law, which created the 17 Herve Lauwick, "Taylorisations," L'InHabitationsa loyer modere(H.L.M.). transigeant, April 16, 1923, p. 1; Henry 27 Le Corbusier,Towards,pp. 215-18. I have Ford, Ma vie et mon oeuvre, Paris, Payot, includedthe referenceto Taylorismfromthe 1925. Frenchedition(p. 193), whichEtchellsomits 18 GeorgesBricard,L'Organisation from his translation. Etchells, perhapsgiven scientifique du travail, Paris, ArmandColin, 1927, p. the general lack of knowledge aboutScientific Management in Britain, sometimes and Ideology, p. 201; Merkle, Management 154. omits passages referring to Taylorism. 19 See Devinat, ScientificManagement; Henri 28 Le Corbusier,Towards,p. 231. Fayol, Generaland Industrial Management, 29 Le Corbusier,City, p. 301. trans.ConstanceStorrs,New York, Pitman, 1949. 30 Le Corbusier,Towards,p. 247. 20 Charles E. Jeanneret to William Ritter, 31 Ibid., pp. 268-69. December 25, 1917, cited in Brian Brace 32 Ibid., pp. 247,250. Taylor, "Le Corbusier's Prototype Mass 33 In 1926, twenty-fiveper cent of the Parisians Harvard dissertation, Housing, 1914-28," lived in apartments University, 1974, p. 51. averagingtwo residents room; 318,000 per people lived en garni, 21 L'EspritNouveau, no. 20. comparedto 222,000 in 1912;andthe tuber22 For an excellent account of the Dom-ino culosis mortality rate varied from 83 per to 1,247 100,000 in the 8e arrondisement project and Le Corbusier'sactivitiesduring the war years, see Eleanor Gregh, "The per 100,000 in partsof the 4e arrondisement Dom-ino Idea," Oppositions no. 15/16 (and to 4,263 per 100,000 in furnishedhotels). Duringthe twenties, nearly 1,000,000 (Winter/Spring1979), pp. 60-87. people moved into the still semi-rusticsub23 CharlesE. Jeanneret to WilliamRitter,Octourbs, where squatter settlements without ber 1917, cited in Brian Brace Taylor, Le The sewage or service facilitiesproliferated. Corbusier at Pessac, Exh. cat., Harvard of the home mortgagemarketand instability University, Cambridge,Mass. (in collaboconstructionindustryexacerbatedthe housration with the Fondation Le Corbusier, Le Carnet ing problem.See LouisLoucheur, Paris), October-November1972, p. 6. secret, 1908-1932, Brussels,Brepols, 1962,

p. 145;Peggy A. Phillips,"New-Corporatist Praxis in Paris," Journal of UrbanHistory (August 1978), pp. 413-14. 34 Loucheur,Le Carnetsecret;Phillips, "New Praxis." Corporatist 35 Silver, "Espritde Corps," pp. 206-9. 36 AdolpheDervaux, "Le Beau, le vrai, l'utile et la reorganisationde la cite," La Grand Revue 90, no. 584 (April 1916), p. 36. 37 La Cite Reconstituee,May-July 1916, cited in Gregh, "The Dom-ino Idea," p. 83. As Gregh points out, the exhibition'semphasis on winning public favor for industrialized building methods, in orderthat reconstruction could proceed rapidly, economically, and on a large scale, is extremelysimilarto Le Corbusier'sown position. 38 Le Corbusierspecifically attacksthe pervasive "r-e-g-i-o-n-a-l-i-s-m-e!" in his chapter "Maisonen Serie," Vers,pp. 189-92 (again in a passage omittedby Etchells). Many of his articles laterreprinted in L'Artdecoratif d'aujourd'hui, Paris, Editions Cres, 1925; in Paris, Vincent, Freal, 1959, are reprinted also aimedat countering thispervasivetrend. For a generaldiscussionof regionalism,see Gerard Monnier, "Un Retour a l'ordre: architecture,geometrie, societe," in Universitede Saint-Etienne, LeRetoura l'ordre, Paris, Spadem, 1975, pp. 45-54. 39 This term is used by Maxime Leroy in his bookLa Villefranqaise, Paris,Riviere,1927, p. 37. Leroy, a university professor and former syndicalist, gave theoreticalformation to the neo-corporatisttown-planning movement. He sought a reestablishment of "community" in French cities, and saw as the new "guilds" of French corporations society. HenriSellier, a syndicalist-socialist, was the most active memberof the Parisian housing-reformmovement. In the twenties, he was mayorof thenew middle-class suburb Suresnes and acted as nationalsecretaryof the offices d'H.B.M. (Habitation a bon marche).DuringthePopular Front,he served as Minister of PublicHealth.GeorgesBenoitLevy, the presidentof the French Garden City Association, was one of the first to introducethe Britishgardencity movement to the French.LouisRenault,the automobile manufacturer,was a nationaltrusteein the H.B.M. program and built a significant amount of the workers' housing underthis program and later under H.L.M. He saw housing as an answer to atheism and communism. Later he was involved in the production of armamentsfor the Nazis. Pierre Lhande was one of the chief spokesmenof social Catholicismin Franceand sponsored several "Catholic" garden cities. He consideredtheseprojects to be a way to "combat the scourge of hovels" and to "civilize and christianize"the workingclass. Praxis"gives Phillips's"New-Corporatist a brief accountof each of these figures and theirneo-corporatist orientation.Fora more extensive discussionof HenriSellierandthe Parisian public-housing movement, see Ginette Baty-Tomikian, Architecture et

Summer 1983

145

48 The postwar "call to order" is evident in 58 Alexanderde Senger, Le Chevalde troie du both the political andculturalspheres.Fora bolchevisme, Bienne, Editionsdu Chandediscussion of the conservativereaction on lier, 1931. the culturalsphere, see Universit6de SaintThe best discussionof de Senger'stext, as va-twell as of Mauclair's L'Architecture Etienne, Retour a l'ordre, and especially 40 Georges Benoit-Levy, La Formationde la Silver's excellent article, "Purism:Straightelle mourir?, is still Gauthier'sLe Corbusier. See also JacquesGubler,Nationalisme race, Vichy, n.d., cited in Phillips, "Newening Up afterthe GreatWar," Artform15, no. 7 (March 1977), pp. 56-63; also his et internationalisme dans l'architecture Praxis," p. 406. Corporatist de Corps." modeme de la Suisse, Lausanne, L'Age dissertation, "Esprit 41 Benoit-Levy,Paris s'entendu,Nice, Societe d'homme, 1975. Generale d'Imprimerie, 1927, pp. 42-43; 49 Manyof the strongest advocatesof European idem, La Cite-jardin, Paris, Jouve, 1904. economic integrationwere advocatesof in- 59 Le Corbusier,Towards,p. 261. dustrialmodernization.Loucheurserved as La Cite-jardinpredatesthe widespreadin60 PaulLafitte, "A proposde la Grand Crise," committroduction of Taylorism in France, but it presidentof theFrenchPan-Europe Nouveauno. 16, p. 1900. L'Esprit of relates directlyto ideas of rationalization tee, andwas followeduponhis deathin 1931 by Mercier. Both were associatesof Le Cor- 61 Ibid., p. 1889. production. Benoit-Levy opened the text PaulOtlet, with a quotationfrom the Le Play's Saintbusier, as was the internationalist 62 Hertz, "Balbutiementsde l'esprit politique Le Corbusier'sclient for the Mundaneam. Simonian text, L'Organisationdu travail. III," L'EspritNouveauno. 24; JeanLurgat, The Pan-Europe movement was founded He arguedfor the need for "ville modeles" ibid. "Le Carteldes Ind6pendants," to accompany "ateliers models." For after World War I by Count Coudenhoveof international 63 Hertz, L'EspritNouveauno. 24. nobleman Benoit-Levy's influence on Le Corbusier, Kalegi, a European see Paul V. Turner, "The Educationof Le ancestry. See Richard F. Kuisel, Ernest 64 Maier, "Between Taylorismand TechnocCorbusier:A Study of the Developmentof Mercier, French Technocrat, Berkeley, racy," p. 38. 73. of Le Corbusier'sThought, 1900-1920," disCalifornia Press, 1967, p. University For the broaderworldvision of FrenchTay- 65 Le Corbusier,Towards,p. 254. sertation, Harvard University, 1971, pp. 129-33. lorists, see Merkle, Managmentand Ideol- 66 Le Corbusier, "La GrandVille," L'Esprit ogy, p. 137. 42 Fayol, Management,p. 96. Duringthe war, Nouveau no. 23, in Le Corbusier,City, p. Le Corbusier studied at the Bibliotheque 50 Le Corbusier, "Nos moyens," L'Esprit 102. Nouveau no. 27, in Le Corbusier,City, p. sur NationaleAlfredde Foville's L'Enquete 67 La Direction, "Ce que nous avons fait, ce 140. les conditionsde l'habitationen France, Les que nous ferons," L'Esprit Nouveau no. Maisons Types, Paris, 1894. The book, uti- 51 Ibid., pp. 147-48,296. 11/12, pp. 1212, 1213. des Foville's with the Section research lizing SciencesEconomiques et Socialesdu Comit6 52 Camille Mauclair, L'Architectureva-t-elle 68 L'EspritNouveau no. 11/12, p. 1372; ibid. mourir?La crise du "panbetonnisme inteno. 10, p. 1202. des TravauxHistoriqueset Scientifiquesof the Musee Social, is an early illustration of gral," Paris,NouvelleRevueCritique,1933, 69 Francis Delaisi, "Faut-il emettre 150 milsocial engineering. In contrast to earlier p. 38. liards de billets de banque?"L'EspritNouacademic studies such as CharlesGamier's 53 The associationof formswith nationalidenveau no. 8, pp. 927-934; see also n. 43 L'Habitationhumaine,the book proposesa or patriotic wrotein Urbanisme,p. was mostcommon above. Le Corbusier tity allegiance new scientific and statistical approachto World War I and the 1920s. that he had hoped to give the chapter throughout 277, design;implicitis a notionof potentialsocial Ozenfantin his articlein L'EspritNouveau "Chiffres" to FrancisDelaisi to write. reform. See Gregh, "The Dom-ino Idea," on Villa Schwob(1916) addressed this issue: 70 Le Corbusier,City, pp. 251-72, 302. p. 82; Taylor, Pessac, p. 1. "even nationalism has become mixed up with it and certainfine spiritshave decreed 71 Le Corbusier, Urbanisme, p. 285. This 43 Devinat, Scientific Management, p. 78; translation. inEtchell's doesnotappear that the straightline is German(witness the phrase Dubreuil,Standards,pp. 10-11. Pantheon,the Egyptian temples,andpalaces 72 Le Corbusier, La Ville radieuse, Paris, 44 Le Corbusierpublished Perret's drawings of Gabriel). The straightline is one of the L'Architecture for a concrete house in "Maison en Serie" d'Aujourd'hui,1935. Transrights of man." (JulienCaron[pseudonym latedintoEnglishby PamelaKnight,Eleanor and Gamier's Cit6 Industrielle"in "Trois for Ozenfant], "Une Villa de Le CorbuLevieux, and Derek Coltman,in Le Corburappels a MM. les Architectes," Esprit Nouveauno. 6, pp. 679-704; sier," L'Esprit sier, The Radiant City, New York, Orion Nouveauno. 4. Perret'sdrawings,however, Julien Caron, "Villa of Le Corbusier," 1964, p. 120; idem, City, p. 256. Press, were omittedin Versune architecture. trans. JoanOchman,Oppositionsno. 15/16 45 Le Corbusier,Towards,pp. 263-64. [Winter/Spring1979] p. 187-97.) Later,in 73 Benoit-Levy, Paris s'entendu, pp. 22-23. The translation is from Phillips, "NewUrbanisme, Le Corbusier also disputes 46 L'Esprit Nouveau, revue internationale claims that the straightline is German,Le Praxis," p. 405. Corporatist hebdomadaire d'economiqueno. 1 (January Corbusier,City, p. 23. See Silver, "Esprit 74 Henri Hertz, "Balbutiements de l'esprit 1921). This was the only issue of this review de corps," for an extended and perceptive politique," L'EspritNouveauno. 21; "Baldedicated to the discussion of "Economie discussionof artandnationalidentityduring butiements II," ibid. no. 22; "Balbutiements politique, Economie nationale, Economie this period. III," ibid. no. 24. internationale,Science et Industrie,MethAlthoughHertzfound "impuretes"in the odologie." For a discussion of L'Esprit 54 Erik Satie, "Cahiers d'un mammifere," Radical Party, he believed that it was the L'EspritNouveau no. 7, p. 833. Nouveau, see Robert Gabetti and Carlo only hope for a renewal of "I'esprit pubOlmo, Le Corbusier e l'Esprit Nouveau, 55 R. Chenevier, "La Vie frangaise,"L'Esprit lique. " LaterHertzwrotefor the communist Turin, Giulio Einaudi, 1975; Frangoise Nouveau, no. 6, pp. 705-14; idem, "Wilson review forme "Norme et a travers Europe. Will-Levaillant, et l'humanismefrangais," ibid., no. 11/12, L'Esprit Nouveau," Universit6 de Saintpp. 1223-30; idem "Ou meme la politique 75 Le Corbusier,Towards,pp. 219, 245. Etienne, Retour a l'ordre, pp. 241-76. An anti-sovietique,"ibid., no. 9, pp. 1045-51. 76 Paul Dermee, "Andr6 Gide," L'Esprit adequateanalysis of the social and political Nouveauno. 25. 56 L'Esprit Nouveau, no. 16, p. 1969; Henri ideas of the review remainsto be done. Hertz, "Lenine," ibid., no. 21. 77 The importanceof Proudhon to the L'Esprit 47 N.D.L.R., note to R. Chenevier, "Wilson Nouveau group is expressed in R. CheneNouveau 57 L'EspritNouveau, no. 15, p. 1727. See also et l'humanismefranqais,"L'Esprit 146 ArtJournal

Social Democratie: Un projet urbain ideal typique: agglomeration parisienne 19191939, Paris, Institut d'Etudes et de Reet Urbaines,Mincherches Architecturales istere d l'Environmentet du Cadrede Vie, C.O.R.D.A., 77 73 028 00 202 7501, n.d.

no. 11/12, p. 1223.

Hertz, "Wilson," ibid., no. 22.

"charcterof the relationships betweenfundamentalgroups." 92 Le Corbusier, in his article "R6flexions a 78 Le Corbusier,Towards,p. 268. propos de la loi Loucheur," Revue des 109 Leandre Vaillat, "La Tendance internaVivantesannee 2, no. 8 (August 1928), pp. tionale a l'exposition des artsdecoratifs," 79 Henry Ford, My Life and Work,New York, of the ideas resultL'Illustration no. 4313 (October 239-45, many expressed 31, 1925), Arno Press, 1973, p. 3. Franing from his work with Redressement pp. 459. 80 Le Corbusier, L'Almanach d'Architecture to the gais. In a footnote, p. 243, he referred 110 Walter Rathenau, "Critique de L'Esprit urbanismstudy committee and its proposal Moderne, Paris, Les EditionsCres, 1925, p. Allemand," L'EspritNouveau no. 9, pp. 145. of a law on the "recuperationof surplus 1093-1106. This issue came out in July value." See also his interviewwith Charles 81 Taylor, Pessac, p. 7. 1921, just following the first Wiesbaden Kunstler, "Pourra-t-on bientot se loger? conference between Louis Loucheur and 82 Le Corbusier,Towards,p. 222. Une enquete sur la loi Loucheur," SeptemWalter Rathenau.Loucheurand Rathenau ber 27, 1928 (no reference, FondationLe 83 Le Corbusier,City, pp. 275-76. attempted to work out an agreement by Corbusier). which Germanywould meet its reparation 84 L[e] C[orbusier]S[augnier], "Les Maisons 93 Bulletin, June 19, 1928, cited in Kuisel, p. paymentsin Germangoods andworkman'Voisin,'" L'Esprit Nouveau no. 2, pp. L'Urbanisme, ship. Twenty-five thousandhouses made 86; H. ProstandG. Monsarrat, 211-15. in Germanywere to be erectedin the devasParis, Editionsde la S.A.P.E., n.d. 85 For a detailedaccountof the development tated region. The plans called for a stanof 94 Le Corbusier, Vers le Paris de l'epoque this project, see Taylor,Pessac. dardizedhouse plan with concrete plaster machiniste, Rapport provisoire,Supplement double walls, the interveningspace filled 86 Le Corbusier,Radiant,p. 13. au Bulletindu Redressement Francais, Febwith compressedpeat. The roofs, of slate ruary 15, 1928, 14 pp., idem, Pour bdtir: or tile, were to be made locally; all other 87 Le Corbusierowned a copy of a brochure standardiser et tayloriser, Supplementdu materialswere to be providedby Germany. publishedby Michelin et Cie. in 1925, conBulletin du Redressement Francais, May 1, in 1918, AlthoughRathenau's essay, written cerning their successful efforts to Taylorize 1928, 8pp. makes no referenceto this agreement,the the construction of a companyhousingcomLe Corbusier 95 Le Corbusier,Versle Paris, p. 6. publicationof the article in the midst of a plex builtat Clermont-Ferrand. and PierreJeanneretare said to have visited lively discussionin the Frenchpress andin 96 Ibid., p. 11. can be interpreted as an endorsethis complex (Taylor,Pessac, p. 24). parliament ment by Ozenfantand Le Corbusier of the 97 Ibid., p. 14. 88 LouisRenault,like manyof theindustrialists, Many feared that payment in proposal. did workin conjunction withthegovernment. 98 Le Corbusier,Pour bdtir,p. 8. to kind, as opposedto money, was contrary Much of the housing thathe sponsoredwas the Versailles treaty, and thatthe influx of 99 Kuisel, ErnestMercier, p. 86. built under the H.B.M. program. But, as Germangoods and workmenwould result with manysocial reformsin thetwenties,the 100 Le Corbusier, "R6flexions a propos de la in a German "colonization" of a region initiationcame from the privatesector. loi Loucheur," p. 239. that the Germanarmies had only recently 89 Le Corbusierto Bruya, October 11, 1932, 101 Alexander Werth, The Twilightof France ravaged (MacDonald, Reconstructionin France, p. 253). Fondation Le Corbusier.Le Corbusierex1933-1940, ed. D.W. Brogan, New York, of ErnestMercierin pressed his admiration Harperand Brothers, 1942, p. 4. 111 Mauclair, L'Architecture, especially pp. his preface page to the 1963 publicationof 102 Le Corbusier,TheRadiantCity, p. 8. 35-45. TheRadiantCity: 103 Le Corbusier, "L'Authorit6 devant les 112 Albert Thibaudet,Les Idees politiques de Mobilizationof the land for the comtaches contemporaines," L'Architecture la France, Paris, Stock, Delamain et mon good (theRedressement Francais Boutelleau, 1932, pp. 66-68; Bulletin du 1935),pp. 22-23; d'Aujourd'hui (September has publishedthis thesis). in L'Architectured'Aujourd'hui Redressement Francais, July 1932, p. 11, reprinted The Presidentof the Redressement no. 158 (May 1971), 87. as cited by Kuisel, ErnestMercier, p. 38. Francais was Ernest Mercier, PresiKuisel's critiqueof Mercierwas a source dent of Est-Lumiere (1928). He 104 For a discussion of Le Corbusier'sparticifor my analysis of Le Corbusier'spolitical wanted to face his country with a in this see movement, Fishman, pation ineffectivenessin the twenties. crucialdecision:to exploit the landof Utopias, pp. 213-42; Mary McLeod, "Le the nation. Thirty-five years have Corbusierand Algiers," "Plans: Bibliogpassed!!! raphy," Oppositions no. 19/20 (Winter/ Mary McLeod teaches archtectural history and design at the Graduate School Spring 1980), pp. 55-85, 185-89. At the conclusionof his workPrecisionssur of Architecture and Planning, Columbia un etat present de l'architectureet de l'ur- 105 Le Corbusier, "Descartes est-il ameriUniversity. cain?" no. Plans 7 (July 1931); translated banisme, Paris, EditionsCres, 1930;reprint into English in Le Corbusier,The Radiant ed. Paris, Vincent Freal, 1960, p. 249. Le City, p. 129. Corbusier, under the title "Un Institutde Francede l'epoque machiniste," published 106 Kuisel, ErnestMercier, p. 87. excerpts of a letter to Lucien Romier, after Mercier, the most importantfigure in the 107 Maier, "Between Taylorism," p. 38. Redressement. Theletter,written in February 108 This phrase of Luigi Pirandello(1929) is 1928, expresses Le Corbusier'shope in this quoted by Antonio Gramsci in his essay organizationcomposed of "capitainesd'in"Americanism andFordism,"in Selections dustrie." For otherreferencesin Precisions the Prison Notebooks, ed. and trans. from to the Redressement,see pp. 144, 176-77, QuintinHoareandGeoffreyNowell Smith, 187, 190. New York, International Publishers,1971, 90 The account of ErnestMercierand the Repp. 279-322. In thiscontemporary analysis, dressementFrangaisis drawnfromKuisel's Gramsci argued that Americanism and ErnestMercier. Fordism in Europe did not constitutethe of a "new historicalepoch" and beginning 91 The Esprit Nouveau contributor Francis that little had been actuallychangedin the Delaisi worked on one of the first Cahiers Summer 1983 147

vier's article "L'Esthetiquede Proudhon," L'EspritNouveauno. 4, pp. 444 48.

series, Echanges commerciaux.

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