Le Corbusier's Concept of the Architectural Promenade

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The Journal of Architecture Volume 11 Number 1
Beyond the cliches of the hand-books: Le Corbusiers architectural promenade1
Jan Kenneth Birksted
The Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London
This study places Charles-Edouard Jeanneret/Le Corbusiers concept of the architectural promenade within the culture of La Chaux-de-Fonds in 18871917. It is based on in-depth empirical research being currently carried out in private and public archives in La Chaux-deFonds and in other Swiss towns. The paper also considers to a lesser extent specic aspects of the architecture of Le Corbusier in Paris after 1917, which are in accord with the La Chaux-de-Fonds period of 18871917, based on current in-depth research in private and public archives in France. The essay, which thus presents completely new empirical evidence, is part of research in progress towards a monograph in preparation for the MIT Press. By extrapolation, through its analysis of Jeanneret/Le Corbusiers architectural promenade within the cultural and intellectual context of La Chaux-de-Fonds in 18871917, the study addresses the problematics of the architectural language of the Modern Movement.
He was inspired by the possibility of reconstructing forms of life as such, and he delighted in bringing out their individual shape, the fullness of human experience embodied in them; the odder, the more extraordinary a culture or an individual, the better pleased he was. He can hardly condemn anything that displays colour or uniqueness; Indians, Americans and Persians, Greece and Palestine, Arminius and Machiavelli, Shakespeare and Savonarola, seem to him equally fascinating. He deeply hates the forces that make for uniformity, for the assimilation, whether in life or in the books of historians, of one culture or way of life to another. He conscientiously looks for uniformities, but what fascinates him is the exception. (Isaiah Berlin, Vico and Herder, 1976.) 2 iconography of Ronchamp, Mogens Krustrup noticed that, in the centre of the external face of the ceremonial pilgrimage entrance door, are two large and mysterious letters F: FF. Again, in his book about Ronchamp, Le Corbusier repeats this FF in a sketch (Figs 1, 2). 3 Krustrup, building on his own previous research, and on that of others, wonders what this FF might mean and he speculates that Fusion is an alchemical concept which describes the stage at which two principles, the male (the sun) and the female (the moon) are united and the philosophers stone (quinta essentia) is created. The double F under the window may signify Fusion, but also Filius, which is often the designation for the philosophers stone.4 Now, it is of course this very door with its FF that greets the pilgrims to Ronchamp at the culmination of their religious voyage. Indeed, the centre-line of the enamelled door with its central FF inscription is aligned with the pilgrims path, so, clearly, it is
13602365 DOI: 10.1080/13602360600636123
Introduction
I start with a question or rather a mysteryperhaps even a riddle? In his painstaking decortication of the
# 2006 The Journal of Architecture
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Beyond the cliches of the hand-books: Le Corbusiers architectural promenade Jan Kenneth Birksted
Figure 1. Le Corbusier, outside face of enamelled door at the Chapel of Notre Dame du Haut, Ronchamp (1951 1953). (Photograph: Ezra Stoller # Fondation Le Corbusier/DACS.)
Figure 2. Le Corbusier, sketch for enamelled door in Ronchamp, Textes et dessins pour Ronchamp. (# Fondation Le Corbusier/DACS.)
signicant in the plan. It is thus this door that greets the pilgrims at the very culmination of their promenade architecturale to use a more architecturally prosaic terminology (although we will perhaps understand towards the end of this investigation that prosaic may not be exactly the right word) so central to Le Corbusiers language of architecture (Fig. 3). Soto preview the argument of this essayan investigation into the meaning of Le Corbusiers concept of architectural promenade through empirical research in his home town of La Chaux-deFonds, where he lived in 1887 1917 (that is, for the rst thirty years of his life), will lead me back to the meaning of the mysterious FF. And this meaning will provide an answer to those previous attempts at understanding Le Corbusiers work, which, in the nal analysis, fail because they stay within the boundaries of ethnocentric Modernist architectural thinking (however impressive and wide-ranging their scholarship). Thus, Richard Etlin observes that Le Corbusier, in writing about Une petite maison, stresses that these modest objects, close at hand and at human scale, cross at a right anglethe co-ordinates of the waters and the mountains. To the rationalist mentality, Le Corbusiers text at this point certainly presents one of the most obscure enigmas of architectural literature.5 And Anthony Vidler remarks on the contempt 6 shown by Le Corbusiers statement that In a complete and successful work there are hidden masses of implications, a veritable world which reveals itself to those it may concern. 7 Finally, H. Allen Brooks comments with surprise on the fact that Le Corbusier only purchased Auguste
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Choisys Histoire de larchitecture in 1913 because Auguste Choisy followed the rationalist approach espoused by Viollet-le-Duc [and therefore] this purchase would have been more appropriate in 1908 1909. . . 8in fact, a conception of Violletle-Duc as rationalist totally ignores his deep commitment to, and involvement with, the inheritors of the French mediaeval guilds, the Compagnonnages. So, what will be discovered in the course of this empirical research are (1) the presence of freemasonic culture in the social life of La Chauxde-Fonds in the nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries, (2) the continuing presence of the culture of Freemasonry and of Compagnonnage in Le Corbusiers networks after his denitive move to Paris in 1917 and (3) the presence of both of these cultures in his language of architecture. I must therefore clearly also state what will not be touched upon in this brief summary of one aspect only of the conclusions of a complex on-going research project. What will not be touched upon are the reasons for the presence of this pensee maconnique/ compagnonniquewhich constitutes a separate
discussion of a more methodological kind. So, without considering the reasons why CharlesEdouard Jeanneret dit Le Corbusier would have posi tioned himself as a social actor within this pensee maconnique/compagnonnique, what will be dis cussed is its relevance to such a key concept as the promenade architecturale (the architectural promenade). I will also briey, given the limitations of this essay, touch upon the concept of lespace indicible (ineffable space), but rapidly so. Now, of necessity, all of this will involve the refutation of existing and accepted interpretations. To date, the main theoretical attempt at conceptualising the architectural promenade has been in terms of the picturesque.9 And so to this picturesque notion of the architectural promenade, we must rst critically attend.
Figure 3. Le Corbusier, site plan of Chapel of Notre Dame du Haut, Ronchamp. (# Fondation Le Corbusier/DACS.)
The picturesque architectural promenade

The analysis of the architectural promenade as picturesque is developed by Richard Etlin in his classic study, Frank Lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier: The romantic legacy.10 Etlin rests his case on Choisys Histoire de larchitecture in which he describes the Acropolis as pittoresque. Etlin argues that this was then assimilated by Le Corbusier in his own descriptions of the Acropolis in Vers une architecture, reproducing those diagrams from Choisys Histoire de larchitecture that set out the Acropolis to be pittoresque (Figs 4,5).11 Now, the link between Choisy and Le Corbusier is unquestionable. Auguste Choisy was seen by Le Corbusier as a critical reference point in several respects. Writing in Mise au point in defence of les traces regulateurs (regulating lines) which were a key element in his system of geometrical and harmonic proportions, Le Corbusier
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Figure 4. Auguste Choisy, Histoire de larchitecture, diagram of the Acropolis as pittoresque. Figure 5. Le Corbusier, Vers une architecture: Le Corbusiers use of Auguste Choisys diagram of the Acropolis as pittoresque. (# Fondation Le Corbusier/DACS.)
Etlin noted that Choisy, in his revisionist rewriting of the history of the Acropolis, determined that the entire site had been arranged as a sequence of controlled views, a series of picturesque scenes in which buildings and statues of different sizes and at different distances were asymmetrically balanced with respect to the central object, with the frontal view the exception and the oblique the rule.13 boldly states: regulating lines(the proof: Choisy). 12 But, although accepting the unquestionable reference to Choisy by Le Corbusier, we still need to look much closer at the logistics of Etlins demonstration, according to which Choisys notion and theory of the picturesque were simply transmitted, or absorbed wholesale, to become the source of Le Corbusiers architectural promenade. And, by now, to asssert this relationship between Choisys pittoresque Acropolis and/or Le Corbusiers picturesque architectural promenade and/or the notion of the picturesque has become so established as to have become a canonical truth. Walter-Hanno Kruft, in his classic survey of the history of architectural and landscape theories, also maintains that Choisy proposes a concept of the
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Picturesque derived from landscape gardening. 14 Both these studies, however, ignore the fact that the picturesque, which has served the turns of various parties, 15 is a visual language specic to different historical periods, each with its particular logic and specic rationale, and each therefore designed to serve new ideas, attitudes, and adventures of the human spirit. 16 The rst question, therefore, that arises is which purpose was served by the notion of the picturesque in Auguste Choisys Histoire de larchitecture? Choisy dened le pittoresque on the Acropolis in volumetric and compositional terms as dissymmetrical compositions, ponderation of the masses. 17 He dened the Greek use of asymmetrical volumes and compositions as pittoresque in the context of his personal battle against the domineering emphasis on Roman architectural symmetry by the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. This approach to le pittoresque was also noted by Kruft, quoting the well-known passage from Choisy to the effect that Each architectural element taken separately is symmetrical, but each ensemble is treated as a landscape in which there is balance between masses only.18 Presumably, it is from passages such as this, with their references to landscape, that Kruft deduces that Choisys notion of picturesque is derived from landscape gardening. Choisy, however, does not use the term picturesque. It seems churlish to point out that Choisy was writing in French and that, very simply, he never used the term picturesque.19 He wrote about le pittoresque. Indeed, Etlin, when he describes Choisys use of the picturesque, puts the concept in single quotation marks, thus
covertly indicating that this linguistic usage is not strictly Choisys own. Etlin is thus able to describe Choisys notion as a sequence of controlled views, a series of picturesque scenes, 20 where the double quotation marks furtively indicate the ambiguous nature of the English-language notion of the picturesque. This slippage from pittoresque to picturesque is nothing but a case of faux amis, that is, of pairs of words (one in the original language, the other in translation) which are phonetically comparable but semantically different. Two elements have therefore so far been established. First, Le Corbusiers architectural promenade is directly related to Choisys pittoresque. Secondly, any presumed relationship between Choisys pittoresque and the (English eighteenth century) picturesque depends less on historical fact than on a rhetorical sleight-of-hand between pittoresque and picturesque. There is indeed no evidence that Choisy had any interest in English eighteenth century landscape architecture. Nor is there any evidence that it held any interest for Charles-Edouard Jeanneret. The many plans and engravings of gardens and landscapes that Jeanneret copied from books when working in the Cabinet des ` Estampes at the Bibliotheque Nationale on his trips to Paris do not include picturesque English landscape gardens.21 Jeannerets only real interest at this period in English designed landscapes was focused on the English Garden Cities (Fig. 6). 22 The second question therefore arising must be how Le Corbusier himself read Choisys concept of the pittoresque which he clearly did read carefully, as can be seen in his statement about the Acropolis that:
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Figure 6. CharlesEdouard Jeanneret, drawing of English Garden Cities (Hampstead Garden Suburb, drawing from 1910 11). (# Fondation Le Corbusier/DACS.)
1917? And, more specically, how did CharlesEdouard Jeanneret himself use the concept of le pittoresque within this cultural context?24
Le pittoresque of La Chaux-de-Fonds
When Jeanneret started his studies at the Ecole dart in La Chaux-de-Fonds in 1902, and during his entire period thererst as student progressing to the Cours Superieur, then as participant in Charles LEplatteniers Ateliers dart reunis and nally as teacher on the Nouveau cours until 1914 when he resignedbooks on le pittoresque were included in the library of the Ecole dart, as listed in the library catalogues of 1885 and of 1919 (Fig. 7).25 Most of these books were published in France and were about France, since France and Paris were then a pivotal reference point in La Chaux-de-Fonds.26
Figure 7. Students at the Ecole dart of La Chaux-de-Fonds, 1903. (# Fonds Niestle-Perret, La Chaux-de-Fonds.)
The apparent lack of order in the plan could only deceive the unlearned. [ . . . ] It is determined by the famous landscape which stretches from the Piraeus to Mount Pentelicus. [. . . ] The buildings are massed together in accordance with the incidence of their varying plans.23 In order to understand how Le Corbusier read the notion of pittoresque in Auguste Choisys Histoire de larchitecture, I shall return to the historical period before Jeanneret assumed the cloak of Le Corbusier, that is, before the turning point in 1917 when Jeanneret jettisoned his pastalthough we shall see that this generally accepted assumption is not quite correct eitherand headed for a new life in Paris with, eventually, the new pseudonym and a new nationality: a virtually new public persona. So, what was meant by pittoresque within the culture and the sociability of La Chaux-de-Fonds in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, encompassing the thirty years between 1887 and
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Two of Jeannerets most prestigious teachers had, characteristically, studied in Paris. Much has been written about the rst, Charles LEplattenier. Nothing has been written about the second, ` Eugene Schaltenbrand. Both were from the Ecole des Beaux Arts. LEplattenier had been a pupil of Luc-Olivier Merson, who was a very successful pompier painter and graphic designer. Schaltenbrand had been a brilliant prize-winning pupil in the architectural Atelier Guadet and had, very unusually, also followed the Cours Yvon and done a degree in ne art afterwards.27 In the 1886 1887 annual school report of the Ecole dart, Schaltenbrands position and aptitudes were described as characterised by: outstanding achievements, including several distinctions, prizes and medals in the examinations en loge of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and the national diploma in architecture, which is, in France, only proffered after demanding examinations. His ne art skills, his draughtsmanship and his in-depth study of the decorative arts made him the natural choice of the Commission of Education. His own achievements will clearly match his educational standards and he will impart a productive impetus to the College.28 Thus, French culture and the culture of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts were not only of cultural signicance in general, but also of directly personal signicance through these two highly respected and inuential teachers. How, then, was the French term of le pittoresque used? This has been analysed in the classic study of the subject by Nicholas Green. Pittoresque was used
to describe the jardins anglo-chinois of the late eighteenth century. Pittoresque was used to describe pictorial and descriptive techniques whether in images or in texts, in paintings or in guidebooks, or in new theatrical settings such as the dioramathat were themselves associated with new techniques and technologies of image or text production. As part of this arose the vogue for exploring France after 1815; for rediscovering the wealth of historical monuments and sites, the richness and variety of local customs as revealed by a multitude of travel publications. 29 What Nicholas Green describes as characteristic of this vogue is the fact that it was increasingly overdetermined by forms of metropolitan consumption. 30 Thus, the French pittoresque wasas in the diorama which left the spectator shocked and amazed, titillated by the drama, the immediacy of it all, delighted by the ingenuity of such illusionistic effects 31 double-faced. The pittoresque was a vision of the past and of the rural rooted in its opposite, namely the modern and decisively urban. 32 And this brings me to the Chaux-de-fonnier reception of the French notion of pittoresque, which combines these two same aspects. In the illustrations and texts about le pittoresque in the library books of the Ecole dart of La Chaux de-FondsGuide pittoresque de letranger dans Paris et ses environs 33; Voyage historique et pittor` esque du Havre a Rouen sur la Seine 34; La Loire historique, pittoresque et biographique de la source de ` ce euve a son embouchure dans locean 35; and so oncontemporary life is featured. In the pittoresque harbour of Le Havre, for example, we see the three ages of maritime travel juxtaposedthe
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Figure 8. Voyage historique et ` pittoresque du Havre a Rouen, sur la Seine. Figure 9. Voyage historique et ` pittoresque du Havre a Rouen, sur la Seine, frontispiece.
rowing boat, the sailing boat and the steamshipas a display of the achievements of modern commerce and of historical progress (Fig. 8).36 Modern life is featured without a sense of loss or of nostalgia. There is, unlike the tradition of the English landscape garden, no suggestion of allegorical absurdities and no ironic comparisons to antiquity: Le Havre is shown, with no references back to any lost classical worlds of the Piraeus or of Ostia, as a symbol of progress. No poetic texts are appended to make us aware of any historical or mythical allusions; nor are there any typical symbolic architectural ruins (Fig. 9).37 As for Rouen, it, like Le Havre, is a place of history and of progressive commerce, that is, of dynamic change growing from the past. A written description adds that: The approach to Rouen is pittoresque and entrancing; seen from afar, it is a charming city; its interior, despite successive annual improvements, still exhibits the old timber-framed
and corbelled houses with their overhanging upper oors, and the narrow winding streets of mediaeval towns. Yet, the quays of this large, populous and quintessentially commercial city are being completed and embellished; older constructions make way for modern and attractive buildings, thus, arising from this process, the valley of La Seine and the harbour of Rouen present a vision as majestic as anyone could imagine.38 In La Loire historique, pittoresque et biographique ` de la source de ce euve a son embouchure dans locean, the emphasis is again on historical change, development and progress.39 It presents such qualities as the source of la France glorieuse, la France du progress. 40 In the Guide pittoresque de letranger dans Paris et ses environs, the architectural and artistic consequences of the revolution of February, 1848 are listed, including (Fig. 10): THE TOWN HALL, interim seat of the provisional government and of the mayor of Paris, has returned to its function as County Hall, and has been decorated with new statues that complete
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its ornate facade. THE JARDIN DU LUXEMBOURG, with the expert guidance of M. de Gisors, architect and M. Hardy, head gardener, has received superb embellishments in the form of architectural decorations, statues and English gardens. THE BIBLIOTHEQUE SAINTE-GENEVIEVE, whose old premises were going to wrack and ruin, has been replaced with an elegant construction, enhancing the Place du Pantheon.This abundant library is much used by the studious youth of our Ecoles, who benet from the most welcome of receptions from its librarians. THE BOULEVARDS on the right bank, following a project prior to the February revolution, have been tarmacked . . .41 Thus, all of these library books at the Ecole dart show history not as loss but as cumulative and positive progress. In the frontispiece illustrated in Figure 9, the black smoke belching from the steamdriven paddleships black chimney stackcomplete
with its nineteenth century ornamental lace-like ironworksymbolises modern progress. And these differences between le pittoresque and the picturesque are also to be found in the structure of the visual imagery. There is no English eighteenth century picturesque decorum in these pittoresque engravings: boats, merchants and equipment are scattered across the surface of the image as in real-life chaos without classical references.42 Unlike the allegorical picturesque in which the action rests with the temples, statues, inscriptions, and other such devices, for the human has no permanent place in the design,43 here the life of the harbour and of the surrounding city of Le Havre is driven by its republican and merchant citoyens and citoyennes. Everything here is symbol of progress, not allegory of loss. Unlike picturesque images that give prominence to those humans who seek to understand what they contemplate,44 here, action, not contemplation, is the rule. This harbour scene is not a scene for human action, but of human action. If we now again turn to the frontispiece of the Guide pittoresque de letranger dans Paris et ses environs, a particular detail stands out signicantly. A modern-looking barge, moored next to a bridge with trafc passing over it, oats on the river Seine. Now, this same barge by this very same bridge is described by Huysmans (several of whose books Charles-Edouard Jeanneret read between 1909 and 1915 45) in his notorious novel of 1884, ` A Rebours: . . . at the Bain Vigier, an establishment to be found on a pontoon moored in the middle of the Seine. There, by salting your bath-water and
Figure 10. Guide pittoresque de letranger dans Paris et ses environs.
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Figure 11. Train at La Montee du Pilate, Eselwand, in Isabelle Kaiser, La Suisse Pittoresque, Les Etrennes Helvetiques, Almanach Illustre (Paris, Fischbacher & Cie., Editeurs; Dijon, Felix Rey, Librairie Generale; La Chaux-de-Fonds, Imprimerie Georges Dubois, Editeur, 1914), pp. 45 47.
adding sulphate of soda with hydrochlorate of magnesium and lime in the proportions recommended by the Pharmacopoeia; by opening a box with a tight-tting screw-top and taking out a ball of twine or a twist of rope, bought for the occasion from one of those enormous roperies whose warehouses and cellars reek with the smell of the sea and sea-ports; by breathing in the odours which the twine or the twist of rope is sure to have retained; by consulting a life-like photograph of the casino and zealously reading the Guide Joanne describing the beauties of the seaside resort where you would like to be; by letting yourself be lulled by the waves created in your bath by the backwash of the paddlesteamers passing close to the pontoon; by listening to the moaning of the wind as it blows under the arches of the Pont Royal and the dull rumble of the buses crossing the bridge just a few feet over your head; by employing these simple devices, you can produce an illusion of seabathing which will be undeniable, convincing and complete. The main thing is to know how to set about it, to be able to concentrate your attention on a single detail, to forget yourself sufciently to bring about the desired hallucination and so substitute the vision of a reality for the reality itself.46 Huysmanss description matches the engraving in the Guide pittoresque de letranger dans Paris et ses environs exactly. The wind buffets the poplar trees by the Tuileries and must therefore also bluster through the arches of the bridges. An omnibus rumbles over the Pont Royal. Indeed, this pontoon boat was one of the highlights of modernity in Paris at that
time. Thus, again, the frontispiece to this Guide pittor esque de letranger dans Paris et ses environs indicates modernity as central to le pittoresque. And it is, indeed, these overlapping notions of modernity and of pittoresque that we nd, nally, in a publication in which Jeanneret himself participated. 47 In Les Etrennes Helvetiques of 1914, an article on La Suisse Pittoresque48 shows the latest modern transport developments to reach the top of the mountain called Le Pilate in Eselwand (Fig. 11). So,
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Figure 12. John Ruskin, Neuchatel: lake and cemetery, with Lady Trevelyans grave (1866). (# Ruskin Foundation; Ruskin Library, Lancaster University.) Figure 13. Charles Humbert (at left, black hat) Madeleine Woog, Jean-Paul Zimmermann and friends in La Chauxde-Fonds (circa 1925). (# Fonds Charles ` Humbert, Bibliotheque de la Ville de La Chauxde-Fonds.)
this overlapping of meaning between the concepts of modernity and of pittoresque now needs to be placed within the cultural and historical context of La Chaux-de-Fonds around 1900. It will be seen that an overlap between the notions of modernity and of pittoresque was specic to La Chaux-deFonds where the Heimatschutz movement for the protection of national identity through the development of an ancient rural alpine image was not strong; in La Chaux-de-Fonds, on the contrary, there was a tradition of concurrence between technology and landscape. 49 One way thus to clarify how modernity was seen as a dening feature of le pittoresque would be to analyse the reception of John Ruskins work by the reader in the library of lEcole dart of La Chaux-de-Fonds around 1900, since Ruskins work is itself centred on a particular notion of the picturesque, and since Ruskins work was then avidly read in La Chaux-deFonds. How was it read?
Reading Ruskin in La Chaux-de-Fonds, circa 1900

Ruskins drawings of Neuchatel, which are of pictur esquely rugged mountains around the chateau de Neuchatel, show how a picturesque attraction to decay and incompleteness becomes the foundation of his whole work. (Fig. 12.) 50 And this is precisely how Ruskin was not read in the Ecole dart of La Chaux-de-Fonds. The Chaux-de-fonnier Ruskin of circa 1900 is not the English Ruskin. How, then, was Ruskin received by Jeanneret and his friends? In December, 1909, on his return to La Chaux-deFonds from his apprenticeship in Paris with Auguste Perret, one of Jeannerets closest friends, who has hitherto also been overlooked, was the painter Charles Humbert (Fig. 13).51 Humbert and Jeanneret spent frequent evenings together in discussions at parties, in local bars or even at their respective homes.52 It was Humbert who helped him carry out the necessary property surveys
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Figure 14. Brassserie Restaurant Ariste Robert, La Chaux-deFonds, where Charles Humbert, CharlesEdouard Jeanneret, etc., used to meet. (# Fondation Le Corbusier/DACS/ ` Bibliotheque de la Ville de La Chaux-de-Fonds.)
for the design of the Villa Favre-Jacot in 1912. Jeanneret, writing to William Ritter, describes the late nights which he spent in the company of this small clique consisting of Charles Humbert and other artists (Fig. 14): Imagine: it happens that I spend evenings with friends at their houses, doing what? Telling ourselves the same stories over and over again about Cezanne, Hodler, Titian, Tintoretto. I get home after midnight. The door is locked. And at home they imagine that I am seeing one or even several prostitutes.53
Humbert records in his diaries that he was reading a book called LEsthetique anglaise: Etude sur M John Ruskin by Joseph Milsand.54 This book, again, was in the library of the Ecole dart.55 The particular edition of LEsthetique anglaise: Etude sur M John Ruskin, which is in the Ecole dart, is a second edition that includes a preface about Joseph Milsand by Maurice Millious. This preface explains that knowledge in France about Ruskin is indebted to Joseph Milsands book, rst published in 1860, whose republication in 1906 is described as an act of faith; it is also a gesture of
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vindication. 56 Millious preface describes Joseph Milsand as an occult and hermetic mystic, who viewed humanity in terms of eternal and universal spiritual values. Milsands fascination with Ruskin, which stemmed from his own occultism and hermeticism, was focused on a particular aspect of Ruskin, which Milsand himself described: Until the 15th century, the artist as individual could be poet or philosopher, but, as professional, the artist lived in a sort of sanctuary, belonging to a brotherhood with its own secrets and constituting a separate world. Through initiation, they received the traditions of their predecessors, and, when painting, the only judges they recognised were their teachers and their peers. Secluded in their world of inspiration, they could even tell a pope: procul esto, the uninitiated do not enter here.57 It is often implied that Jeanneret absorbed Ruskins thought since Jeanneret, LEplatteniers star pupil, [was] soaked in Ruskin, mediaevalism and the folklore du sapin.58 But the question is: if that is the case, which aspects of Ruskin was Jeanneret soaked in? What did Ruskin and mediaevalism mean to them? Did this accord with Millious interpretation of Milsands reading of Ruskin? Paul Turner has described how Jeannerets interest in Ruskin was essentially based on one particular aspect, being Ruskins anti-materialism since, according to Jeanneret, Ruskin spoke of spiritual values, 59 while, simultaneously, he critiqued Ruskin for being an Impenetrable, complex, contradictory and paradoxical apostle.60 Brooks describes another aspect of the importance of Ruskin to Jeanneret: Ruskin exalted the skill of the artisan and craftsman against the impersonality of the machine. 61 This
view throws light on how LEplattenier himself was seen. In 1915, W. Matthey-Claudet from La Chauxde-Fonds, compared LEplattenier to a mediaeval master craftsman. 62 Thus LEplattenier was seen as belonging to this tradition of mediaeval guilds. Even twenty years later, in 1937, in Quand les cathedrales etaient blanches, Le Corbusier described how, in the Middle Ages, human beings observed the Hermetic rules of Pythagoras; everywhere you could see the eager search for the laws of harmony. They had deliberately turned their backs on the antique, on the stereotyped models of Byzantium; but they threw themselves passionately into the reconquest of the inevitable axis of human destiny: harmony. The law of numbers was transmitted from mouth to mouth among initiates, after the exchange of secret signs.63 Thus, Joseph Milsands reading of Ruskin, and the Chaux-de-fonnier reading at the Ecole dart of Milsands reading of Ruskinincluding LEplattenier and the clique of students revolving around its two group leaders, Charles-Edouard Jeanneret and Charles Humbertechoed these same ideas and concepts: the ideas and concepts of sanctuary, brotherhood, secrets, initiation, traditions and profane. Now, in order to clarify, rst, the importance of this nomenclature and, secondly, the fundamental implications of these terms for the notion of pittoresque, and, thirdly, the repercussions of the ensuing meaning of pittoresque for Le Corbusiers promenade architecturale, we need to contextualise these ideas of sanctuary, brotherhood, secrets, initiation, traditions and profane. We need, in other words, to understand the cultural context of
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Figure 15. Edouard Kaiser, painting of watchmakers used by Le Corbusier in Croisade, Le Crepuscule des Academies. (# ` Bibliotheque de la Ville de La Chaux-de-Fonds.)
La Chaux-de-Fonds between circa 1887, the year of Jeannerets birth, and circa 1917, the date of his departure for Paris, as well as his sociability within that cultural context.
La Chaux-de-Fonds, circa 1900

In Das Kapital, Karl Marx specically described La Chaux-de-Fonds, which one can consider as one unied watchmaking industry . . .. 64 Indeed, La Chaux-de-Fonds, surrounded by its neighbouring towns and valleysLe Locle, Saint-Imier, Le Val de Ruz, Neuchatelwas a world centre of the watch industry, which (mythically if not historically) went back to its foundation by Daniel Jeanrichard in the 1740s.65 Watch industrialists from La Chaux-deFonds proceeded to establish comptoirs (trading posts) all over the world, in Russia, China, the Americas, etcetera. Symptomatically, maps drawn in La Chaux-de-Fonds of the location of these comptoirs indicate distances not in kilometres but in hours, days or weeks, that is, in the time needed to bring new orders back to the ateliers, workshops and factories of La Chaux-de-Fonds, and then to transport the manufactured merchandise back to those comptoirs (Fig. 15). But, although the watch industry could be considered to have functioned as one unied industry, La Chaux-de-Fonds was a society deeply divided between different social classes (ranging from extraordinary wealth to abject poverty), different ethnic and religious groups (with a signicant Jewish population) and different political parties and ideologies (La Chaux-de-Fonds was the birthplace of the Swiss Communist party and of the Swiss Pacist movement). At the same time, the position of
La Chaux-de-Fonds in the global watch market was continuously and perilously threatened because of changes in fashion, of technological innovations and of new industrial production methods developed by foreign competitors. Thus the ups and downs in the market for watches periodically wiped out entire sections of watch production, such as the enamelling and the engraving of gold and silver pocket watches, as is attested by the often pitiful diaries of Jeannerets father, whose regularly alternating periods of unemployment and overwork exhausted, depressed and prematurely aged him. Eventually, his craft of watchface enamelling was wiped out. Innovations in watch technology and production methods were developed in La Chaux-de-Fonds, as well as brought back from abroad and then developed in La Chauxde-Fonds, by the proprietors of the watch factories. And, very importantly, these proprietors included a signicant part of la communaute Israelite (the Jewish community) of La Chaux-de-Fonds: the Schwob family of Tavannes Watch Co., the Ditesheim
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Figure 16. The Tavannes watch factory of the Schwob family, 1920. (Postcard, collection of the author.) Figure 17. Synagogue, La Chaux-de-Fonds. (# ` Bibliotheque de la Ville de La Chaux-de-Fonds.)
family of Movado, the Ditisheim and Didisheim families of Vulcain, the Ditisheims of Marvin, the Blums of Invicta, the Dreyfusses of Rotary, etcetera (Figs 16, 17).66 La Chaux-de-Fonds was thus a society profoundly divided along ethnic, social, political and cultural lines. Typically, anarchists such as Bakounin and communists such as Lenin were involved in the labour movements in La Chaux-de-Fonds. Yet, this deeply divided society needed, as described by Karl Marx, to continue to function as one unied watchmaking industry . . .67 for its survival in the treacherous and unpredictable global watch market. Clubs and societies abounded in La Chaux-de-Fonds. La Chaux-de-Fonds, with a population of 35,000 people, was known for its social clubs, circles and societies, of which there were, in 1881, about one hundred and fty.68 Of these, the Club Alpin Suisse, Section La Chaux-de-Fonds was one of the most important in terms of membership, status and inuence. For a period, Jeannerets father was president of it. The other crucially important one was La Loge LAmitie, the Freemason lodge of La Chaux-de-Fonds.69
Now, this brings me to some brief historiographi cal reections. The perception of La Loge LAmitie as a signicant factor in the sociability and the cultural life of La Chaux-de-Fonds is sketchily but implicitly acknowledged in histories of La Chaux-de-Fonds written by local historians, intimately familiar as they are with its past traditions. Charles Thomann mentions it in his anecdotal LHistoire de La Chauxde-Fonds inscrite dans ses rues.70 Jean-Marc Barrelet and Jacques Ramseyer discuss it in their extensive history, La Chaux-de-Fonds ou le de dune cite hor` logere, 1848 1914.71 Jacques Gubler in his survey of the architecture of La Chaux-de-Fonds, the Inventaire Suisse dArchitecture, 1850 1920, La Chauxde-Fonds mentions it too.72 Claude Garino likewise, in his study of the Villa Schwob.73 In contrast, histories written by outsiders have completely
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failed to consider this facet of Chaux-de-fonnier existence. H. Allen Brooks does not mention it.74 Nor does Paul V. Turner.75 Nor does Mary Patricia Sekler.76 It is here that the national identities of historians impinge on their historiographies; and where the cultural chasm between, on the one hand, philosophically oriented Continental European Enlightenment culture (in which contemporary Freemasonry is freethinking, philosophical, critical, intensely intellectual, radical if not socialist, and often irreligious) and, on the other hand, Anglo-Saxon culture (where contemporary Freemasonry tends towards the conservative, the unintellectual and the Establishment) impinges on historiography. The historiography of Freemasonry in France is a scholarly growth industry. In Anglo-Saxon countries, it is a rarity if not an eccentricity.77 And histories of Jeanneret in La Chaux-de-Fonds have so far often been written by Anglophone historians, to whom this aspect of the fabric of La Chaux-deFonds would be culturally invisible, if not aberrant.78 This is where the fabric of history, of historians identities and of historiography criss-crosses and overlaps . . . Let me return to the Freemasonic past of La Chaux-de-Fonds and its long history and involvement in regional, national and international politics. The rst Masonic lodge in Neuchatel was the Loge Aux Trois Etoiles Flamboyantes, established in 1743 by a mayor of La Chaux-de-Fonds, Jacob Perret. At that time, the Prince of Neuchatel, Frederick the Great of Prussia, was himself a Freemason and supportive of the lodge Zu den Drei Weltkugeln in Berlin, hence the active support for Freemasonry in and around Neuchatel from its very beginnings.79
` The Masonic lodge at Le Locle, Les Vrais Freres Unis, followed with its rst ofcial Masonic meeting ` in 1774. It was at Les Vrais Freres Unis in Le Locle that the idea of starting La Loge LAmitie in La Chaux-de-Fonds arose, which project eventually materialised in 1819. In addition, the very history of Freemasonry is part-and-parcel of the history of the area of Neuchatel. The 1848 revolutionaries led by Fritz Courvoisier, who abolished the monar chy and established a republic in Neuchatel, were Freemasons from La Loge LAmitie in La Chaux-deFonds. Le Corbusier proudly mentions his familys ancient involvement in this revolution: On 1st March, 1848, my grand-father Jeanneret Rauss nicknamed the grumbler, along with Fritz Courvoisier, descended, on foot, from La Chaux-de-Fonds to Neuchatel to capture the castle without loss of blood. He was one of the leaders of the revolution. (Fig. 18.) 80 But, on the basis of its historical role, what part did Freemasonry continue to play, if any, in La Chaux-deFonds between the 1880s and the 1920s? David Hays has described how, in the eighteenth century in Continental Europe, Freemasonry offered an indulgent space in which to conceive alternative social, political and spiritual systems. 81 Similarly, in La Chaux-de-Fonds in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the Freemasonic lodge was a tolerant and non-judgemental space in which industrialists, politicians, nanciers, civil servants and technocrats could meet and learn to trust each other across intense religious, ethnic and political boundaries, and in the face of the dramatically cyclical supply-and-demand reversals of the global watch markets, which threatened everyones
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Figure 18. Charles LEplattenier, Statue of Fritz Courvoisier, Place de lHotel de Ville, La Chaux-de-Fonds. (# ` Bibliotheque de la Ville de La Chaux-de-Fonds.)
existenceindeed the existence of La Chaux-deFonds. Freemasonry, in such lodges as La Loge ` LAmitie in La Chaux-de-Fonds and Les Vrais Freres Unis in Le Locle, offered a space of respite, reection and response from which the friendship and trust, which were negotiated and forged and defended ritualistically, could then spread outwards against the grain of established social, political, economic and religious boundaries before the next inevitable,
and potentially lethal, twist-and-turn of that global watch market. At the same time, many of these watch industrialists and Freemasons came from humble backgrounds, quite often with traumatic childhood experiences such as being orphaned or living through family bankruptcies, which gave rise to fervent social consciences and charitable ideals resulting in humanitarian projects. Representative
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of this state of affairs is the statement by Edouard Quartier-La-Tente (who was, around 1910, the Venerable of the Freemason Loge in Neuchatel, an afliated member of La Loge LAmitie in La Chauxde-Fonds, the director of the International Bureau of Freemasonic Affairs and Conseiller detat in Neu chatel) who wrote that: Freemasonry is an association like any other, which has a very ancient and illustrious past. Having been, until the eighteenth century, a brotherhood of builders and stonemasons, it developed into a society whose members came from all social classes, all political parties, and who represented the full range of ideas and of trades and professions . . .82 In addition to its intellectual and social dimensions, Freemasonry also provided an international network for travellers from Le Locle and La Chauxde-Fonds when far away from home and in need of personal and professional contacts. Sufce it to say here that the complexities of human relationships have been addressed in Jacques Derridas Poli tiques de lamitie,83 hence the advertisements in the Bulletin of the International Bureau for Masonic Affairs at Neuchatel, which included inserts from Freemasons in Belgium, Italy, Germany, Hungary, France and America describing Numerous connexions in the commercial world. Advertising and Agency Work done for the whole of Italy, or Relations with all the banks, manufactories and wholesale houses [in Budapest and Hungary], 84 or Information whether technical or commercial [for Manufacturing and Commercial Brethren], or Collection of debts in all countries without any charge even in case of failure. 85 At the same
time, Freemasonry was responsible for major charitable and cultural institutions in La Chaux-deFonds, including its childrens nurseries, services for the poor (provision and distribution of food, furniture, etcetera), its art museum and its theatre. Thus, Freemasonry was intimately overlaid not only with the political economy, but also with the main cultural, intellectual and charitable projects in La Chaux-de-Fonds. So was the case in nearby towns. In Le Locle, the Freemasonic lodge was responsible for the creation of the rst public hospital. In terms of membership, in addition to afliated members such as Quartier-La-Tente from other towns, the most inuential public administrators of La Chaux de-Fondsles decideurs de la villebelonged to (Fig. 19). La Loge LAmitie This was the case, at this historical period, for several mayors of La Chaux-de-Fonds, ofcial city architects, the town engineer, the director of the tramway system, the director of the telephone system, newspaper proprietors and others. Member ship of La Loge LAmitie was a sign of social and intellectual esteem. Freemasonic symbols were explicitly used by architects on their drawings (Fig. 20). Several of Jeannerets major clients were members of Masonic lodges. Paul Ditisheim, who commissioned interior designs and a factory project, belonged to La Loge LAmitie. Georges Favre-Jacot, proprietor of the Zenith watch company, for whom Jeanneret designed the Villa ` Favre-Jacot, belonged to Les Vrais Freres Unis in Le Locle. Anatole Schwob, for whom Jeanneret designed the Villa Schwob, did not belong to a Freemasonic lodge, but other Schwob family members did.86
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Figure 19. Administrative and industrial leaders of La Chaux-de-Fonds around 1900. (Courtesy of the Archives, La Loge LAmitie, La Chaux-deFonds.)
Having thus, in this essay, briey outlined the importance of Freemasonry in the fabric of the social, political, administrative, commercial, intellectual and cultural life of La Chaux-de-Fonds, the question arises as to how this would have affected the notion of le pittoresque, since this is, in the process of clarifying Le Corbusiers notion of the promenade architecturale, the topic being addressed in this essay? I need to return to the
specic year 1902, when the young fteen-year old Jeanneret started to attend the Ecole dart. A most prestigious teacher at the Ecole dart and the director of the watch-engraving section ` into which Jeanneret rst enrolledwas Eugene Schaltenbrand, who had studied under Julien Guadet at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris, winning numerous prizes and medals. His obituary describes how he was able to captivate the
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Figure 20. Louis Reutter, Freemasonic stamp on architectural drawings. (Courtesy of the Archives of La Ville de La Chaux-de-Fonds.)
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` Figure 21. Eugene Schaltenbrand, Monumental fountain, Avenue Leopold-Robert, La Chaux-de-Fonds. (Postcard, 1906, collection of the author.) Figure 22. The Bureau de controle des metaux precieux before its transformation into Hotel Communal by ` Eugene Schaltenbrand. ` (# Bibliotheque de la Ville de La Chaux-deFonds.)
attention of his students by the clarity of his expositions, by his knowledge of different historical styles and of ornamental composition. 87 Schaltenbrand taught the classes, which were attended by Jeanneret, but he resigned his full-time directorship of the watch-engraving section in 1903 in order to devote himself wholly to architectural practice because of several major and prestigious new public and private architectural commissions in La Chaux-de-Fonds (Fig. 21). Working as architecte communal (town architect) of La Chaux-de-Fonds, he designed the hospital, several higher education colleges and the monumental fountain in the centre of the town. The important point for this investigation is the architecture that he designed, the architectural language that he employed. He was entrusted by the presti gious Bureau de controle des metaux precieux, which regulated the quantities and qualities of precious metals (gold and silver) that were used in the production of watchcases, with the transformation of their old ofces into the new administrative ofces of La Chaux-de-Fonds.88 This transformation
has been described by the ofcial Swiss architectural register of historical buildings as Conversion into Town Administration 1895 1897. Mutilation of the amboyant rooine and impoverishment of the elevations by obliteration of their ornamental features. (Figs 22, 23)89 Indeed, the Bureau de controle des metaux was a amboyant Gothicising composition, all of whose luxuriant ornamentation
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` Figure 23. Eugene Schaltenbrand, Hotel Communal. (Courtesy Archives de la Ville de La Chaux-de-Fonds.) Figure 24. Robert Belli, Crematorium of La Chaux-de-Fonds with ornamental additions by Charles LEplattenier, Leon Perrin, etc. (# ` Bibliotheque de la Ville de La Chaux-de-Fonds.)
Schaltenbrand removed in favour of a stripped neoclassical style. A similarly puried classical style was that of Robert Belli, Freemason and member of La Loge LAmitie as in the Crematoire of La Chauxde-Fonds, designed by him, with the participation of LEplattenier and his students from the Ecole dart in the provision of its abundant ornamentation in the form of sculptures, mosaics, metalwork, murals and reliefs (Figs 24, 25). It is the crematorium of La Chaux-de-Fonds that shows the antagonism between, on the one hand, stripped Freemasonic neo-classicism with its emphasis on volume and massing, and, on the other, the
elaborate Art Nouveau style of LEplattenier with its focus on surface decoration. Robert Belli complained about the the lack of harmony between the arched porch of the Chapel and the rectangular doorway at the back. Here again, they [the architects] had to take into account the desires of the artists themselves. 90 Robert Bellis ` architecture, like that of Eugene Schaltenbrand, is the moral architecture of Freemasonry: classicising, unadorned, intensely symbolic in its iconographyvolumetrically cubical and surmounted by a pyramidal roofand intensely ceremonial in its system of circulation. This system of circulation was described in a report of 1936 by the administration of the Crematorium: On entering the northern gate of the cemetery, the mourners gaze rst follows the funeral procession that is depicted on the walls of the white crematorium in blue, ochre and crimson mosaics with its mortals on their way to the world beyond and parting company, forcibly or willingly, with the illusions of this world in order
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Figure 25. Robert Belli, Crematorium, La Chaux-de-Fonds: plans, sections and elevations before ornamental additions by LEplattenier and his students. (Courtesy la Ville de La Chaux-de-Fonds.)
to gain entrance to the kingdom of eternal light. Having reached the end of the path, at the moment of turning towards the entrance of the edice, the mourner is made to contemplate the elevated sculpture on the fountain, which represents Peace receiving and protecting men and women as they bow to inevitable destiny. Now, the mourner proceeds towards the staircase that penetrates in under the arched porch. A glance towards the heavens reveals above the sculpture
of the youth, with its gilt arms glittering, soaring towards the ideal. Then, about to ascend the staircase, the two statues on either side reveal the sorrow of the parents and of the spouse in front of the funeral urn, and the orphaned child huddling up to them . . . The mourner has now reached the summit of the staircase and has entered. The doors close behind. As the mysterious music from the invisible harmonium soars, in the ethereal light falling from the
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quadrangular dome, the mourner slowly distinguishes the walls, the urns, the catafalque, richly incised and embossed in copper-clad ornamentation, and the painted mural frieze: a long panel above in blue tones, depicting Pity and Death; facing on the opposite side is a frieze in gold and crimson representing Purication by Fire. Later, once the urn is laid to rest in the ground, the mourner will wander around the beautifully designed cemetery . . . He will walk slowly from the stairs with sculpted torches on the railings to the masterpiece of stone: the monument to the dead . . . May the mourner now look up at the southern elevation of the Crematorium: the great mosaic of the Triumph of Life, in radiant pastels, with its young couples and its apposite central family tableau eulogising childhood, will restore hope and faith . . . 91 By this ceremonial circulation and by its volumetric simplicity, this was an architecture typical of the local Masonic agenda (such as that of Edouard Quartier-La-Tente), which aspired to be a universal classically stripped architecture for a society whose members came from all social classes, all political parties, representing all ideas and trades and professions . . . 92 And this Freemasonic architecture saw itself as having, metaphorically, a moral mission, which was to . . . work together for human progress by rst seeking ones own personal moral improvement. Based on the view that it is not possible to build a solid construction from poor materials, Freemasonry teaches its followers that they must rst and foremost improve themselves before
they can consider contributing to the improvement of humanity. 93 It is here that we nd the answer to our previous question. It is this Masonic cultural context of La Chaux-de-Fonds, which, in the early twentieth century, formed the particular reception to, and specic interpretation of, Ruskin. The intellectual and philosophical culture of Freemasonry at La Loge LAmitie in La Chaux-de-Fonds in circa 1900, in line with the eighteenth-century Continental European Freemasonic tradition, was profoundly imbued with, and passionately oriented towards, notions of social and political progress in the form of humanitarian and charitable activities (the creation of nursery schools, food programmes for the destitute, the development of education) and in the ideals of cooperation and brotherhood. It was precisely in such a spirit of brotherhood that Ruskin was read in the Ecole dart of La Chaux-deFonds. They identied with the Ruskin who mentioned Freemasons in The Stones of Venice and in Val DArno 94 (both of which were in the library of the Ecole dart). In The Stones of Venice, Ruskin wrote about the traditions, the wealth, and the skill of the monks and freemasons,95 referring to operative not speculative Freemasonry. It was in this spirit that Jeanneret, having nished the Villa Fallet and departing for his rst extended journey in 1907, gave a copy of Ruskins Sesame and Lillies to Andre Evard, who had worked with him on the Villa Fallet, and to whom he inscribed the book: To my good study compagnon and friend, A. Evarda modest thanks in memory of precious help. Ch. E. Jeanneret, August 1907 (Fig. 26).96
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And Joseph Milsands LEsthetique anglaise: tude sur M John Ruskin was understood and e conceptualised within such a spirit. This brings me back to the question being addressed. Could it be within this context that Jeanneret/Le Corbusiers concept of space, including the promenade architecturale, can begin to be understood? Indeed, Le Corbusier himself, in one of his key publications, New World of Space, wrote that: In a complete and successful work there are hidden masses of implications, a veritable world which reveals itself to those whom it may concern, which means: to those who deserve it. Then a boundless depth opens up, effaces the wall, drives away contingent presences, accomplishes the miracle of ineffable space.97
According to Le Corbusier, only those of us whom it may concern, which means those of us who deserve it can understand the profound meaning of space and of its promenade architecturale. Indeed, that this promenade architecturale was a symbolic and ritual voyage was well understood by Le Corbusiers ` principal chef datelier in the rue de Sevres, Andre Wogenscky, who, after Le Corbusiers death, paid him homage by describing how Le Corbusiers greatest inuence on me, beyond his architecture, was his attitude to life and the way in which he believed that our main duty is to construct ourselves, to build ourselves like one builds a house, stone upon stone, to make oneself into an individual worthy of the name human, but with the specic difference that human edication is never nished. 98 And this now leads to the central question in this examination of Le Corbusiers notion of the architectural promenade. How can such Freemasonic notions possibly relate to the architectural promenade?
Figure 26. Andre Evard and Charles-Edouard Jeanneret (with Louis Houriet, left to right) working on the Villa Fallet. (# Fondation Le Corbusier/DACS/ ` Bibliotheque de la Ville de La Chaux-de-Fonds.)
Les Trois Voyages

Of the various elements involved in the Freemasonic initiation ceremony, a central one is that of Les Trois Voyages. The notions of the voyage and of the quest are central to Freemasonry as symbolic of the journey of the individual through life in search of inner self-improvement and of external improvement in society, of life as voyage and of the search and of improvement and progress as quest. What exactly are Les Trois Voyages? In a Planche davancemet au II Gradea Freemasonic presentation to achieve the second symbolic
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grade of Companion after that of Apprentice which was written on 20th March, 1909 and presented on 26th October, 1909, Hans Wille describes The Three Voyages taking place in an initiation ceremony at La Loge LAmitie. 99 His handwritten account needs to be quoted at length: Those who have learnt about how these receptions take place, either through written accounts or by other means, will not experience very deeply and will consequently not feel the powerful emotions that overcome the layman able to understand and be aware of what is happening in front of him, even though he knew nothing of it previously. [ . . . ] At that point a totally different feeling confronted my intellect, and I constantly asked myself: Will you nd what you are looking for, an association of men with open and lofty ideas, with whose principles your loyalty can agree? My rm intention to withdraw at the slightest misgiving, as soon as my conscience were to advise me to do so, dominated all my thoughts, and consequently the manner in which the reception would take place always remained a secondary issue for me. It is easy to see how these dominating thoughts necessarily pushed me to analyse in depth the meaning of the different stages to which I was led during my voyage through the obscurity, when meditation can be fertile for those who make the effort. The custom of being blindfolded allows for the concentration of ideas to reach its maximum and is thus most laudable. It was thus in this frame of mind that I climbed the steps leading to a door that a Masonic brother indicated as he invited me to enter. [ . . . ] He then blind-
folded me. I was at rst rather astonished by this behaviour, but let myself be led by him through underground rooms and corridors as I imagined that my minds eye made me witness a voyage through the basements of the lodge. Meanwhile, I was racking my brains to discover the reason for this blindfolded voyage . . . [ . . . ] There is a most curious thing, which is however to be found in many instances through life; it is the experience of a rst impression, an impression which is generally hard to dispel; some people never really succeed in disengaging themselves from such rst impressions. From this detail, insignicant at rst sight, an important impression grew in me and as a result I found myself ever more wary, my senses became ever more alert, and the question as to how this evening would end, whether or not I would be forced to withdraw my application, weighed ever more heavily on me. An inner struggle was set in motion in my conscience. The idea that I had been mistaken was becoming ever more insistent and lled me with sorrow. I could not accept that earnest men could amuse themselves with such games and, despite all my willingness, at that moment, I could grasp no symbolic meaning whatsoever. This impression overpowered me just long enough to reach the Preparation Room and we shall see how this impression changed progressively but still mingled with the expectations of the reception. The evolution, which will take place, is of a particular kind, considering that the recipient is oblivious to everything that will happen; thus new sense impressions only will make an impact on his senses; logic and reason, which will help
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him to evaluate those initial impressions, which were rst unconsciously and inconsequentially formed, will only follow afterwards. We have seen the unfortunate effect produced by the little detour, but this effect will eventually be seen to be positive in that it will force the candidate to think productively and to struggle mentally to nd solid reasons in order to erase from his mind the initial thought, namely that he had been invited to a somewhat ridiculous ceremony. [ . . . ] The moment before, I was hesitant, disillusioned, and now I was full of hope about fullling my desire to meet others able to understand and share the ideas I had of humanity, with whom exchanging opinions would be possible without prejudice or other preconceptions, typical of intolerant people. It was thus no longer with that feeling of revolt that I let the blindfold be put back on. The rest of the voyage was less dire and the friendly words of the Masonic brother who accompanied me, reassuring me that friendship was my guide, reminded me of other voyages through obscurity, in which one had sought in vain for a friendly guide during the inner conicts of early life, when the soul is still fresh and sensitive to all impressions, when life reveals itself directly in its totality; at the moment when one has to part with ones prejudices, ones superstitions perhaps, and when for years one advances with insecurity, with uncertainty, in the obscurity, when one would need friendship to be guided towards the light that one desires so fervently. At that moment one rarely nds the much needed guide and one often succumbs morally. It was
while reecting on these past moments, when one becomes aware of ones weakness, which appears in its entire enormity and when its meanness becomes visible, that my companion lead me into that small black room where the symbols of death emerged one by one from the darkness as the eyes became accustomed to the darkness. I felt no surprise at the sight of these objects, it seemed to me that it was a logical thing that had to happen, and being there to indicate that despite our efforts to reach moral and intellectual perfection, this goal will never be reached. In the midst of the slow and painful labour to achieve it, which is not as unrewarding as might rst seem, death will seize us mercilessly when our hour has come and stop the wheels of our human machinery with the visible effects of its power, the existence of which we must admit but cannot identify. [ . . . ] I was overcome by a feeling of peace and by the music and singing during the three voyages around the rectangular oor of the lodge; my senses aroused and my apprehensive spirit miraculously appeased, it seemed like a genuine moment of calm! It is a pity that we are unable to represent in writing the true feelings of our heart, once on paper being but a feeble copy of the original, hence this small composition, despite all the effort put into it, will seem quite dull to the reader, but as they themselves will have experienced these unforgettable moments, they may relive them with me, or so I eagerly wish. May these few lines rekindle their memories of the days when they too longed for light. Written at La Chauxde-Fonds, 20th March, 1909, Hans Wille.100
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Figure 27. Freemasonic image of Les Trois Voyages. (Courtesy the Archives of Le Grand Orient de France.)
We thus nd, in Hans Willes handwritten account of 1909, a description of the basic features of Les Trois Voyages, ranging from an account of their physical and symbolic features through to that of the complex and conicting range of emotions that he experienced during them (Fig. 27). Wille describes the progression from darkness to light, from blindness to sightedness. Wille also dwells on his
emotions of self-conscious astonishment, ridiculousness and even revulsion at the ludicrous, if not farcical, ceremonies to which he is deliberately subjecting himself. He thus veers between, on the one hand, total disbelief at the meaninglessness of it all, and, on the other hand, a sense of revelation at the profound symbolism of Les Trois Voyages.
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Having presented, through Hans Willes account, some key features of Les Trois Voyages, I want to address a feature, described in another ` account. This second account relates to Eugene Schaltenbrand, Jeannerets teacher at the Ecole dArt. Schaltenbrand was initiated in La Loge La Clemente Amitie in Paris in 1886, while a student at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts.101 Having nished his studies in Paris, he returned to La Chaux-de-Fonds, to become afliated to La Loge LAmitie in 1890.102 A description of the ritual in use in 1886 at La Loge La Clemente Amitie, when Schaltenbrand was still in Paris, highlights another important aspect of Les Trois Voyages. There, the three different voyages in Les Trois Voyages are clearly distinguished from each other. The First Voyage is entitled Premier Voyage EnfanceLa Famille, and it begins with the words: My son, come with us. The candidate stands between two Masons. They hold his arm and his shoulder and lead him very slowly forwards, in total silence. The entire assembly is hushed. This First Voyage nishes with the words: The rst voyage is nished. This voyage symbolises childhood. It is then explained to the candidate that the small group in which he is included as Apprentice Freemason surrounded by two Master Masons symbolises the family group with the two parents and the child. The child depends on them but has rights to be educated and looked after. The Second Voyage, described in the Book of Ritual, is ` called Deuxieme VoyageJeunesseLe Matre. The opening words are: My pupil, follow me. The candidate, holding the hands of two Master Masons, is walked around the lodge at a slightly
faster space than during the First Voyage: at a pace less slow than the rst voyage. Absolute silence, not a single sound. Again, the lodge is in absolute silence as the candidate and his two accompanying Masons walk around the lodge. The Second Voyage nishes with the words: The second voyage is nished. and it is then explained to the candidate that This voyage symbolises youth. No longer symbolic of the family, this voyage symbolises the pupil and his teachers, whose roles succeed those of the parents. Then ` starts The Third Voyage, entitled Troisieme rLAmi. Now the candidates VoyageAge mu arm is held by two Master Masons, one of whom says to him: My friend, lean on me. The Voyage is described in the following terms: The walk must be at a normal and resolved pace. Absolute silence, not a sound. This Third Voyage nished with the words: The third voyage is over. This voyage symbolises adulthood. You completed it like an individual who has reached the peak of his development. Even at this stage of life, the inidividual still needs help and support. Alone, no important endeavour can be productively accomplished.103 Thus, this second account of Les Trois Voyages highlights another critical set of initiatory and experiential attributes: rhythm, speed and pace. Each of the three subsequent stages of Les Trois Voyages involves specic symbolic ritualised movement inside the Lodge.104 These two accounts of key aspects of Les Trois Voyages now allow us to undertake a comparison with the logistics of the architectural promenade. However, before looking at Le Corbusiers own
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Figure 28. Freemasonic image of Le Cabinet de Reexion. (Courtesy the Archives of Le Grand Orient de France.)
description of these logistics, I would like to consider another classic Freemasonic interpretation of the meaning of Les Trois Voyages, the description and analysis by Jean-Pierre Bayard in his Symbolisme Maconnique Traditionnel.105 According to Bayard, the initiation ceremony involves a number of promenades, which are symbolic trials of different aspects and dimensions of life. The rst of these voyages is the Voyage de la Terre and the Epreuve de la Terre, in which the initiatessymbolically putting aside all social status, position and rank, as well as putting in question all acquired knowledge, therefore also all preconceptions, prejudices and defences, thus descending in solitude into the inner depths of their own soulsdescend into the bowels of the earth, 106 experiencing loss, solitude, death, emptiness and angst. The blindfolded initiatethe blindfold that covers your eyes symbolises the irrationality of the individual dominated by passions and submerged in ignorance and superstition107is led through a labyrinth of darkness and silence: The candidate walks along lengthy corridors, ascends, descends, again climbs more stairs; walks blindly through the obscurity. The candidate remains in the depths of the earth, in the primordial labyrinth. 108 This Voyage de la Terre involves obstacles during which many noises may alarm the candidate, 109 at the end of which the initiate reaches Le Cabinet de Reexion, dimly lit, in which the candidate is faced with the traditional and ultimate symbols of self-reection in the face of negation and death: a skull, a sand-glass, a scythe, a mirror, and, painted in silver on the black walls, tears (Fig. 28). Here,
within this dimly lit space inside the earth, the initiate is set the task of replying, in writing, to the three questions concerning the duties that are owed to the family, to humanity and to the self. Then starts the next voyage, the Voyage de lAir and the Epreuve de lAir. These involve the experience of lack of grounding, lack of gravity and equilibrium, lack of stability and solidity, that is, of the experience of chaos and disorientation that is symbolic of the predicament of life itself and which must be surmounted though support and cooperation with others. The initiator explains to the initiate: Sir, the symbolic voyage you have just experienced is the emblem of human life. The sounds you heard represent the passions that stir it; the obstacles you encountered depict the difculties
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the individual encounters and cannot defeat or overcome until he acquires the moral energy that allows him to struggle against misfortune, thanks above all to the support he nds in his fellows.110 The following voyage, the Voyage de lEau and the Epreuve de lEau, follows. This voyagecompleted without obstacles and to a liquid soundis less demanding than the previous ones, which is itself symbolic of the greater calm and equilibrium that results from the achievement of virtuous constancy in the face of lifes struggles following the realisations of the rst two voyages. Then the Voyage du Feu and Epreuve du Feu, experienced in silence and in close proximity to re, symbolises, through quiet warmth, the respect, friendliness and charity that result from the previous voyages. The rhythm and the direction of circulation in the Freemasonic Lodge are symbolic too. Clockwise movement is symbolic of the daily movement of the sun and therefore of light and of life; anticlockwise movement, thus in opposition to the solar system, is symbolic of darkness and of death. Furthermore, the ritual must be completed within a cycle between symbolic sunrise and symbolic sunset. Bayard, from a Freemasonic perspective, analyses the initiatory movement in the following terms: The straight line of the 1st degree corresponds to the notion of the initiation; with the meandering line of the 2nd degree, we are in the space of rites of passage and of the notion of two-dimensional surface. With the straddle of the 3rd degree, we reach the notion of a higher order and of three-dimensional volume. Thus, the rst three degrees range from the line inscribed on
the surface of the earth to the notion of the cosmos. [ . . . ] At all the grades, we rediscover these paces, these circuits, which follow predetermined practices and directions, and we pause at the possible symbolic meanings that we can attribute to them. In any case, let us remember that it is only after these wanderings, these circuits, that light is given to the candidates, who are born into light while at the same time departing from another life.111 Thus, once again, the critical element, in Bayards Freemasonic interpretation, is the sense of quest, generated and embodied through symbolically ritual movement, involving again specic rhythms, speeds and paces.112 And this very notion of a symbolic movement involving specic rhythms, speeds and paces brings us back, full-circle, to the topic under investigation: the architectural promenade. But are Le Corbusiers own descriptions of the architectural promenade comparable and analogous to Freemasonic accounts of Les Trois Voyages? In his account of his visit to Pompeii, Le Corbusier described sequential spaces, including a small space of reection and, then, a larger space, which reveals brilliant illumination beyond: Casa del Noce, at Pompeii. Again the little vestibule which frees your mind from the street. And then you are in the Atrium; four columns in the middle (four cylinders) shoot up towards the shade of the roof, giving a feeling of force and a witness of potent methods; but at the far end is the brilliance of the garden seen through the peristyle which spreads out this light with a large gesture, distributes it and accentuates it,
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Figure 29. Le Corbusier, Towards a new architecture; Casa del Noce, Pompei. (# Fondation Le Corbusier/DACS.) Figure 30. Le Corbusier, Towards a New Architecture. (# Fondation Le Corbusier/DACS.)
stretching widely from left to right, making a great space. . .. (Fig. 29) 113 In another key text, Le Corbusier again describes the architectural promenade. In Three Reminders to Architects, he analyses how The plan is the generator. The eye of the spectator nds itself looking at a site composed of streets and houses. It receives the impact of the masses which rise up around it. If these masses are of a formal kind and have not been spoilt by unseemly variations, if the dispositions of their grouping expresses a clean rhythm and not an incoherent agglomeration, if the relationship of mass to space is in just proportion, the eye transmits to the brain co-ordinated sensations and the mind derives from these satisfactions of a high order: this is architecture. The eye observes, in a large interior, the multiple surfaces of walls and vaults; the cupolas determine the large spaces; the vaults display their own surfaces; the pillars and the walls adjust themselves in accordance with
comprehensible reasons. The whole structure rises from its base and is developed in accordance with a rule which is written on the ground in the plan: noble forms, variety of form, unity of the geometric principle. A profound projection of harmony: this is architecture. The plan is at its basis. Without plan there can be neither grandeur of aim and expression, nor rhythm, nor mass, nor coherence. Without plan we have the sensation, so insupportable to man, of shapelessness, of poverty, of disorder, of wilfulness. The plan calls for the most active imagination. It calls for the most severe discipline also. The plan is what determines everything; it is the decisive moment. [ . . . ] Rhythm is a state of equilibrium which proceeds either from symmetries, simple or complex, or from delicate balancings. Rhythm is an equation . . . (Fig. 30) 114
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In this account of the architectural promenade, which is illustrated with images of templesin addition to the Freemasonic iconographic elements of powerful contrasts between darkness and light, of particular spatial sequences from small cabinet through cavernous space to space of illumination, of the presence of symbolic witnesses of potent methodsLe Corbusier highlights two particular Freemasonic features. First is the forceful tension between, on the one hand, objective (even transcendental) geometry and, on the other hand, subjective (even sensual) experience. Second is the presence of potent symbolic elements. These very same features are picked up by many observers such as William Curtis, who describes the architectural promenade as: The honoric path is clearly signalled by the ramp which is the spine of the whole idea. Le Corbusier referred to this particular version of the promenade architecturale as an Espace Arabe. Even a scrupulous inspection of photographs and drawings cannot hope to recreate the feeling of space, the sense of rising up into an illuminated realm, or the intensive lyricism of sun-lit geometries seen through layers of semi-reecting glass. The building imposes its own order on the senses through sheer sculptural power. To enter is to step into the fantastic world beyond the picture plane.115 A way therefore has to be found to investigate and to clarify these features further. In order to do so, I will consider the work of Le Corbusiers friend, Juan Gris, which provides a paradigmatic case study of these very themes within a Freemasonic framework. This sideways glance at the work of a
painter may seem like a diversion away from the discussion of Jeanneret/Le Corbusier, but it will lead to the notion of symbolic work and thus eventually back to the critical centre of the argument about the architectural promenade.
Juan Gris
Two aspects of the work of Juan Gris therefore need to be considered: its interactive tension between geometry and experience, and its symbolic iconography. These two themes, which are highly relevant to the notion of le pittoresque, will thus move this investigation forward into the nature of the architectural promenade. First, let me lay to rest the issue of Juan Gris and Freemasonry. It must be understood that belonging to a Freemasonic lodge of either Le Grand Orient de France or La Grande Loge de France was very much part of intellectual and artistic life in Paris at the time. Juan Gris was initially rejected by La Loge Voltaire on 6th May, 1921. He was eventually accepted and initiated into this same Loge Voltaire on 2nd February, 1923, becoming Companion on 18th January, 1924 and Master on 27th February, 1925.116 Now, given that Juan Gris was deeply committed to Freemasonry, the fundamental question that arises is whether this Freemasonic commitment can help to clarify the nature of his work?117 And this, as the reader will have by now understood, is also the fundamental question which underlies this investigation into the nature of the architectural promenade. The case study of Juan Gris is therefore of critical importance to this essay. Furthermore, entire books have been written about Juan Gris without a single mention of his
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Figure 31. Juan Gris, The Painters Window. (1925, oil on canvas, 100 x 81 cm.) (# DACS.)
active participation in Freemasonry at that very specic moment when, after 1923, his art underwent several radical transformations. Juan Gris, as is traditional of Freemasonry, was reserved about his Freemasonic involvement to such an extent that the traditional Freemasonic funeral tribute at his burial generated surprised speculation as to its source and meaning. Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler recalled how He was buried on May 13, in the morning. Only a few of the wreathes were on the deathbed, the rest were piled against the wall of the house and on the pavement. One large wreath bore the following inscription: To Juan Gris, from his companions in the struggle. This inscription puzzled many of those present, as it was not sent by his fellow artists.118 Christopher Green, however, discusses Juan Gris Freemasonic initiation in 1923 in relation to his social position both within Parisian society and within the society of La Touraine.119 Green, however, does not attempt to relate this commitment, and obviously profound experience, to his work and notes that [f]urther research is needed on the relevance of Masonic symbolism to Griss painting.120 It is precisely such an analysis that must be attempted at this stage of the argument. Then Green, reviewing the various evaluative interpretations of Juan Griss work between 1923 and the year of his death, 1927, calls attention to the interaction between the painting of experience and the painting of conceptualisations and, as part of the process of resolution of this dichotomy, he describes how, for Gris, [t]he sensual is declared through handling to be a function of the personal. Gris for the rst time uses handling as signature.121 This
he does, for example, in The Painters Window of 1925 (Fig. 31). Green then calls attention to the fact that [a]ll around is the evidence of the brushs activity, of the way it has pushed and kneaded and moulded the pigmented medium in more or less viscous states into smooth or slightly coarsened surfaces.122 And such, observation would seem to support, is clearly the case: the painting includes formless123 patches of pure pigment. This opposition between geometrical form and material sensuality is central to the radical change that took place in the art of Juan Gris with Seated Harlequin of 1923, which, in
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Figure 32. Amedee Ozenfant, Bathers in a Grotto (1930 1931, 73 x 91.5 cm.) (# DACS.) Figure 33. Amedee Ozenfant, LOmbre de la main. (1929, oil on cotton-duck, 81 x 105 cm.) (# Musees royaux des beaux-arts de Belgique, Bruxelles/DACS.)
turn, parallels the ways in which Amedee Ozenfants work, curiously, fundamentally changed in comparable ways around 1927 and 1928, the year of his painting, Universal. And it is for the years around 1925 that one nds archival evidence of Amedee Ozenfants presumed Freemasonic activities. Amedee Ozenfant is listed in one contemporary Freemasonic list as artist, writer, editor of the discontinued LEsprit Nouveau; member of La Loge Art et Science.124 Universal is the representation of planetary constellations, including sun and moon, on a dark background, whose new organic features would be present in all his future work such as Bathers in a Grotto (Fig. 32). Around 1929, an element of (what Francoise Ducros has described as) realisme magique (magical realism) entered his work in a painting such as LOmbre de la main (1929) including, again, the elements of moon and sun against a oating space of darkness, into the composition of which appears an illuminated hand casting a shadow, thus bringing in the themes of
light and darkness in an innite cosmological space (Fig. 33). A second critical turning point in the work of Amedee Ozenfant was the year 1932, during which he decided that his painting Vie (Fig. 34, 1931 1938) was unsatisfactory and he renounced his purist aesthetic. It was in late 1932 that he started to rework Vie, eventually nishing it in 1938 after many modications and interim stages. Ozenfants Vie is reminiscent of Juan Gris Seated Harlequin (Fig. 35, 1923). Both feature powerfully amorphous body shapes which go totally against the strictly geometrical shapes of the earlier paintings. In addition, pinks and reds dominate the colour range and the tonalities. Amedee Ozenfants development echoes in this respect the evolution in the work of Juan Gris who, according to Christopher Green, attempted in these years to bring notions of phenomenological experience into his work, which hitherto had been based on conceptual constructions.125 And this feature, as we have already seen in Les Trois
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Figure 34. Amedee Ozenfant, Vie. (1931 1938, oil on cotton-duck, 300 x 425 cm.) (# Musee national dart moderne, Paris/DACS.) Figure 35. Juan Gris, Seated Harlequin. (1923, oil on canvas, 73 x 92 cm.) (# DACS.)
Voyages with their simultaneous extreme geometry (the rhythm, speed and pace of ritualised footsteps) and extreme phenomenological experience (sound and heat, light and darkness, sight and blindness) is a central aspect of Freemasonic ritual. Indeed, Pierrick LHyver, in his analysis of Freemasonic ritual, describes how thus the body, source of pleasure and suffering, can also be the source of the most profound thoughts. 126 But, furthermore, what Green does not mention is what I consider to be a new spatial quality in the art of Juan Gris indeed, a new spatiality altogether, which is perhaps more architectural than painterly. The formless patches of pure paint in The Painters Window oat on (or in) a black space. The entire composition is tilted at planes and at angles, which, being discontinuous with the planes and the angles of their supporting surfaces such as the table upon which they are apparently placed, hover in space. Everything here thus oats in space. And these oating objects hover in a
particular space: a space that is itself suspended suspended between interior enclosure and exterior innity, between an enclosed sienna-coloured earthy room and an open celestial innite space, precisely that symbolic witness of potent methods, Le Corbusiers ineffable space when a boundless depth opens up, effaces the wall, drives away contingent presences, accomplishes the miracle of ineffable space, 127 the space of the initiatory moment, which we have seen described in Les Trois Voyages. But, here, another brief historiographical reection is in order. Research and interpretation tend to be caught between two methodological approaches, which need addressing before I can advance this investigation into the architectural promenade further. A rst approach, based on the conviction that a particular cultural feature, in this case Freemasonry, is signicant, sets out to clarify how and why. A second approach, questioning the relevance of the cultural feature being investigated, sets out to
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explore its problematical signicance. The rst approach necessarily treats the visual data as illustrational evidence, on a rm ground of certainty. The second approach hovers between hypothesis and test, between deduction and induction, on the edge of doubt. The critical problem therefore arises at the initial point of observation: what are we observing? It is in order to circumvent such observational subjectivity, to avoid reading Freemasonic values into the art of Juan Gris, that direct observation of Juan Gris work will be replaced by the use of third-party descriptions of his work, which, because they do not mention and consider Freemasonry, can be taken as neutral in this respect. Such are the studies of Juan Gris by Mark Rosenthal and, as already mentioned, by Christopher Green. Two types of statements can be observed in Rosenthals study. There are aesthetic judgements and more factual descriptions. For Rosenthal, Juan Gris workconsisting of an intensely satisfying, hermetic relationship of pictorial elements, one balanced by the next and then another, until the subtlety of resonance reaches an exquisite pitch128is also dened by the potential for secular subjects to have metaphysical meaning, because, though he hated conventional religion, he valued what he termed spiritual qualities in art. 129 Rosenthal quotes Gertrude Steins statement that, for Juan Gris, still life was not a seduction it was a religion. 130 All of this would seem to t Freemasonrys fundamental concern with the use of objects as suggestive of metaphysical meanings, that is, of objects as inherently symbolic. But, here, Rosenthal writes that Symbols were anathema for
Gris. Rather, he composed and thought in metaphysical terms . . . [in that] he expected to evoke certain sensations and meaningful suggestions simply by the lyric effect with which he described an object in combination with other objects. 131 It is thus clear that any use by Gris of the object as symbol is one that does not depend on a notion of symbol as an abstract and conventional representation of shared societal values (such as in Barthes example of the ag as symbol132), but, in a diametrically opposite way, as something deeply and personally meaningful through bodily, physical and perceptual experiencewhich would seem to correspond with the ways in which the object is used symbolically in Freemasonic ritual through the means of a process of ritual work (in a way perhaps reminiscent of the logistics of Freuds concept of Traumarbeit?) to arrive at meanings resulting from directly experienced and observable material, spatial and geometric features. Such a ritual process of symbolic work is furthermore suggested by Rosenthals description of the contrast between an anecdotal world of appearance and a realm of metamorphosis133 which he likens to a theatrical setting, in which the curtain is pulled back for our entrance from the perceptual world to another134as is the case in Freemasonic ritual. Indeed, Rosenthal describes Juan Gris work as intensely focused on the notion of transformations since his pictures are at once the recording of a still-life and the transformation of such a situation into an exercise in pictorial pyrotechnics. 135 Although Rosenthal does not explicitly, as one would be tempted to do, comment on the Freemasonic iconography in Juan Gris
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workblack-and-white chessboards (symbol of the checkered pattern of good and evil in life), acute angles (the form of the compass) and right angles (the form of the set-square136) and professional artists tools as symbols of workhe does describe the presence, importance and signicance of these forms when, for example, he notes that Lipchitz said that Gris revered the triangle.137 Rosenthal also describes the peculiarly contradictory aspects of Juan Gris work, such as the way in which objects are sometimes reduced to signs while at other times they are virtually real; or the way in which two-dimensional objects are sometimes opposed to three-dimensional space, while at other times objects are fully merged into space.138 These, as above, could be seen as the experience of the transformation of the object back and forth between physical presence and symbolic representation through the process of ritual work. Now, this particular notion of symbolic work needs to be investigated because of its relevance to, rst, the concept of le pittoresque and, secondly, the concept of the architectural promenade.
Symbolic work and voyage

In his account of an initiation at La Loge LAmitie in 1909, Hans Wille described symbols in use: The idea that I had been mistaken was becoming ever more insistent and lled me with sorrow. I could not accept that earnest men could amuse themselves with such games and, despite all my willingness, at that moment, I could grasp no symbolic meaning whatsoever. [ . . . ] It was while reecting on these past moments, when one
becomes aware of ones weakness, which appears in its entire enormity and when its meanness becomes visible, that my companion lead me into that small black room where the symbols of death emerged one by one from the darkness as the eyes became accustomed to the darkness. [ . . . ] I had the presentiment that I was going to symbolically relive all the fundamental phases of the initial and lofty philosophical idea. I answered with unfounded audacity to the question that was asked of me, to the effect that I was still determined to become a Freemason. [. . .] I saw no obstables to removing my shoes as well as all objects made of metal, having understood the symbolic meaning of these preparations before the accompanying Masonic brother had even had time to explain them to me, and it was thus that I was led to the temple entrance. [ . . . ] It is natural that a ceremony, of which he cannot have a personal experience, would seem ridiculous to a profane, and that he would not enter a lodge, as he would not have been to understand the discreetly disguised symbols whose meanings only a somewhat serious thought process could reveal to him.139 These symbols are thus used to evoke meanings explicitly and self-consciously. These meanings are acknowledged as open-ended, ambivalent, ambiguous. Bayard writes that the symbol has different possibilities of meaning depending on the degree of knowledge of the interpreter . . . through their analogical correspondences. Then, and only then, are they able to be suggestive. To suggest is to awaken. 140 The Freemasonic symbol explicitly and openly retainsand in this very feature is seen to reside its instrumental valueits simultaneous
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representational and ctional status, which it does not try to overcome and make invisible. Its usefulness is seen as consisting of this dual nature. Now, this goes fundamentally against the entire entrenched tenet of that Western Platonic traditionsometimes referred to by that shorthand term, logosaccording to which representation is in essence inauthentic and must therefore be overcome. Precisely in a spirit of opposition to this notion of representation as essentially false, Bayard writes that: The symbol allows the awakening of ideas; it is one form of awareness on one of the paths of our existence. This silent language, outcome both of the historical and of the universal, allows one to penetrate the essence of things and to rediscover the stages on the initiatory journey. [ . . . ] The symbol encompasses both the past and the future in gestation. Thus the symbol has different possibilities of meaning depending on the degree of knowledge of the interpreter . . .141 To this valuable illusive nature of the symbol is attached a further quality: the authenticity of the materiality of the symbol, as we have already ` seen in the accounts by Hans Wille and Eugene Schaltenbrand.142 Real sound, water, re and wind are used. This concrete reality of the symbol, however, is not meant to overcome its representative role or to deny its ctional status, but, on the contrary, to render the ctional status even more visible. The illusion is presented as allusion; the representation presents its own representational nature. This play with illusion is unlike that of allegory, since appreciation of the
transience of things, and the concern to rescue them for eternity, is one of the strongest impulses in allegory.143 Nor is this self-conscious play with illusion allied to irony. Unlike irony, which is capable of engendering duration as the illusion of a continuity that it knows to be illusionary,144 this symbolism does not attempt to create illusory duration but simply states such aporia visibly and explicitly. Unlike irony, which states the continued impossibility of reconciling the world of ction with the actual world 145 as a continual state of disenchantment, the symbol here states difference and distance precisely in order to advocate its overcoming through work, that is, as a means towards reenchantment. And, indeed, not only is work the Freemasonic term specically usedle travail du ritual maconniquebut this notion of work is associated with historical aspects of eighteenth-century Freemasonic culture, and can be traced back to such cultural phenomena as the Grand Tour, which could also be overlaid by Freemasonic character and associations. Such a classic and foundational travel diary is that of the Viaggio sul Reno e nei suoi contorni by Aurelio de Giorgi Bertola of 1795.146 As with our previous detour via Juan Gris to clarify the conceptual notion of symbolic work, a second detour (which may appear at rst somewhat digressive) via de Giorgi Bertola will be in order to allow the further clarication of the concept itself of work, thereby eventually bringing us back again to a critical aspect of the architectural promenade. In his diary, Bertola organises the accounts and descriptions in specic ways and according to
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specic modes, which depart signicantly from the original travel notes in which he recorded his travels, which had taken place in 1787 (that is, a full eight years before their transcriptions). Bertola himself describes his intention to give a better order to his diary in its published form. Special to this account is the signicance given to work. Bertolas landscapes are not simply pastoral landscapes populated by idyllic shepherds and shepherdesses. Two features of Bertolas landscapes stand out. First, work in the form of hard labour gures in themwork that is exhausting and exemplary; work that leads to a better state of affairs. The landscapes are thus populated by farmers, shermen and other labourers, whose work is presented as the foundation of the pleasures of rural life. Work and pleasure are not opposed since there is pleasure in work. (Incidentally, the landscape is immensely varied in its congurations, which are also a source of pleasure in that their inhabitants experience this formal and sensual variety and multiplicity. We encounter once again the theme noted previously of sensuality and geometry.) Specic instances of this type of work are described, such as the notion of the agreeable surprise which arises when the pleasurable is reached through the terrible,147 and the notion of the labyrinth: My preferred road is that, which, after having led me to the centre of a labyrinth of dense hedges and of a forest of chestnut trees, brings me to a small meadow surrounded by olive trees [ . . . ]. I stop to contemplate from afar the work of the shermen, as if I were seeing them through the lenses of a magic lantern.148
With these notions of labour and of the labyrinth Freemasonic symbols of the tortuous route on the road to truth and its inherent difcultiesBertola is describing not just the real landscape, but he is recreating an initiatory voyage. The travel diary thus takes its dynamic in the very notion of the initiatory voyage.149 Thus, landscape is a place of initiatory work and of ritualistic labour in the search for greater perfection. It would seem very much in this spirit that Le Corbusier describes the rural landscape which surrounds the Villa Savoye and its architectural promenade. This countryside is specically agricultural. Referring to Virgil, whose Bucolics and Georgics (The Art of Husbandry) describe Roman agricultural occupations and labour, Le Corbusier writes that: The inhabitants, who came here because this countryside with its rural life was beautiful, will contemplate it, maintained intact, from their hanging gardens, or through the four sides of the long windows. Their home life will be set in a Virgilian dream.150 It is thus a landscape with its rural life in which work takes place. Neither a symbol of an ideal pastoral paradise without need for work, nor an allegory of a world in a state of loss, it is a world working towards the achievement of an ideal, a lyrically efcient one. 151 And it is through this landscape that the architectural promenade proceeds on the basis of le pittoresque. And this therefore brings us back to a critical point in our exploration of the architectural promenade via the notion of work that is inherent in the pittoresque. Le pittoresque both incorporated and embracedas was observed but not yet explicable at the outset of this essaythe
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Figure 36. Le Corbusier, Chapel of Notre Dame du Haut, Ronchamp: the sound of church-bells next to the architectural promenade. (# Fondation Le Corbusier/DACS; photograph, # the author.) Figure 37. Le ` Corbusier, Le Poeme de lAngle Droit, G.3. (# Fondation Le Corbusier/DACS.)
apparently opposed notions of the constant beauty of the historical past and the beauties of modernist change through the notion of work as progress.152 And so, nally, the circuitous journey of this essay brings us back to our initial question about the architectural promenade. Encompassing interior and exterior space, architecture and landscape, the architectural promenade is an initiatory voyage of symbolic work, along which emblematic elementsdarkness and light, air and earth, and re and watersaturate space. Indeed, such
elements were explored by Le Corbusier in La route de terre, La route de fer, La route deau and La route dair in Sur Les Quatre Routes (Fig 36).153 These too are the very symbolic themes ` of Le Poeme de lAngle Droit, which nishes on the image of a hand drawing a right-angle, itself located over those two key Freemasonic symbols of the right-angle and the compass. About this right-angle, which is the Freemasonic symbol of droiture (righteousness), Le Corbusiers Poem of the Right Angle (Figs 37, 38) proclaims that: It is the answer and the guide the fact
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Figure 38. The Journal of La Grande Loge Suisse Alpina: Freemasonic symbols of the right-angle and the acute angle. Figure 39. CharlesEdouard Jeanneret, The Villa Favre-Jacot. (# Fondation Le Corbusier/DACS; photograph, # the author.)
an answer a choice [...] It is the answer and the guide the fact my answer my choice. It is again this concern and belief in the symbolism of the compass and the right angle that we nd in the closing pages of Le Modulor: The curse of architecture are the compasses . . . of the Beaux Arts, indifferent to measures and dimensions, making no distinction between a metre and a hundred metres and a kilometre, used in an operation which is abstract, without bones or esh, without life, without blood. [ . . . ] But there are also other compasses, those of Pierre du Craon. The compasses of the geometrician, able to execute, to determine, to conjure up between their points, at will, an imprisoning circle or a projection towards innity, skilled in the play of geometry, opening the door to the boundless and perilous joys of symbols and metaphysics,
sometimes bringing a solution, sometimes the temptation to escape. A dangerous tool, depending on the nature of the spirit that guides the hand. I would classify the results in this way: The spirit of geometry produces tangible shapes, expressions of architectural realities: upright walls, perceptible surfaces between four walls, the right angle, hallmark of balance and stability. I call it spirit under the sign of the set-square . . . [ . . . ] The compasses (not those on the ftyfranc note!) explain all that is limitless, esoteric, Pythagorean, and so forth. . .154 And Le Corbusier explained in a letter to his intimate, Chaux-de-fonnier, long-standing family ` friend, Marcel Levaillant, that Le Poeme de lAngle Droit was not only the foundation of my being but also the very foundation of my architecture ` and of my art. 155 Le Poeme de lAngle Droit now brings me back again to the Freemasonic ` architecture of Robert Belli and of Eugene Schaltenbrand, which, like that of CharlesEdouard Jeannerets own architecture at the Villa
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Figure 40. CharlesEdouard Jeanneret, the Villa Jeanneret-Perret. (# Fondation Le Corbusier/DACS/Fonds Le Corbusier, ` Bibliotheque de la Ville de La Chaux-de-Fonds.) Figure 41. CharlesEdouard Jeanneret, the Villa Schwob. (# Fondation Le Corbusier/DACS; photograph, # the author.) Figure 42. Le Corbusier, Villa Savoye: the start to the architectural promenade in the entrance hall with symbolic objects of purication. (# Fondation Le Corbusier/DACS; photograph, # the author.)
Favre-Jacot, Villa Jeanneret-Perret and Villa Schwob (Figs 39, 40, 41), recalls the moral architecture of Freemasonry: classicising, unadorned, intensely symbolic in its iconographyvolumetrically cubical and surmounted by symbolic elements on the roof and intensely ritualistic in its circulatory system, as is, of course, the case for Le Corbusiers Modernism after 1917 . . . (Figs 42, 43, 44, 45). It, too, by its peculiar volumetric simplicity, is an architecture with a moral mission to work together for human
progress by rst seeking ones own personal moral improvement . . .156 And so, could this provide us with an answer to the mystery, or the riddle, with which we started our journey, that is, to the puzzle of the iconography of the double F, the FF, on the enamelled doors that greet the pilgrims to the chapel of Ronchamp at the end both of their voyage and of the architectural promenade, and which Le Corbusier repeated in his explanatory sketchbook about Ronchamp? Because the ritual Freemasonic form ` of address is precisely Mes Freres Franc-macons, which, in Freemasonic language, is written as FF. But this raises another question. To whom then might this FF have been addressed? Would anyone of any signicance have understood this clandestine language? Would this have been meaningful to anyone of any importance? Would, for example, the patron who was instrumental in obtaining the Ronchamp commission for Le
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Figure 43. Le Corbusier, Villa Savoye: the architectural promenade with gure from the lm LArchitecture daujourdhui. (# Fondation Le Corbusier/DACS.) Figure 44. Le Corbusier, Villa Savoye: the culmination of the architectural promenade with the window unto the sky. (# Fondation Le Corbusier/DACS; photograph, # the author.) Figure 45. Le Corbusier, Villa Savoye: the combination of geometry and sensual experience in the bathroom. (# Fondation Le Corbusier/DACS; photograph, # the author.)
Corbusier, as well as eventually the commission for La Tourette, have understood the signicance of this FF? This patron was the Dominican priest, ` Pere Marie-Alain Couturier. During World War Two, when some presumed Jewish-FreemasonicBolshevik conspiracy [was] a favourite mantra of the French Right,157 the Vichy regime of Marshal Petain actively and successfully sought out Jews,
Freemasons, Socialists and Communists for deportation to Nazi concentration camps. Couturier, who was then in Canada, spoke out against this in his letters to right-wing members of his family, in which he reacted vehemently to the dissolution of the Masonic loges158 and wrote, for example, Jews and Freemasons have provided us with exem` plarsa frank contribution. 159 Pere Marie-Alain Couturier would thus have fully understood the
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emotional reference of the FF on the enamelled pilgrimage door of Ronchamp as a mark of that essential dualism in French national identity 160 between, on the one hand, archconservative Catholicism against which Trouin and Le Corbusier had also had to struggle at the unrealised project for La Sainte-Baume, where, according to Trouin, Corbu whispered to me They have no idea what we are planning, just as the mediaeval bishops had no idea about the symbols of the builders of cathedrals 161with its reaction against modern art and architecture, and, on the other hand, forwardlooking, sometimes even avant-garde, socialist republicanism (Fig. 46).162 This, however, has unintentionally brought me to an entirely different part of the story: the story that developed after Charles-Edouard Jeannerets departure from La Chaux-de-Fonds, and the story of the Freemasonic links of many of his Parisian friends and associates. These associations are intricate and multiple. Juan Gris Masonic application was sup ported by Paul Dermee, Freemason, and one of the three founders of LEsprit Nouveau. Rene Allendy, Juan Gris doctor, and Freemason and sponsor of Juan Gris to La Loge Voltaire, was a friend of Le Corbusierinscribed copies of his books are in Le Corbusiers libraryas well as a regular contributor to LEsprit Nouveau.163 Rene Allendy was also the author of La Symbolique des nombres of 1921.164 The name of Amedee Ozenfant also appears in the Masonic archives. And so on . . . But this is another story that takes me well beyond the scope of this essay and beyond the discussion of the architectural promenade, and which must therefore remain beyond the scope of this
Figure 46. Dinner of ` Pere Couturier, Le Corbusier and Yvonne Gallis at rue Nungesseret-Coli, 11th July, 1948. (# Fondation Le Corbusier/DACS.)
essay, in order nally, after several apparent digressions, to move towards a conclusion.
La pensee maconnique/compagnonnique
Joseph Rykwert, in a lecture on Johannes Itten, wrote that Itten represents the Bauhaus at its darkest. But then I think it was also the Bauhaus at its richest. 165 I place this essay under the protective aegis of Rykwerts quotation, or, rather, of what he added subsequently to the published version of his lecture, namely that: This, as it seemed to me, unexceptionable contribution to the history of the Bauhaus provoked the fury of a number of Bauhausler, who felt that I was trying to denigrate the holy house. In fact
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my intentionin showing its diversity and richness, and the awareness on the part of some of its masters of the deeper issues touchedhad been rather to underline its importance beyond the cliches of the hand-books.166 My topic here has been another holy one, that of Le Corbusier, Architect of the Century 167 and of the Swiss cultural context that was then specic to La Chaux-de-Fonds. Concepts such as la promenade architecturale remain today part of our architectural heritage and therefore need our careful consideration. This was well understood by Le Corbusiers faithful chef datelier, Andre Wogenscky in his reections on the possible meaning of Le Corbusiers work: The right angle is the foundation of his architectural thought. All his realised buildings, all his unrealised projects are witnesses to this fact. But what really characterises his work is that not a single gure is devoid of meaning. As soon as he erects an architectural form in space, he charges it with signicant meaning. The right angle is not just a form of geometry, but a symbol.168 And this topic of potential meanings brings me to an inscription by Le Corbusierwhat Charles Saunders Peirce would have called a trace169from which derive two crucial features of such architectural concepts as the architectural promenade (which is here under revision) and ineffable space (which is here but cursorily mentioned). In his copy of Jean Gimpels Les Batisseurs de Cathedrales of 1958,170 which Jean Gimpel has inscribed to him, Le Corbusier has sketched diagrams of geometrical gures throughout. He
read it very carefully. And, in addition, he extensively underlined entire sentences on two specic pages: those two specic pages, which, describing the history and traditions of Freemasonry (Fig. 47), explain how: Little by little, in the Loges, the proportion of manual workers diminished in favour of cultured members, of non-operative masons. One can consider that the history of the builders of English cathedrals nished with the formation of the Grand Lodge in London in 1717. It is then that speculative freemasonry really developed . . .171 Here, Le Corbusier is making a note of the historical/mythical relationships between, on the one hand, mediaeval masons and their guilds (socalled operative masons) and, on the other hand, Freemasons (so-called speculative masons). And, indeed, after his denitive departure for Paris in 1917, Jeanneret/Le Corbusiers Parisian networks included members of the institutional inheritors of the mediaeval guilds, the Compagnonnages. One of his most prestigious commissions, the Unite dhabitation in Marseilles, came from a Compag` non, Eugene Claudius-Petit. Le Corbusiers Le Modulor was written in dialogue with ClaudiusPetit; Le Corbusier himself recalls how the Modulor was devised while crossing the Atlantic in the company of Claudius-Petit aboard the cargo ship Vernon S.-Hood. 172 Claudius-Petit, post-war Minister of Reconstruction and Urbanism, addressed the guilds at a dinner on 29th January, 1952 at La Soiree du Compagnonnage du Devoir at the Palais de Chaillot. He spoke of the historical importance of Compagnonnage, and he explained that Compagnonnage is still alive. [ . . . ] You not only instruct
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Figure 47. Le Corbusier, annotations in Jean Gimpel, Les Batisseurs de Cathedrales, pp. 180 181. (# Fondation Le Corbusier.)
good manual workers, you educate human beings, who are, in addition, accomplished individuals.173 Another powerful individual in Le Corbusiers networks who was close to the Compagnonnages was Raoul Dautry. And then there is Le Corbusiers passionate involvement in the unrealised project for La Sainte-Baume though his close friendship with Edouard Trouin. La Sainte-Baume is a focal point of the initiatory voyage through France of the Compagnons, Le
Tour de France. Antoine Moles, a master carpenter who knew Le Corbusier, dedicated to La Sainte Baume a chapter of his Histoire des charpentiers, of which an inscribed copy for Le Corbusier is in his personal library.174 Indeed, in this book, Moles reproduces an illustration from Viollet-le-Ducthe very book in which the young Jeanneret had written I bought this work August 1, 1908, with the money from my rst payment from Messrs. Perret. I bought it in order to learn, because,
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Figure 48. Viollet-leDuc, Dictionnaire raisonne de larchitecture francaise ` du XIe au XVIe siecle: Compagnon with his ritual symbols.
knowing, I will then be able to create 175that features a Compagnon with the ritual symbols of his Compagnonnage (Fig. 48). As can be briey glimpsed from this small number of selected, but major, built and unbuilt projects in Le ` Corbusiers uvre Complete, Compagnonnage appears to be of critical signicance. Now, during their ritual voyage around France, the Tour de France, the Compagnons travel from one cayenne (the local quarters of the guilds) to another. This voyage is a key element in how the Compagnonnages bring a spiritual vision to their skills and organisation, and a spiritual dimension to their sociability: For the Compagnonnage, this spiritual dimensionwhich allows being and doing according to
an other wayis rst of all lived as part of everyday experience within the community of the Compagnons du Devoir, but is also lived as part of the personal quest along which each individual is led during their initiation. This human dimension is necessarily to be constructed and lived in the course of their voyage on the highways and byways around France, and other places, during this period, but also later in their professional and domestic lives, as well as in their duties and responsibilities within civic society.176 Thus the notions and the realities of a ritual and initiatory voyage are central to Compagnonnage too, as described in the account by one Compagnon, Abel Boyer: Each one of us is summoned in turn; we are led into a room crowded with Compagnons. Around the room, white curtains are hung to hide from our eyes what only the Compagnons are allowed to see. Facing us, three Compagnons preside at a table covered in white. We are asked, surrounded by an awsome silence, if we wish to be received Compagnons. Upon our corroboration, we are told to deposit the products of our work, which are accepted on a white cloth. [ . . . ] By then, it must be at least midnight; we await anxiously the verdicts. At last, a young Compagnon descends with the list of the selected; of twenty-four, eighteen are accepted. I am on the list. A few moments later, we are wandering through the foggy streets of this December night. We have no idea where we are going. Where we have been led, we will never know. We felt as if we were sinking into the earth: it is the symbol of death. Will we die? Will we be
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born again? Yes, if we are worthy. And the clocks have struck midnight. For the experience of rebirth, courage is needed. Vices have assailed us, tempted us, seduced us. Bad luck to those who yield; over two weeks, the hide on my scalp reminded me that not playing straight with Compagnons is not a good idea. At last, we have been puried, the storm has lulled, the rising sun nds us at the foot of a baptistery and my sponsors have agreed to the name that I chose a long time ago, but it will now import to honour this name. [ . . . ] And, when, from deep inside the woods, the Compagnons led us back to the Motherhouse, we felt like new beings, scanning with elation the verses of la Gloire in such a way that window-shutters half-opened as we passed. No longer were we Candidates, we were Accepted Compagnons though not yet Accomplished Compagnons. And to achieve accomplishment, it would be necessary eventually to be recognised as such in one of the ve chief cayennes (lodges).177 Another account describes how: It was Friday evening. All candidates from the province who wanted to undergo their professional tests and solicit the title of Compagnon, ` ocked to la Mere (the Motherhouse). Then, inquiring of the candidate if he has fully reected on what he was about to undergo, and reminding him that there is still time to withdraw in view of the imminent moment at which he is to undergo major trials and be exposed to great dangers. . . [they] will lead him by the hand around la Chambre (the Room) while on his knees! Then he will arise and the
compagnons will perform the trials following the traditional customs, all the while keeping silent under threat of the usual nes. [ . . . ] . . . then the Roleur (leader) will guide the newly accepted candidate to another room without light and while still blindfolded . . .178 Thus, the initiation maconnique and the reception compagnonnique mirror each other. However, the ways in which a pensee maconnique/compagnonni ` que permeates Le Corbusiers uvre Complete in Paris after 1917 must necessarily be brushed aside in this essay, which has specically set as its focus the period 1887 1917 in La Chaux-de-Fonds. One last point must be made about these relationships between, on the one hand, the Freemasonic culture of Jeannerets networks in La Chaux-deFonds and, on the other hand, the criss-crossing and overlapping freemasonic/guild networks of Le Corbusier in Paris, which impacts on the nal conclusion of this essay. We have seen how Compagnons and Francmacons share fundamental concepts (voyage, initiation, symbolic work, etcetera). In so doing, they also share fundamental iconographic symbolism (the compass, the right angle, etcetera). But they share another important feature: a particular form of associative thinking, which needs to be briey analysed before nally concluding, because it nuances the empirical discoveries that have been described here. And this can best be done through a consideration of the signicance of a particular form of associative thinking to be found in Rabelais, which was of great signicance to Le Corbusier and to his family, to Freemasonry in La Chaux-deFonds, and to the Compagnonnages in France.
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From this particular form of associative thinking will evolve the notion of pensee maconnique/ compagnonnique.179 Rabelais played an ever-present and playful role in the family life of the young Charles-Edouard Jeanneret. Towards the end of his life, Le Corbusier recalled childhood memories of his family: Revealing details: the elder sister of L-Cs father, an old lady given to religion of a sensible kindit was the second half of the 19th century, chided her nephews with words like these (L-Cs parents did much the same): Beau tenebreux, maritorne, dor, matamore, artaban, malandrin, rodomont, me ` er-a-bras, fanfaron, sacripant, tire-larigot, godelureau, turlupin, fanfreluche, gringalet, cocquasse (casserole). Some were from Cervantes, others from Rabelais . . . Such words were no more than traces, and had disappeared for good in the following generation. They were lost and forgotten, together with the deep reasons which had brought these peasant-craftsmen into contact with the masterpieces of earlier centuries.180 Rabelais also played an important part in the life of his closest friends in La Chaux-de-Fonds. In 1925, Humbert travelled to Paris in the hope of nding a publisher for his illustrated edition of Rabelais, during which he visited Le Corbusier on 28th and 29th January.181 Le Corbusier himself read Rabelais at important moments in his life. When working on the design for Ronchamp, Le Corbusier started a new sketchbook in April, 1954, numbered H32, in which he copied parts of Book Five of Rabelais Gargantua et Pangagruel.182 And it would seem that Le Corbusier identied with elements in Rabelais, judging from his annotations in his 1951
edition of Rabelais.183 On page 718, where Rabelais writes Qui a fonde pillotize . . ., Le Corbusier wrote Pilotis. On page 55, to Rabelais sentence Le blanc doncques signie joye, soulas et liesse . . ., Le Corbusier noted Blanc signication. And, both in La Chaux-de-Fonds and in Paris, Rabelais was associ ated with la pensee maconnique/compagnonnique. In La Chaux-de-Fonds, Humbert included numerous symbolsthe acute angle, the right angle, the pendulum, etceterain his illustrations for Gargantua by Rabelais (Fig. 49). While, in Paris, Josephin Peladan, close friend of William Ritter, Jeannerets long-standing and intimate condant, made the explicit link between Rabelais and the Compagnonnages in his book about the mediaeval guilds: The literati swear and judge by the printed word only, overlooking that the Middle Ages made use of drawing more than language boldly and resolutely to express its inner thoughts, and that many creations of the Renaissance belong to the ne arts and the decorative arts. Architecture and heraldry are necessary in order to understand Rabelais.184 This brings me to the point in question. La pensee maconnique/compagnonnique operates differently in its associative logic and its progressive dynamics. Barbara C. Bowen argues that Rabelais preferred the values of paradox, enigma, argument, antithesis, and ambiguity185 to those values of the following centurysymmetry, order and balancein order to disconcert the reader, resulting in a state of questioning and of reection. In this respect, Rabelais uses complexity, contradiction and divergence. 186 Bakhtine also describes the structure of Rabelais language in the following terms:
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Figure 49. Charles Humbert, illustration for Gargantua by Rabelais. (Humbert catalogue from the Musee des Beaux-Arts, La-Chauxde-Fonds: inside front cover, in the collection ` of the Bibliotheque de la Ville de La Chaux-deFonds.)
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This is why all forms and symbols of carnivalesque language are imbued with the lyricism of alternation and renewal, with the awareness of the joyous relativity of truth and of authority. Carnivalesque language is predominantly marked by the novel logic of things that are reversed, contradictory, of continuous permutations between above and beneath ([the symbolism of] the wheel), between front and back, of the most diverse parodies and disguises, denigrations, profanations, farcical coronations and dethronements . . . as in an upside-down world.187 We are thus within an entirely different logic of language and of association, the dynamics of which were described to me by a contemporary member of La Loge LAmitie as for example, replacing the usual terms for colours by words from slang, and standard images by their symbolic content. Thus, for example, jaws become red, [. . .] etc. One plays on words as in Rabelais.188 As stated previously, Le Corbusier read Rabelais at important moments in ` his life. It was expressly Rabelais Le Cinquieme Livre that Le Corbusier quoted in My Work.189 And in Le ` Cinquieme Livre,190 Rabelais specically refers to a different architectural traditionthe tradition of Colonnas Hypnerotomachia Poliphilii, of which Liane Lefaivre writes that Libido, the most abject of all prohibitions, is now elevated to the status of one of the highest imperatives.191
Endings and beginnings

To conclude, nally, it would thus seem that symbolic work, through the associative carnival esque multivalency of its pensee maconnique/ compagnonnique, indeed takes on other levels of
meaning, well beyond the cliches of the handbooks,192 including for such fundamental architectural concepts as la promenade architecturale. A pensee maconnique/compagnonnique is not an excluding category, but a structural principle that specically allows, indeed encourages, multiplicity and multivalency. Thus, other inuences and imports, such as Camillo Sitte or Rodolphe Topfer, can nest within its overall structure as substructures. A pensee maconnique/compagnonnique is not excluding, but exclusive through its very inclusiveness. 193 Yve-Alain Bois, therefore, is very precisely wrong in his classic article A Picturesque Stroll around Clara-Clara where he writes that Le Corbusier, as his vocabulary shows, again takes up the idea of the picturesque, and tries to imagine what a picturesque architecture might be. But with him, as with Serra, it is a question of a modern picturesque [of movement], and not one of narrative and pictoriality. 194 Indeed, with Le Corbusier it is precisely both a question of movement and of narrative and pictoriality. These are indissociable aspects of the voyage as described in Les Trois Voyages. (The logic of such a hermeneutic system is neither one of copying nor of modernist originality but more akin to the Beaux-Arts notion of emulation.195) Now, one small and curious, but irresistible, last concluding detail links directly back to La Loge LAmitie in La Chaux-de-Fonds. . . In Paris, Jeanneret moved into a at at 20, rue Jacob in 1917, where he lived until he moved in 1934 to the at in rue Nungesser-et-Coli that he himself designed. On the ground oor of 20, rue Jacob lived Natalie Clifford Barney who held lavish parties for up to one hundred people and then,
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Figure 50. Natalie Clifford Barney and theatrical performance in the gardens of 20, rue Jacob. (# La ` Bibliotheque Litteraire Jacques Doucet.)
from October, 1909 onwards to the 1960s, developed her famous literary salon every Friday evening, attended by writers, publishers, editors, booksellers, critics and intellectuals such as Jean Cocteau, Colette, Anatole France, Andre Gide, Remy de Gourmont, Max Jacob, Gertrude Stein, Rilke, Paul Valery, Bernard Berenson, Isadora Duncan, Bernard Grasset, etcetera.196 Natalie Barney did not just entertain on a wild and lavish scale, she arranged events such as extraordinary theatrical performances. Jeanneret could not have been unaware of all this, happening in the courtyard of his block of ats, beneath his windows (Fig. 50). He, indeed, did spend time at his windows, as is attested by a letter to William Ritter, in which he described how:
A young Italian woman with a prima donna voice in the dormer-window of the building next to mine pours over Adriennes gardens the outburst of a solitary soul. Just like that. On a day of violent storms, in the evening, her absolutely desperate song mixed in joyous relief with the sounds of nature, of thunder and the spatter of rain on leaves, like those nightingales, those blackbirds in spring, those larks in summer, lling the sky with their calls.197 About his address, Jeanneret wrote that he particularly enjoyed the association between 20, rue Jacob and Adrienne Lecouvreur. Now, the most distinctive feature of the property she [Natalie Clifford Barney] rented is a small Doric temple tucked away in a corner of the garden.
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Figure 51. CharlesEdouard Jeanneret, letter to William Ritter, 26th January, 1917: drawing of the entrance courtyard at 20, rue Jacob. (# Fondation Le Corbusier/Fonds William Ritter, Archives litteraires suisses, ` Bibliotheque nationale Suisse, Berne.)
There are all sorts of legends about this temple, chiey centering on the great actress Adrienne Lecouvreur, who was the idol of eighteenth century Paris and the love of some of its greatest men, and who died young under mysterious circumstances, probably poisoned by a jealous rival. [. . ..] The inscription on its pediment dedi` cates the temple A LAmitie . . . 198 And, indeed, in a letter to his friend William Ritter, Jeanneret wrote that his at was
. . . 20, rue Jacob (private address); in other words, in what was the residence of Adrienne Lecouvreur; in the garden is the little temple built for her by Maurice de Saxe. . . What a coincidence, what a stroke of luck! You can see how I am trumpeting it! (Figs 51, 52, 53.) 199 Was the move, upon his arrival in Paris, into a at, in the gardens of which was a small presumed Masonic ` eighteenth century temple with the inscription A LAmitie written large on its pediment, a memory of
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Figure 52. Natalie Barney in front of the ` temple A LAmitie in the gardens of 20, rue Jacob. Figure 53. Andre ` Rouveyre, Le Temple A LAmitie (lithograph).
the view from his own fathers workshop at 6, rue de la Loge, and a sentimental reminder of La Loge LAmitie and his past life in La Chaux-de-Fonds? ` The uvre Complete would suggest not. The ` uvre Complete would suggest that it was more than mere memory and sentimental reminder: more than a trace of the past, it was an index to
the future, an icon of his concept of modernist architectural space and a symbol of its Freemasonic reserves. Indeed, Jacques Sbriglio suggests, when entering the entrance hall of Le Corbusiers at at 24, rue Nungesser-et-Coli, that It is here that the visitors initiation ceremony begins.200 Perhaps it is not surprising that, according to Le Corbusier
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himself, the missing sketchbooks from the period before 1934 had disappeared during his move from 20, rue Jacob to 24, rue Nungesser-et-Coli.201
Acknowledgements
This research would not have been possible without the immense help of the librarians in La Chaux-de Fonds, Sylvie Beguelin and Catherine Cortesy, and of Arnaud Dercelles at the Fondation Le Corbusier in Paris. Nor would it have been possible without the help of Michel Cugnet, Pierre Zurcher, Pierre ` Mollier, Irene Mainguy, Jonathan Gine and Francois Rognon. I would like to thank many others for their help, including Michel Ditisheim. Maurice Favre has been of invaluable assistance and I thank him and Madame Favre for their kindness. I would also like to thank the librarians at the United Grand Lodge of England who have also been incredibly helpful; their collection of Swiss and French books has been invaluable to me. As always, the librarians in my favourite reading room at the British Library have also been very helpful. I would like to thank H. Allen Brooks for his encouragement; any critique of his research, as indeed is the case for Richard Etlin, is part of the constructive process of research: this endeavour could not have been achieved without their invaluable and impressive prior work. I would like to thank Paul Kenny and Judi Loach who have discussed the text with me. I have had a very helpful correspondence with JeanPierre Bayard, and also with Laurent Bastard at the Musee du Compagnonnage in Tours, for which I thank them. Madame Verne at the Librairie du Compagnonnage in Paris has also been extremely helpful, as has Rebecca Patterson at the Ruskin
Reading Room at Lancaster University. At UCL, I am grateful to Marion Sadoux for her help with translations, the nal mistakes being entirely my own. I am grateful to my colleagues at The Bartlett for both critically questioning me and sustaining me on those days when a researcher wonders where to locate the margins between fact and ction.
Notes and references

1. I take the expression beyond the cliches of the handbooks from Joseph Rykwert, The Dark Side of the Bauhaus, in Joseph Rykwert, The Necessity of Artice (London, Academy Editions, 1982), pp. 44 49; p. 44. 2. Isaiah Berlin, Vico and Herder, Two Studies in the History of Ideas (London, The Hogarth Press, 1976), p. 154. 3. Le Corbusier, Textes et dessins pour Ronchamp (Geneva, Presses de la Coopi, 1981), np. 4. Mogens Krustrup, Porte Email: Emaljeporten. La Porte Emaillee. The Enamel Door: Le Corbusier Palais de lAssemblee de Chandigarh (Copenhagen, Arkitektens Forlag, 1991), p. 29. 5. Richard A. Etlin, Frank Lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier: The romantic legacy (Manchester and New York, Manchester University Press, 1994), p. 72. See also Le Corbusier, Une petite maison (Zurich, Editions Girsberger, 1954 [1923]). 6. Anthony Vidler, Warped Space: Art, Architecture, and Anxiety in Modern Culture (Cambridge, Mass., The MIT Press, 2000), p. 121, p. 54. 7. Le Corbusier, Ineffable Space, in Le Corbusier, New World of Space (New York, Reynal & Hitchcock; Boston, The Institute of Contemporary Art, 1948), pp. 7 9; p. 8. (No one seems to have been so close and yet so far from potentially understanding Le Corbusier as Vidler when one compares, on the one hand, his meticulous research on eighteenth
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8.
9.
10. 11.
century Freemasonic routes [see beneath] and, on the other hand, his dismissive comment on Le Corbusiers secrecy as contempt in Warped Space: Art, Architecture, and Anxiety in Modern Culture, op. cit., p. 54. H. Allen Brooks, Le Corbusiers Formative Years: Charles-Edouard Jeanneret at La Chaux-de-Fonds (Chicago and London, the University of Chicago Press, 1997), p. 352. Other interpretations exist, but brief, undeveloped, without substantial empirical evidence and presented in a somewhat throw-away manner. One such is Anthony Vidlers interpretation of Le Corbusiers use of Choisys notion of pittoresque as the nal conjunction of architectural and lmic modernism; the rhythmic dance of Le Corbusiers spectator (modelled no doubt on the movements of Jacques Dalcroze) anticipating the movement of Eisensteins shots and montages. Anthony Vidler, op. cit., p.121. Daniel Naegele argues the exact opposite, namely that Le Corbusiers ineffable space is not the paranoid/ warped space that Vidler associates it with and therefore not Kandinskys notion of a terrifying abyss (Daniel Naegele, Object, Image, Aura: Le Corbusier and the Architecture of Photography, Harvard Design Magazine No. 6, Autumn, 1998, pp. 1 6); see Wassily Kandinsky, Reminiscences, in Wassily Kandinsky, Complete Writings on Art, Volume One (19011921), eds, Kenneth C. Lindsay and Peter Vargo (Boston, G. K. Hall & Co., 1982 [1913]), pp. 369370. It would seem from Le Corbusiers Une petite maison (1923), op. cit., that limitless space of the terrifying abyss kind is not at all what Le Corbusier was interested in. Richard A. Etlin, Frank Lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier: The romantic legacy (1994), op. cit. See Auguste Choisy, Histoire de larchitecture (Paris, Edouard Rouveyre, Editeur, 1899); Le Corbusier,
12.
13. 14.
15.
16. 17.
18.
19.
Towards a new architecture (London, The Architectural ` Press, 1946 [Vers une architecture, Paris, Editions Cres, 1923]). For a further discussion of Jeannerets use of Choisy, see Judi Loach, Le Corbusier and the creative use of Mathematics, British Journal for the History of Science, Special Edition on Science and the Visual,eds, J. V. Field and F. A. J. L. James, Vol. 31, No. 109 (June, 1998), pp. 185 216. . . . les traces regulateurs(la preuve: Choisy) (Le ` Corbusier, The Final Testament of Pere Corbu [translation of Mise au point] (New Haven and Yale, Yale University Press, 1997), p. 145.) Richard A. Etlin, Frank Lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier: The romantic legacy, op. cit., p. 99. Walter-Hanno Kruft, A History of Architectural Theory from Vitruvius to the Present (London/London and New York, Zwemmer/Princeton Architectural Press, 1994), p. 288. John Dixon Hunt, Gardens and the Picturesque, Studies in the History of Landscape Architecture (Cambridge, Mass., The MIT Press, 1992), p 106. Ibid., p 105. . . . parties dissymetriques, ponderation des masses, Auguste Choisy, Histoire de larchitecture, op. cit., p. 409. (Translations are mine unless otherwise credited.) ` Chaque motif darchitecture pris a part est symmetri que, mais chaque groupe est traite comme un paysage ` ` ou les masses seules se ponderent, ibid., p. 419; quoted in Walter-Hanno Kruft, A History of Architectural Theory from Vitruvius to the Present, op. cit., p. 547, note 145 (Krufts translation). In this respect, Kruft also fails to note that Choisys example would concern a totally ahistorical case of the application of the eighteenth-century concept of British landscape architecture, being its retrospective application to a landscape of rock contour-levels on the Acropolis in the fth century BC.
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20. Richard A. Etlin, Frank Lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier: The romantic legacy, op. cit., p. 99. 21. Jeannerets meticulous and extended research in the ` Cabinet des Estampes of the Bibliotheque Nationale ` ` and in the Bibliotheque Sainte-Genevieve into the history and theory of gardens and of landscape architecturethrough Georges Riats LArt des jardins, ` Henri Steins Les jardins en France de lorigine a la n ` du XVIIIe siecle, Dezallier dArgenvilles La theorie et la pratique du jardinage, Pierre Pattes Monuments ` eriges en France a la gloire de Louis XV, Gabriel Perelles engravingsshows not a single drawing of an English landscape garden, that is, not a single drawing of any garden or landscape associated with the notion of the picturesque. See Georges Riat, ` LArt des jardins (Paris, Bibliotheque de lenseignement des beaux-arts, c. 1900); Henri Stein, Les ` ` Jardins en France des origines a la n du XVIIIe siecle (Paris, D.A. Longuet, 1913); A.-J. Dezallier dArgen ville, La theorie et la pratique du jardinage, ou lon ` traite a fond des beaux jardins appeles communement les jardins de plaisance, et de proprete (La Haye, Jusson, 1739); Pierre Patte, Monuments eriges en ` France a la gloire de Louis XV, et suivis dun choix des principaux projets qui ont ete proposes pour placer la statue du roi dans les differents quartiers de Paris (Paris, Chez Lacombe, 1772); Gabriel Perelle, Recueil des plus belles vues des maison royales de France (Paris, Poilly, c. 1660). The emphasis is rmly on the French garden. For a discussion of this, see Claude Malecot, Les Jardins, in Hotel de Sully, Le ` Corbusier: le passe a reaction poetique (Paris, Hotel de Sully, 1988), pp. 110 118. For Jeanneret/Le Corbusiers drawings, see Fondation Le Corbusier, File B2-20. 22. In this respect, Jeanneret was an instrumental reader, focusing on tasks to be performed. At this point in time, he was working on urban issues.
23. Le Corbusier, Towards a New Architecture, op. cit., p. 52. 24. I do not assume, as some historians do, that each period has a single cultural context. Each period has many cultural contexts, which crisscross and overlap, and which the individual human actors therefore manipulate and activate according to the situations involved. See J. Birksted, Talking and Understanding, in C. Adelman, ed., Uttering, Muttering: Collecting, using and reporting talk for social and educational research, SSRC Publications (1975), pp. 30 46; J. Birksted, School versus pop culture? A case study of adolescent adaptation, Research in Education, No. 16, pp. 13 23. ` 25. See Catalogue de la Bibliotheque de La Chaux-deFonds (La Chaux-de-Fonds, Imprimerie du National ` Suisse, 1885); Catalogue de la Bibliotheque de La Chaux-de-Fonds (La Chaux-de-Fonds, Imprimerie du National Suisse, 1919). 26. The situation was slightly more complex since the new Polytechnikum in Zurich, where Gottfried Semper was professor of architecture, also played a signicant, but less visible, role in La Chaux-de-Fonds. And issues of Swiss identity and nationalism, revolving around notions of Heimatschutz, were involved too. In any case, the libraries in La Chaux-de-Fonds, being in Suisse Romande, are all and entirely in the French language. In this respect, the argument of this essay implies that the very notion of pittoresque operative in La Chaux-de-Fonds was different from other parts of Switzerland, represented for example by the article Moderne style et traditions locales by Charles Melley, architect and teacher at the Ecole dingenieurs in Lausanne: Charles Melley, Modern style et traditions locales, BTSR, (1904), Vol. 30, No. 2, pp. 72 75). For a discussion of Melley, see Jacques Gubler, Nationalisme et Internationalisme dans lArchitecture Moderne de la Suisse (Lausanne, Editions LAge
113
dHomme, 1975). Melley saw three architectures in Switzerland: the tradition of the Ecole des BeauxArts, Art Nouveau and the vernacular Swiss pittoresque. Melley blamed Beaux-Arts traditions for the impoverishment of modernism because, working within this tradition, modernism simply deleted classical ornamentation, which was incompatible with industrial building products and procedures, without being able to replace it with anything else. Melley blamed Art Nouveau for being foreign and therefore alien to Swiss values and traditions. Thus, for Melley, only rural, historical and vernacular pittoresque was suitable. In this respect, Melleys notion of pittoresque was backwards oriented. By contrast, La Chaux-de-Fonds was a town characterised by its industrialisation, its internationalism and its cosmopolitanism, therefore operating with a different notion of the value of international cosmopolitan industrialisation. 27. For a description of the drawing classes of the Cours Yvon and of the architectural classes of Julien Guadet at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, see Annie Jacques, Les Beaux-Arts, de lAcademie aux Quatzarts; Anthologie historique et litteraire (Paris, Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts, 2001). Matisse was later to join the Cours Yvon. See also in the Archives Nationales, the les AJ 52 879 about the Cours Yvon. ` 28. . . . des succes remarquables, plusieurs distinctions, prix et medailles dans les concours en loge et le diplome darchitecte de letat, titre qui nest delivre ` ` en France qua la suite dexamens severes. Ses apti tudes artistiques, son talent de dessinateur, letude approfondie quil a faite des styles decoratifs, lont designe tout naturellement au choix de la Commission ` deducation. Il sera certainement a la hauteur de son ` enseignement et saura donner a lEcole une impulsion ` feconde:Ecole municipale darts appliques a lindus trie, Rapport du Comite sur lExercise de 18861887
29.
30. 31. 32.
33.
34.
35.
36. 37. 38.
(La Chaux-de-Fonds, Imprimerie du National Suisse, 1887), p. 5. Nicholas Green, The spectacle of NATURE: Landscape and bourgeois culture in nineteenth-century France (Manchester, Manchester University Press, 1990), p. 95. Ibid., p. 109. Ibid., p. 96. Ibid., p. 105. Green also studies the context of travel guides and their emphasis on the pittoresque, and again he points out their metropolitan and commercial nature (see chapter Guides to Fontainebleau, pp. 167 181). Ch. V. D. S. J., Guide pittoresque de letranger dans Paris et ses environs, avec 72 vignettes sur bois dans le texte, Les cartes du parcours des chemins de fer et un plan de Paris et ses environs orne de 18 vignettes ` et taille-douce, Nouvelle edition, entierement revue et completee (Paris, Jules Renouard et Cie, Aubert et Cie, nd, after 1850). M. J. Morlent, Voyage historique et pittoresque du ` Havre a Rouen sur la Seine avec une carte des rives de la Seine et six gravures (Rouen, A. Le Brument, Editeur, 1844). G. Touchard-Lafosse, La Loire historique, pittoresque et ` biographique de la source de ce euve a son embou chure dans locean (Tours, Chez Lecesne, Editeur, 1851). Ch. V. D. S. J., Guide pittoresque de letranger dans Paris et ses environs, op. cit. M. J. Morlent, Voyage historique et pittoresque du ` Havre a Rouen sur la Seine, op. cit. Laspect de Rouen est pittoresque et ravissant; cest une ville charmante, vue de loin; linterieur, malgre les ameliorations successives quelle eprouve annuel lement, presente encore les vieilles maison en bois, ` a etages surplombes, les rues etroites et tortueuses des villes du moyen-age. Cependant, les quais de cette grande et populeuse cite eminemment march-
114
39. 40. 41.
42.
43. 44. 45.
` ande sachevent et sembellissent; les anciennes ` constructions font place a des edices modernes ` de bon gout; aussi, des ce moment, le bassin de la Seine et le port de Rouen offrent un des aspects les plus majestueux quon puisse imaginer. Ibid., p. 160. G. Touchard-Lafosse, La Loire historique, op. cit. Ibid.: see p. 1 of Introduction. LHOTEL DE VILLE, sejour passager du Gouvernement provisoire et du maire de Paris, est redevenu lhotel de la Prefecture, et a ete decore de nouvelles ` statues qui completent sa riche facade. LE JARDIN DU LUXEMBOURG a recu de splendides embellisse ments en decorations architecturales, statues et jardins anglais, sous lhabile direction de M. de Gisors, architecte, et de M. Hardy, jardinier en chef. ` LA BIBLIOTHEQUE SAINTE-GENEVIEVE, dont lancien local tombait en ruine, a ete remplace par un con struction elegante, qui decore la place du ` ` Pantheon.Cette riche Bibliotheques est tres fre quentee par la jeunesse laborieuse de nos Ecoles, qui y recoit, de la part de MM les conservateurs, laccueil le plus hospitalier. LES BOULEVARDS de la ` rive droite, selon un projet anterieur a la revolution de Fevrier, sont macadamises . . . (Ch. V. D. S. J., Guide pittoresque de letranger dans Paris et ses environs, op. cit., pp. XXI XXII). See John Dixon Hunt, Gardens and the Picturesque: Studies in the History of Landscape Architecture, op. cit., p. 126. Ibid., p. 117. Ibid., p. 117. Two books are in Jeanneret/Le Corbusiers library Joris-Karl Huysmans, La Cathedrale (Paris, Plon, 1908): this is signed Ch.-E. Jeanneret, Paris 1909 and has annotations; and Joris-Karl Huysmans, Sainte Lydwinet de Schiedam (Paris, Plon, 1915): this is signed Ch.-E. Jeanneret.
` 46. Huysmans, Against Nature [A Rebours, 1884] (London, Penguin Books, 2001), p. 22. . . .au bain Vigier, situe, ` sur un bateau, en pleine Seine. La, en faisant saler leau de sa baignoire et en y melant, suivant la formule du Codex, du sulfate de soude, de lhydro chlorate de magnesie et de chaux; en tirant dune bote, soigneusement fermee par un pas de vis, une pelote de celle ou un tout petit morceau de ` cable quon est alle expres chercher dans lune de ces grandes corderies dont les vastes magasins et les sous-sols soufent des odeurs de maree et de port; en aspirant ces parfums que doit conserver encore cette celle ou ce bout de cable; en consultant une exacte photographie du casino et en lisant ardemment ` le guide Joanne decrivant les beautes de la plage ou lon veut etre; en se laissant enn bercer par les ` vagues que souleve, dans la: baignoire, le remous des bateaux-mouches rasant le ponton des bains; en ecou tant enn les plaintes du vent engouffre sous les arches ` et le bruit sourd des omnibus roulant, a deux pas, audessus de vous, sur le pont Royal, lillusion de la mer est indeniable, imperieuse, sure. Le tout est de savoir sy prendre, de savoir concentrer son esprit sur un seul point, de savoir sabstraire sufsamment pour amener lhallucination et pouvoir substituer le reve de la ` realite a la realite meme: Joris-Karl Huysmans, A Rebours (Paris, Fasquelle Editeurs, 1974 [1883]), p. 51. 47. See Charles-Edouard Jeanneret, La Maison Suisse, Les Etrennes Helvetiques, Almanach Illustre (Paris, Fischbacher & Cie., Editeurs; Dijon, Felix Rey, Librairie Generale; La Chaux-de-Fonds, Imprimerie Georges Dubois, Editeur, 1914), pp. 33 39. 48. Isabelle Kaiser, La Suisse Pittoresque, ibid., pp. 45 47. 49. . . . accord de la technique et du paysage: Jacques Gubler, Nationalisme et Internationalisme dans lArchitecture Moderne de la Suisse (Lausanne, LAge dHomme, 1975), pp. 225 226. For a discussion of the general Swiss context, including the Heimatschutz
115
50. 51.
52.
53.
movement, see ibid. Gubler places the public perception of the overlap of modernity with alpine scenery in the 1930s, and relates it to Max Bill and his work with the Swiss Tourist Board. My research indicates that in La Chaux-de-Fonds, an industrial town, this trend existed well before that period. In this respect, Gubler himself writes that laccord de la technique et du paysage, consacre par les traditions romantiques ou preromantiques du sublime ou du pittoresque, se trouve ainsi renoue (pp. 225 226). To prove that sweeping and speculative statement with reference to La Chaux-de-Fonds, one could look at the work of the romantic Chaux-de-fonnier painter, Leopold Robert (17941835), pupil of David. However, Robert lived in Paris, Neuchatel and then Italy until his death so that perhaps too many complex cultural layers are superimposed. John Dixon Hunt, op. cit., p. 197. Charles Humbert has hitherto been overlooked for several reasons. First, being a particularly inuential person in Jeannerets life, his importance and role were played down by Jeanneret, as was always the case with the most important people. Secondly, Humberts archives are still largely in private hands. Thirdly, Humberts work is not as historiogenic as LEplatteniers because it does not t in easily with simple historical periodisations such as, for example, Art Nouveau, and therefore does not t in either with touristogenic historicity. These often daily meetings and discussions are documented in Charles Humberts Diaries (Private Collection, La Chaux-de-Fonds) and have been tabulated by the owner of the diaries to show their frequency. Figurez-vous: il marrive daller le soir avec des amis, ` ` chez eux, a quoi faire: a nous raconter toujours les memes histoires: Cezanne, Hodler, Titien, Tintoret. Je rentre passe minuit, la maison etant close. Et on simagine chez moi que je me putinise, que je vois
des ou une garce. Letter from Charles-Edouard Jeanneret to William Ritter, 23rd December, 1913; quoted in H. Allen Brooks, Le Corbusiers Formative Years: Charles-Edouard Jeanneret at La Chaux-de-Fonds (Chicago and London, Chicago University Press, 1997), pp. 353 354. La Chaux-de-Fonds was a place of extreme wealth and extreme poverty and, with its population of destitute and/or seasonal labourers, prostitution was rife. 54. Charles Humbert, Diaries (Private collection in La Chaux-de-Fonds). For a study of Ruskins reception in France, see Jean Autret, Ruskin and the French before Marcel Proust (Geneva, Librairie Droz, 1965). 55. The accepted historical interpretation is that the reception of John Ruskin must be seen as mediated by Charles LEplattenier, who read Ruskin reverently. See H. Allen Brooks, op. cit.; Paul V. Turner, La formation de Le Corbusier: Idealisme et Mouvement Moderne (Paris, Macula, 1987); Mary Patricia May Sekler, Le Corbusier, Ruskin, the Tree, and the Open Hand, in Russell Walden, ed., The Open Hand: Essays on Le Corbusier (Cambridge, Mass., The MIT Press, 1977), pp. 4295. And my research supports the fact of LEplatteniers reverent reading of Ruskin, as can be seen by Rene Chapallazs immediate purchase of several Ruskin books after his rst meeting with LEplattenier (see Rene Chapallaz Private Letters, ` Fonds Rene Chapallaz, Bibliotheque de la Ville de La Chaux-de-Fonds). However, after Jeannerets return from his apprenticeships with Auguste Perret in Paris (19081909) and with Peter Behrens in Berlin (19101911), there follows the period when he, Humbert and others begin to distance themselves from LEplattenier. They have ghts with LEplattenier, and they criticise LEplatteniers simplistic aesthetics and art practices, the pine tree style, le style sapin. This coincides with the inauguration of LEplatteniers
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public sculpture of 1910 in the Place de lHotel de Ville ` in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Hommage a la Republique Neu chateloise, which received a critical, sometimes negative, occasionally damning, response. Already from 1909, disagreements had developed between LEplattenier and his students, who were critical of his insistent emphasis on repetitive pine-tree motifs. Humbert noted in his diary of 3rd July, 1912 Cause ` ` avec le patron sur les dissentiments des eleves a son egard. On 26th September, 1912, he noted Mr LEplattenier minsulte et me reproche ma conduite envers Mme Perrochet (Ch-E. Jeanneret me defend). The following day, he noted that Le patron prend une attitude meprisante envers Mlle Woog et moi. Then, on the day after that, events come to a head as he noted that Le patron nous apprend sa demission: Charles Humbert, diary of 3rd July, 26th, 27th and 28th September, 1912, quoted in Maurice Favre, Les Voix et leur epoque 19191920, Nouvelle revue neu chateloise, No 78, 20e annee (Autumn, 2003), p. 18. 56. . . . une uvre de piete; cest aussi un acte de justice: Maurice Millious, Introduction, Joseph Antoine Milsand, LEsthetique anglaise: Etude sur M. John Ruskin (Lausanne, Librairie Nouvelle, E. Frankfurter, 1906 [2nd edition]), p. V, in the collection of the Bib ` liotheque de lEcole dart de La Chaux-de-Fonds (Book No. 18; T.O. no. 283). Joseph Antoine Milsands study of Ruskin, originally of 1864, is listed in subsequent and contemporary academic bibliographies as being the rst major study of Ruskin in French. An example of such listing is George Allen Cate, who notes, in his John Ruskin: a Reference Guide; A Selective Guide to Signicant and Representative Works about him (Boston, G.K. Hall & Co., 1988), that This is the rst full-length study of Ruskin in French, and a valuable one. Ruskin himself read it and enjoyed it . . . See also Jean Autret, Ruskin and the French before Marcel Proust, op. cit. Milsands book of 1864
57.
58. 59.
60. 61. 62.
is the one that Proust read (see Marcel Proust, Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 1er Avril, 1900, p. 311). A recent conference publication is Matthias Waschek, ed., Relire Ruskin: Cycle de conferences organise au Musee du Louvre, March April 2001 (Paris, Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts et Le Louvre, 2003). See also Kirk H. Beetz, John Ruskin: A Bibliography, 19001974 (Metuchen, New Jersey, The Scarecrow Press, 1976); Thomas J. Wise, A Complete Bibliography of the Writings in Prose and Verse of John Ruskin LL.D with a list of more important Ruskiniana (London, printed for subscribers only, 1864 [reprinted for Dawsons of Pall Mall London, 1893, 2 volumes].) I thank Rebecca Patterson, Deputy Curator of the Ruskin Library at Lancaster University, for these detailed clarications and references. ` Jusquau XVe siecle, lartiste pouvait etre lui-meme un ` poete ou un philosophe, mais comme artiste, il vivait ` dans une sorte de sanctuaire, il appartenait a une con ` frerie qui avait ses secrets et formait un monde a part; il recevait par initiation les traditions de ses devanciers, et en peignant il ne reconnaissait pour juges que ses matres et ses pairs. Enferme avec son inspiration, il ` disait, meme a un pape: procul esto, les profanes nentrent pas: Joseph Milsand, LEsthetique anglaise: Etude sur M. John Ruskin, op. cit., Preface, p. III IV ` (Bibliotheque de lEcole dart de La Chaux-de-Fonds, Book No. 18; T.O. no. 283). William J. R. Curtis, Le Corbusier, Ideas and Forms (London, Phaidon, 1986), p. 32. . . . cest de spiritualite que parla Ruskin: Charles Edouard Jeanneret, LArt decoratif daujourdhui (Paris, Vincent Freal, 1925), p. 134. Apotre touffu, complexe, contradictoire, paradoxal ibid., p. 134). H. Allen Brooks, op. cit., p. 69. . . .un de ces matres duvres du Moyen Age: W. Matthey-Claudet quoted in Jacques Gubler, La
117
63.
64.
65.
66.
67.
68.
69.
Chaux-de-Fonds, Inventaire Suisse darchitecture 18501920 (Berne, Societe dHistoire de lArt en Suisse, 198284), p. 141. Le Corbusier, When the Cathedrals Were White: A Journey to the Country of Timid People (London, Routledge, 1947/1948), p. 6. La Chaux-de-Fonds, das man als eine einzige Uhrenmanufaktur betrachten kann . . .: Karl Marx, Das Kapital (1867, Book 4, p. 12, Paragraph 3, Note 32). This quotation is often repeated; see, as one example, Jacques Gubler, Inventaire Suisse dArchitecture, 18501920, La Chaux-de-Fonds, op. cit., p. 214, note 32. See Maurice Favre, Daniel Jeanrichard, Premier horlo ger des Montagnes neuchateloises et personage de legende, Musee Neuchatelois, Number 2 (1992), pp. 45 56. See Jules Wolff, Notice historique sur la communaute israelite de La Chaux-de-Fonds, Centenaire 1833 1933 (La Chaux-de-Fonds, 1933). See also Jean-Marc Barrelet and Jacques Ramseyer, La Chaux-de-Fonds ` ou le de dune cite horlogere, 1848 1914 (La Chaux-de-Fonds, Editions dEn Haut, 1990). . . . eine einzige Uhrenmanufaktur: Karl Marx, Das Kapital (1867), op. cit.; quoted in Jacques Gubler, Inventaire Suisse dArchitecture, 1850 1920, La Chaux-de-Fonds, op. cit. See Jean-Marc Barrelet and Jacques Ramseyer, La ` Chaux-de-Fonds ou le de dune cite horlogere, 18481914, op. cit. Curiously, Jeanneret/Le Corbusiers grandfather lived directly next to this Masonic lodge, and, upon his death, Jeanneret/Le Corbusiers father inherited the at, which became his atelier until the nal move to the Villa Jeanneret-Perret. Also Jeanneret/ Le Corbusiers aunt, Pauline, lived in the building next to the Masonic lodge. And Jeanneret/Le Corbusier himself spent time there in the evenings with friends.
70. Charles Thomann, LHistoire de La Chaux-de-Fonds inscrite dans ses rues (Neuchatel, editions du Griffon, 1965). 71. See Jean-Marc Barrelet and Jacques Ramseyer, La ` Chaux-de-Fonds ou le de dune cite horlogere, 18481914, op. cit. 72. Jacques Gubler, Inventaire Suisse dArchitecture, 18501920, La Chaux-de-Fonds, op.cit. ` 73. See Claude Garino, Le Corbusier, De la Villa Turque a LEsprit nouveau (La Chaux-de-Fonds, Idea Editions, 1995). But Garino makes a fundamental mistake, suggesting that two Freemason lodges existed in La Chaux-de-Fonds, which is incorrect. 74. H. Allen Brooks, op. cit. 75. Paul V. Turner, La formation de Le Corbusier: Idealisme et Mouvement Moderne, op. cit. 76. Mary Patricia May Sekler, Le Corbusier, Ruskin, the Tree, and the Open Hand, op. cit, pp. 42 95. 77. Some scholarly exceptions are James S. Curl, The Art and Architecture of Freemasonry: An Introductory Study (London, B. T. Batsford, 2002); Margaret C. Jacob, Living the Enlightenment: freemasonry and politics in eighteenth-century Europe (New York, Oxford University Press, 1991); Patrizia Granziera, The Ideology of the English landscape garden 1720 1750 (Warwick University, PhD thesis, 1996); David Hays, Carmontelles Design for the Jardin de Monceau, Eighteenth-Century Studies, Vol. 32, No. 4 (1999), pp. 447462; David Stevenson, The Origins of Freemasony: Scotlands Century, 15901710 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1988). This is a ridiculously brief overview of the literature, which will be developed in my forthcoming monograph. 78. Gian Mario Cazzaniga notes that the absence of Freemasonry studies is surprising, especially for the eighteenth century. As he states, no one would study the Middle Ages without taking into account Christianity (and in particular Catholicism), just as no one would
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79.
80.
81. 82.
study the twentieth century without taking into account the rise of communism and socialism, hence the surprising situation that Labsence de la Franc maconnerie dans le panorama des etudes sur la culture europeenne moderne, et en particulier de ` ` celles sur le XVIIIe siecle, constitue un probleme surpre nant et curieux qui etonnera peut-etre les historiens futures: Gian Mario Cazzaniga, Preface, Symboles, Signes, Langages Sacres pour une Semiologie de la Franc-Maconnerie (Pisa, Edizioni Ets, 1995), p. 11. Cazzaniga notes the Freemasonic associations of a few individuals such as Haydn and Mozart and Beethoven, Montesquieu and Helvetius in France, Franklin in America, Ramsay and Pope in England, etcetera, to indicate the importance of Freemasonry in its fonction dorganisation culturellle, ibid., p. 11. In support of this, one could adduce many examples such as entire biographies and recent studies of Winkelmann, which do not even mention Freemasonry. ` See Michel Cugnet, Deux siecles et demi de Franc maconnerie en Suisse et dans le Pays de Neuchatel (La Chaux-de-Fonds, Editions du Chevron, 1991); see also Pierre-Yves Beaurepaire, Frederic II Hohenzollern, in Eric Saunier, ed., Encyclopedie de la Franc-Maconn erie (Paris, Librairie Generale Francaise, 2000), pp. 318 320. ` Le 1er Mars 1848, mon grand-pere Jeanneret Rauss dit ` le bougon est descendu avec Fritz Courvoisier, a pied, de ` La Chaux-de-Fonds a Neuchatel, prendre le chateau sans verser une goutte de sang. Cetait lun des chefs de la revolution: Le Corbusier in Jean Petit, Le Corbusier lui-meme (Geneva, Rousseau, 1970), p. 24. David Hays, Carmontelles Design for the Jardin de Monceau, op. cit., pp. 447 462; p. 452. La franc-maconnerie est une association comme une ` ` autre, ayant derriere elle une tres vieille histoire et un ` fort glorieux passe. Apres avoir ete, jusquau XVIIIe ` siecle, une confrerie de constructeurs et de tailleurs
83. 84.
85. 86.
87.
88.
89.
de pierres, elle est devenue une societe dhommes ` ` appartenant a toutes les classes du people, a tous les ` ` partis, a toutes les idees, a tous les metiers . . .: Edouard Quartier-La-Tente, La Franc-Maconnerie suisse et neuchateloise: souvenirs et actualites (La Chaux-de-Fonds, Imprimerie Georges Dubois, 1902), p. 10. Jacques Derrida, Politiques de lamitie (Paris, Gallile, 1994). See Bulletin of the International Bureau for Masonic Affairs at Neuchatel for 1913, Vol. XI, No4, Number 37, October December, 1913, inside back cover. Ibid., Vol. XI, No2, Number 35, April June, 1913, inside back cover. See Alpina Schweizerische Grossloge Mitgleider-Verzeichnis des Schweizerishen Logenbundesauf das Jahr 1891;Catalogue des Membres de LUnion des Loges Suisses pour lannee 1891 (Bern, Hallersche Buchdruckerei, 1890) and Grande Loge Suisse ` Alpina, 1894, 4eme Supplement au Catalogue des membres de LUnion des Loges Suisses 1892, edition de 1891 (Bern, Buchdruckerei Michel & Buchler, 1892). ` . . .captiver ses eleves par ses exposes clairs, par ses connaissances des styles et de la composition decora ` tive (LImpartial, Necrologie dEugene Schaltenbrand, Mardi, 30 Avril, 1912, No. 939, XXXII Annee, no page number). In fact, this part of the obituary is a quotation from Le National Suisse. For an account of the changes of address and of the activities of the Bureau de controle des metaux precieux, see Charles Thomann, LHistoire de La Chaux-de-Fonds inscrite dans ses rues, op. cit., pp. 92 93. Transformation en Hotel communal 18951897. Mutilation de tout lappareil fatier et apprauvissement de limage par epuration: Jacques Gubler, Inventaire Suisse dArchitecture, 1850 1920, La Chaux-deFonds, op. cit., p. 207. This entry refers to the
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Dictionnaire Geographique de la Suisse (Neuchatel, 19021910). 90. . . . le manque dharmonie existant entre lentree cintree de la Chapelle et lhuis rectangulaire de la porte de fond. Ici encore, ils [les architectes] ont du tenir compte des desirs emis par les artistes eux memes (Robert Belli, letter in Feuille dAvis, 11th March, 1910; quoted in Jean-Daniel Jeanneret, Le Crematoire de La Chaux-de-Fonds: Une uvre dart totale, unpublished manuscript, 2004, p. 8). ` 91. Quand il passe la porte nord du cimetiere de La Chauxde-Fonds, lhomme en deuil suit dabord des yeux, sur ` le mur du blanc crematoire, le cortege, gure en mosaque bleue, ocre et pourpre, des mortels en ` marche vers lau-dela, se separant, de gre ou de force, des illusions de la vie pour gagner le royaume ` ` de leternelle lumiere. Parvenu a lextremite de lallee, au moment de tourner vers lentree de ledice, il contemplera la haute sculpture de la fontaine: la Paix qui ` accueille et protege lhomme et la femme inclines devant lineluctable destin. Maintenant, il marche ` vers lescaler qui penetre sous le porche voute. Un ` regard vers le ciel lui fait decouvrir lephebe aux bras leves, dor etincelant, quun elan porte vers lideal. Au moment de gravir les marches, les deux statues des piedestaux lui reveleront les lamentations de laeul et de lepouse sur lurne funeraire, et lenfant orphelin qui contre eux se blottit . . . Il est au haut de lescalier, il est entre, les portes se referment. Tandis ` que selevent les sons prenants de lharmonium invis ` ible, dans letrange lumiere ruisselant de la voute quad` rangulaire lui apparaissent peu a peu les murs, les urnes, le catafalque, tout de cuivre revetus, aux orne ments ciseles ou repousses, et la frise peinte: long panneau bleu de la Pitie et de la Mort, au-dessus de lui; en face, la replique or et pourpre de la Purication par le feu. [. . .] Plus tard, lurne mise en terre, il par` courra ce cimetiere si bien dessine . . . Il ira dun pas
92.
93.
94.
95. 96.
` lent du petit escalier aux rampes a torches sculptees ` jusqua cette grande pierre de resistance: le monument ` aux morts . . . Quil leve maintenant les yeux sur la facade sud du Crematoire: la grande mosaque du Triomphe de la vie, toute blondeur et chatoiement, avec ses jeunes couples et lheureux tableau familial du centre, qui exalte lenfant, lui rendront lespoir et la conance. . .: La Societe Neuchateloise de Crema tion et du Crematoire S.A, Rapport de la Societe Neu ` chateloise de Cremation et du Crematoire S.A. a La Chaux-de-Fonds, 19341936, pp. 31 32 (in the Bib` liotheque de la Ville de La Chaux-de-Fonds). ` . . . une societe dhommes appartenant a toutes les ` ` classes du people, a tous les partis, a toutes les idees, ` a tous les metiers. . .: Edouard Quartier-La-Tente, La Franc-Maconnerie suisse et neuchateloise: souvenirs et actualites, op. cit,, p. 10. ` . . . travailler ensemble a lamelioration de lhumanite en commencant par rechercher leur propre perfectionnement moral. Partant du point de vue quil nest pas possible de construire avec de mauvais materiaux un edice solide, la Franc` Maconnerie enseigne a ses adeptes quils doivent avant tout sameliorer eux memes, avant de vouloir ` contribuer a lamelioration de lhumanite: AlfredLouis Jacot, Le Symbolisme Maconnique, in Bureau ` International de Relations Maconniques a Neuchatel, ` Deux Siecles de Franc-Maconnerie, Volume de Jubile, 24 Juin 171724 Juin 1917 (Berne, Imprimerie Buchler & Cie, 1917), pp. 107 111. See Ecole dart de La Chaux-de-Fonds, Catalogue de la ` Bibliotheque, 1919 (La Chaux-de-Fonds, Imprimerie Cooperative, 1919), entry numbers 27 and 28. John Ruskin, The Stones of Venice, Volume 2, Chapter IV, St. Marks, page 121. A mon bon compagnon detudes et ami Monsieur A. Evardmodeste merci dun fameux coup de main. Ch. E. Jeanneret, Aout 1907.
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97. Le Corbusier, Ineffable Space, in Le Corbusier, New World of Space (New York, Reynal & Hitchcock; Boston, The Institute of Contemporary Art, 1948), pp. 7 9; p. 8. 98. . . . la plus grande inuence de Le Corbusier sur moi ` fut, au-dela de larchitecture, son attitude envers la ` vie et la maniere dont il pensait que notre tache principale est de nous construire nous-meme, se batir ` soi-meme comme on batit une maison, pierre a pierre, faire de soi quelquun qui merite le beau nom dhomme, avec la seule difference que ledice humain nest jamais ni: Andre Wogenscky, Interview, quoted in Nicoletta Trasi, La formation dAndre Wogenscky et sa conception de metier darchitecte, in Paolo Misino and Nicoletta Trasi, Andre Wogenscky: Raisons profondes de la forme (Paris, Editions Le Moniteur, 2000), pp. 41 83; p. 45. Alternatively, it is of course possible that this is less a description of Le Corbusier than it is of Wogensckys own interpretation of Le Corbusier. Wogenscky and his wife, the sculptress Martha Pan, had associations Compagnonniques via La Fondation Pierre de Coubertin through its associations with Jean Bernard (19081994), Compagnon and founder of the Fondation de Coubertin. If so, this reinforces the point that Jeanneret/Le Corbusiers closest networks revolved around this culture of Compagnonnage. 99. Variations of these initiation rituals can be found in a number of publications such as Pierre Mollier, ed., Recueil des Trois Premiers Grades de la Maconnerie: Apprenti, Compagnon, Matre au Rite Francais, 1788 (Paris, Editions A lOrient, 2001); Jules Boucher, La Symbolique maconnique (Paris, Editions Dervy, 1988 [1948]); Jean-Pierre Bayard, Symbolisme Maconnique Traditionnel (Paris, Editions Maconniques de France [EDIMAF], 1982). 100. Ceux qui ayant appris soit par des ecrits ou de toute ` autre maniere quelconque comment ces receptions
se pratiquent, ne doivent pas ressentir des impressions bien profondes et ne peuvent ainsi jouir de ces fortes emotions qui assaillent un profane sachant penser et se rendre compte de ce qui se deroule devant ses yeux, sans en avoir eu connais` sance auparavant. [. . .] A ce moment-la un sentiment ` bien autre mettait mon cerveau a lepreuve, et je me posais constamment la question: Trouveras-tu ce ` que tu cherches, cest-a-dire une association dhommes aux idees larges et elevees, avec les prin cipes desquels ta loyaute puisse se mettre daccord? La ferme intention surtout de me retirer ` a la moindre chose contre laquelle ma conscience mavertirait, absorbait toutes mes pensees, et la ` maniere dont ma reception se ferait fut toujours pour moi donc affaire secondaire. Il est aise de voir que ces pensees predominantes devaient forcement ` avoir pour effet de me faire analyser a fond la ` signication des differentes stations ou me conduisait ` le voyage dans les tenebres, pendant lequel la medi tation peut etre pour celui qui veut sen donner la peine essentiellement feconde. La coutume davoir ` les yeux bandes, permet a la concentration des pensees datteindre son maximum et est par ce fait ` tres louable. Ce fut donc dans cet ordre didees, qu ` je gravis les marches, conduisant a la porte quun fr ` D100 mindiqua, en minvitant a entrer. [ . . . ] Il me banda les yeux. Je fus plutot etonne au premier abord, de cette facon dagir et me laissai conduire ` par lui a travers des souterrains, des corridors comme il me semblait mon imagination me faisait ` entrevoir un voyage a travers les caves de la loge. Pendant ce temps, je me creusais en vain lesprit, pour connatre le motif de cette promenade aux ` yeux bandes . . . [ . . . ] Il est une chose tres curieuse, mais que nous retrouvons dans bien des moments ` de la vie; cest la premiere impression, et cette ` impression est en general difcile a dissiper; il y a
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meme des personnes qui ne peuvent sen defaire ` ` ` completement. De ce detail insigniant a premiere vue, se developpa en moi une impression importante et le resultat fut que je me mis sur le qui vive; que mes sens se tendirent de plus en plus et que la question, ` comment cette soiree nirait, cest-a-dire serai-je force de retirer ma candidature ou non, pris toujours plus de corps. Un combat commenca a se livrer en ` mon for interieur. Cette idee, que je metais trompe saffermit toujours davantage et me remplit de tristesse. Je ne pouvais admettre que des hommes ` serieux puissent samuser a de pareilles choses et malgre toute ma bonne volonte, il me fut impossible ` ` a ce moment-la de saisir une signication symbolique quelconque. Cette impression ne dura dans toute sa force que juste le temps necessaire pour arriver dans la chambre de preparation, et nous allons assis` ter a la modication progressive de cette impression ` melee encore a lidee anticipee de la reception. Levol` ution qui va se produire sera dun genre tout a fait particulier, etant donne que le recipiendaire ignore absolument tout ce qui va se passer; ce ne seront donc que des impressions nouvelles qui toucheront ses sens; la logique et la raisonnement ne viendront quen second rang, avec laide desquels, il pourra ` les comparer a son impression primordiale, laquelle inconsciemment sest formee par linconsequence dont il a ete question plus haut. Nous avions vu leffet facheux produit par le petit detour, mais cet ` effet sera bon en ce sens quil forcera le candidat a produire lui aussi une somme de travail fecond, parce quil sefforcera de trouver des motifs solides, qui effaceront de sa pensee ce qui dabord lui aura ` paru etre convie a une ceremonie plutot ridicule. [.] Linstant davant je me trouvais dans lincertitude, jetais moi-meme desillusionne, et maintenant plein despoir; que je trouverais quand meme ce que je desire, que cette soif de pouvoir rencontrer des
hommes pouvant comprendre et sassocier aux idees que je metais faites de lhumanite en general, et avec lesquels des echanges dopinions peuvent avoir lieu, sans que le parti pris ou autres analogies, propres aux personnes etroites didees, jouent un role dintolerance. Ce ne fut plus avec ce sentiment de revolte, que je me laissai remettre le bandeau. La continuation du voyage me fut moins penible, et les paroles amicales du FD qui maccompagnait, me donnant lassurance que lamitie me guidait, me ` ` rent repenser a dautres voyages dans les tenebres, pendant lesquels on cherchait en vain lamitie pour nous conduire, au travers de ces combats interieurs ` ` ou tout etre pensant au printemps de la vie, a ` lepoque ou lame est encore frache et sensible a ` ` ` toute impression, ou a vie entiere se revele a lui ` dans toute sa nudite; au moment ou il doit se ` defaire de prejuges, de superstitions peut-etre et ou devant des annees il marche dans lincertitude, dans ` ` le doute, dans les tenebres, ou il aurait besoin de ` lamitie pour le guider vers la lumiere quil demande ` ` a grands cris; a ce moment il trouve rarement le guide quil lui faudrait et bien souvent succombe ` dans le naufrage moral. Cest en pensant a ces ` ` moments passes, ou lon commence a se rendre compte de sa propre faiblesse, quand elle se montre ` a vous dans toute sa grandeur et que sa petitesse ` apparat a nos yeux, que mon compagnon me t ` entrer dans le cabinet noir ou les symboles de la ` ` mort surgirent peu a peu, les yeux commencant a percer lobscurite regnant dans cette chambre. ` Aucun etonnement ne se produit en moi a la vue de ces objets, il me sembla que cetait une chose toute logique qui devait se produire, pour bien nous montrer que malgre tous nos efforts pour vouloir arriver au perfectionnement moral et intellectuel, ce but ne sera jamais atteint et quau milieu de ce travail lent et souvent penible, mais non si ingrat
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quil pourrait nous paratre an premier lieu, la mort ` nous saisira impitoyablement a notre heure venue et arretera les rouages de notre machine humaine par une force dont nous constatons les effets, dont nous devons admettre lexistence, mais que nous ne pouvons denir. [. . .] Un sentiment de tranquillite menvahit et louie de la musique et du chant pendant les trois voyages autour du carre long; les ` sens un peu excites et la tension desprit sapaiserent comme par enchantement et ce fut un vrai moment de repos pour moi! Il est malheureux que nous ne puissions rendre par ecrit les sentiments tels quils se trouvent dans notre cur, lesquels une fois sur le papier ne sont plus quune faible reproduction de loriginal, aussi ce petit travail paratra-t-il, malgre toute la bonne volonte qui y a ete mise bien fade aux lecteurs mais comme ils auront passes eux memes par ces moments qui ne seffacent pas, il les revivront peut-etre avec moi ce que je souhaite ardemment, et puissent ces quelques lignes raviver ` leurs souvenirs de cette epoque ou eux aussi ` ` avaient soif de lumiere. Fait a Chaux-de-Fonds, le 20 mars 1909, Hans Wille (Archives de La Loge LAmitie, Hans Wille, PlD davancement au II Gr, 26 octobre 1909, Box Planche dapprentis, Number 590). Hans Wille is also listed as a Freemason in the anti-Freemasonic publication of William Vogt, Catalogue des Francs-Macons Suisses 1910 1911, ` Deuxieme partie comprenant toutes les loges ` ` sauf celles de Geneve (Geneve, chez lauteur, 1912): Hans Wille, ingenieur, Lausanne, ne 1881, II 1908. 101. See File 111, Grand Orient de France, about La Loge Clemente Amitie, which was the Loge to which ` Eugene Schaltenbrand belonged in 1886. Schaltenbrand is also listed as Schaltenbrand, architecte, 20, rue Servandoni, ClO Amitie. (Pl. 1886) in the anti-Freemasonic publication (in the collection of Le
Grand Orient de France): Hermelin Editeur, Le ToutParis Maconnique contenant 10.000 noms de Francs-Macon de Paris et de la banlieue (Paris, Her melin Editeur, 1896). La Clemente Amitie, it should be explained, was one of the most prestigiously intellectual, politically active and independently minded Freemasonic loges in Paris at the end of the nineteenth century, being the Freemasonic lodge of such prominent personalities as Jules Ferry and Emile Littre, thus closely associated with the politics of the Third Republic and with the world of the arts, the humanities and the sciences. 102. A letter from La Clemente Amitie dated 5th June, 1890 addressed to La Loge LAmitie conrms that ` Eugene Schaltenbrand has left their lodge in Paris. See La Loge LAmitie, Archives, Box entitled Correspondence avec Loges francaises. ` 103. Le troisieme voyage est termine. Ce voyage symbolise lage mur. Vous lavez fait avec lallure dun homme ` parvenu a la plenitude de son development. Meme dans cette periode de la vie, lhomme a encore ` besoin daide et dappui. Isole, il ne pourrait mener a bien aucune entreprise importante. (From the Book of Rituals in use in 1886 at La Clemente Amitie, ` pp. 31, 33 and 35. Collection Bibliotheque du Grand Orient de France/La Loge La Clemente Amitie.) 104. Comparable Freemasonic ritual movement has been described for French eighteenth-century architecture by Anthony Vidler. Vidler describes how, in the years before the Revolution of 1789, The spatial order of the early lodges was gradually transformed by an increasing emphasis on the initiatory route. These routes, like those traversed by the legendary initiates, were no longer conned to the space of the lodge building itself, but extended into the landscape . . . that of the jardin-anglais . . .: Anthony Vidler, The Architecture of the Lodges, in The Writing of the Walls: Architectural Theory in the Late Enlightenment
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105.
106. 107.
108.
109. 110.
111.
(London, Butterworth Architecture, 1987), pp. 83 102; p. 99. See also Anthony Vidler, The Architecture of Lodges: Ritual Form and Associational Life in the Late Enlightenment, Oppositions, Number 5, pp. 75 97. Jean-Pierre Bayard, Symbolisme Maconnique Tradi tionnel, Tome 1: Les loges bleues (Paris, Editions Maconniques de France, 1982). Ibid., p. 235. Le bandeau qui couvre vos yeux est le symbole de laveuglement dans lequel se trouve lhomme domine par ses passions et plonge dans lignorance et la superstition, ibid., p. 250. Le postulant . . . traverse de longs couloirs; il monte, ` descent, monte a nouveau des escaliers; il march en ` aveugle dans les tenebres; il est encore dans le sein de la terre, dans le labyrinthe tellurique . . ., ibid., pp. 249 250. . . . beaucoup de bruits peuvent inquieter le postulant . . ., ibid., p. 250. Monsieur, le voyage symbolique que vous venez de ` faire est lembleme de la vie humaine. Le bruit que vous avez entendu gure les passions qui lagitent; les obstacles que vous avez rencontres peignent les difcultes que lhomme eprouve et quil ne peut vaincre ou surmonter quautant quil acquiert cette energie morale qui lui permet de lutter contre la mau ` vaise fortune, grace surtout a laide quil trouve en ses semblables, ibid., p. 251. ` La ligne droite du 1er degre correspond a linitiation; avec la ligne brisee du 2e degre nous avons un rite de ` passage et la notion de la surface. Grace a lenjambe ment du 3e degre, cest lelevation et la notion de volume. Les trois premier degres vont ainsi de la ` ligne droite decrite sur la surface de la terra a la notion du cosmos. [. . .] A tous les grades nous retrouvons ces marches, ces circumambulations accom plies selon un ordre et un sens denis et nous nous
arretons sur le sens symbolique que nous pouvons ` donner a cette orientation. Mais retenons que ce ` nest quapres ces marches, ces parcours que la ` ` lumiere est donnee aux candidats. On nat a la ` ` lumiere, mais on meurt a une autre vie, ibid., pp. 228 and 269. 112. Yet another account of Les Trois Voyages is in Michel Romanet-Chancrin, Les Trois Voyages de la ceremo nie dinitiation au Grade dApprenti, La Chane dUnion,Revue detudes symboliques et maconniques du Grand Orient de France, N0 3 (1994), pp. 37 45. Another account (easily available and well known) is that to be found in Tolstoys War and Peace. For a discussion of this, see D. K. Chamberlain, A Russian Initiation Ceremony, Ars Quatuor Coronatorum (AQC), Volume 87 (1974), pp. 229 235; and N. Katkoff and C. N. Batham, An Initiation Ceremony in a Modern Russian Lodge, Ars Quatuor Coronatorum (AQC), Volume 88 (1975), pp. 189 192. 113. Le Corbusier, Towards a New Architecture (London, The Architectural Press, 1931), pp. 181184, 187, 189190. 114. Le Corbusier, Towards a New Architecture (London, The Architectural Press, 1946 [1923]), pp. 47 50. 115. William J. R. Curtis, Le Corbusier: Ideas and Forms, op. cit., p. 96. 116. See Michel Gaudart de Soulages and Hubert Lamant, ` Dictionnaire des Francs-Macons (Paris, J. C. Lattes, 1995); Pascal Bajou describes how Juan Gris applied to La Loge Voltaire but was rejected, as is attested by an administrative letter to Le Grand Orient de France on 18th May, 1921, before later being accepted (Pascal Bajou, Juan Gris: du ` Bateau-Lavoir a la rue Cadet, La Chane dUnion, Revue detudes symboliques et maconniques de Grand Orient de France, Nouvelle Serie, Numero 20 [Printemps 2002], pp. 6377; pp. 69 and 72 and
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117.
118. 119. 120. 121. 122. 123.
124.
125.
` 73). See also Emmanuel Breon, Juan Gris a Boulogne (Paris, Herscher, 1992). Juan Gris Freemasonic pass port and other documents are reproduced in Jose A. Garca-Diego, Antonio Machado y Juan Gris, Dos artistas masones (Madrid, Editorial Castalia, 1990). None of this touches upon the actual ways in which Gris used geometry, about which there is total disagreement. For a study of Juan Gris methodical use of the Golden Section, see William A. Cameld, Juan Gris and the Golden Section, The Art Bulletin, Volume XLVII, Number One, (March 1965), pp. 128134. For a study demonstrating that Juan Gris never used the Golden Section, see Roger Fischler and Elian Fischler, Juan Gris, son milieu et le nombre dor, Revue des Arts Canadiens (RACAR), Volume VII, Nos. 2 3 (1980), p. 33 36. Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, Juan Gris: His Life and Work (London, Thames and Hudson, 1969), p.62. Christopher Green, Juan Gris (London, Whitechapel Art Gallery, 1992), p. 137. Ibid., p. 144, note 125. Ibid., p. 107. Ibid., pp. 106 7. I take the term from Yve-Alain Bois and Rosalind E. Krauss, Formless: A Users Guide (New York, Zone Books, 1997). . . . artiste peintre,homme de lettres, reedacteur en chef du feu LEsprit Nouveau; membre de la L[Art et Science : Editions Anti-Maconniques, La Franc Maconnerie Demasquee: Listes de F[ M[ apparte ` nant au Parlement, a la Presse, au Barreau et Les Diri geants de la Secte (Paris, Editions Anti-Maconniques, n d). There is further documentation about Ozenfant, to be discussed in my forthcoming monograph. Interestingly, this notion of a focus on experience, already present in the eighteenth century, is elegantly described by Peter de Bolla in his analysis of the art of Hogarth, but without mentioning Hogarths Free-
126.
127. 128. 129. 130. 131. 132. 133. 134. 135. 136. 137.
mason associations. De Bolla writes that Hogarths intervention represents the most ambitious counterargument to the academic view concerning the need for book learning in the appreciation of the visual arts. His Analysis is certainly the rst work of phenomenology in English applied to the visual sphere written by a practising artist: its ambition is nothing less than a complete phenomenology of the eye: Peter de Bolla, The Education of the Eye: Painting, Landscape, and Architecture in Eighteenth-century Britain (Stanford, Stanford University Press, 2003), p. 25. . . . [a]insi le corps qui est leveilleur du plaisir et de la douleur peut-il etre autant celui de la pensee la plus profonde: Pierrick LHyver, Car ici tout est symbole . . . (Paris, Editions maconniques de France, 2000), p. 12. Regretfully, there is no space here to enter into a discussion of the relative roles of metaphor and metonymy. Le Corbusier, Ineffable Space, in Le Corbusier, New World of Space, op. cit., pp. 7 9; p. 8. Mark Rosenthal, Juan Gris (New York, Abbeville Press, 1984), p. 9. Ibid., p. 9. Gertrude Stein, Picasso (London, B. T. Batsford, 1948), p. 13; quoted in Mark Rosenthal, op. cit., p. 9. Mark Rosenthal, Juan Gris, op. cit, p. 10. Roland Barthes, Myth Today, in Mythologies (London, Vintage Books,1993), pp. 109 159. Mark Rosenthal, Juan Gris, op. cit., p. 34. Ibid., p. 34. Ibid., p. 34. See, for example, Juan Gris, Still Life with Poem, 1915 (80.6 x 64.8 cm, Norton Simon Foundation, Pasadena). Mark Rosenthal, Juan Gris, op. cit., p. 106, note 106. And others have noted the theme of death in Juan Gris workanother Freemasonic preoccupation. See Ethlyne Seligman and Germain Seligman, Of
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the Proximity of Death and its Stylistic Activations Roger de la Fresnaye and Juan Gris, Art Quarterly, volume 12, Number 2 (Spring, 1949), pp. 147 155. 138. See Mark Rosenthal, Juan Gris., op. cit. 139. Cette idee, que je metais trompe saffermit toujours davantage et me remplit de tristesse. Je ne pouvais admettre que des hommes serieux puissent ` samuser a de pareilles choses et malgre toute ma ` ` bonne volonte, il me fut impossible a ce moment-la de saisir une signication symbolique quelconque. ` ` [. . .] Cest en pensant a ces moments passes, ou ` lon commence a se rendre compte de sa propre fai` blesse, quand elle se montre a vous dans toute sa ` grandeur et que sa petitesse apparat a nos yeux, que mon compagnon me t entrer dans le cabinet ` ` noir ou les symboles de la mort surgirent peu a peu, ` les yeux commencant a percer lobscurite regnant dans cette chambre. [. . .] Jeus le pressentiment que jallais repasser symboliquement par toutes les ` phases fondamentales de la premiere et grande pensee philosophique. Je repondit en toute temerite ` a la question qui me fut posee, que jetais toujours ` decide a devenir FD MD. [. . .] Je ne vis pas de ` difcultes a me dechausser et me dessaisir de tout metal, ayant compris le sens symbolique de cette preparation avant meme que lexplication men fut donnee par le frD qui maccompagnait et cest de ` ` cette maniere que je fus conduit a la porte du ` temple. [. . .] Il est naturel quou un profane ne pouvait se faire des opinions personnelles, toute cette ceremonie dans son ensemble ne peut lui paratre que ridicule, et quil nentrera pas dans la loge, ` nayant pu se rendre compte du sens discretement voile des symboles, quun travail mental assez serieux seul en fera connatre la signication (See Archives de La Loge LAmitie, Hans Wille, PlD davancement au II Gr, 26 octobre 1909, Box Planche dapprentis, Number 590).
140. . . . diverses possibilites de denitions suivant le degre ` de connaissance de celui qui linterprete . . . dans sa ` correspondance analogique. Alors il suggere. Sug gerer: mettre sur le chemin de leveil (Jean-Pierre Bayard, Symbolisme Maconnique Traditionnel, op. cit., pp. 29 31). 141. Le symbole permet deveiller une idee; il est une prise de conscience sur un des chemins de notre existence. Ce langage muet, reet de la tradition et de lordre cosmique, permet de percer lessence des choses, de retrouver des jalons qui controlent la voie initia` ` tique. [. . .] Le symbole possede a la fois le passe et lavenir en gestation. Il a ainsi diverses possibilites de denitions suivant le degre de connaissance de ` celui qui linterprete, Bayard, ibid, p. 29. 142. In this respect, the specicity of the relationship of the real materiality of the symbol to the ctional nature of its representation can be compared and contrasted to the relationship of metonymy and metaphor as deployed by Marcel Proust. Whereas in Proust metonomy operates implicity and secretly as a device for sustaining metaphor as reality, here metonomy is explicity and visibly used to sustain the irreality of metaphor (see my discussion in Jan Birksted, Academic Envoi, in Jan Birksted, Modernism and the Mediterranean: The Maeght Foundation (London, Ashgate Publishing, 2004). I must also add that, regretfully in this short essay, there is no time to discuss the specicity of the ritual at La Loge LAmitie, which follows the eighteenth-century (although since then altered) Schroeder ritual, which La Clemente Amitie does not. 143. Walter Benjamin, The Origin of German Tragic Drama (London and New York, Verso, 1977), p. 223. 144. Paul de Man, Blindness & Insight: Essays in the Rhetoric of Contemporary Criticism (London and New York, Routledge, 1983), p. 226. 145. Ibid., p. 218.
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146. Aurelio de Giorgi Bertola, Diari del viaggio in Svizzera e in Germania (1787), con unappendice di documenti inediti o rari (Florence, Olschki, 1982; edited ` ble). For a study of by Michele and Antonio Stau (and a bibliography about) this travel diary, see Francesca Fedi, Le paysage, image maconnique du monde moral chez Bertola, in Gian Mario Cazzaniga, Preface, Symboles, Signes, Langages Sacres pour une Semiologie de la Franc-Maconnerie,op. cit., pp. 45 68. Another key example, which has been described as a critical turning point in the history of travel diaries as a literary genre, is Patrick Brydones A Tour Through Sicily and Malta in a Series of Letters to William Beckford, Esq. of Somerly in Suffolk (London, A. Strahan and T. Cadell, 1773), in which Brydone describes the Freemasonic loges and encounters during the Grand Tour of Lord Fullarton, whom he was accompanying when they set sail with the British Ambassador, Sir William Hamilton, himself a Freemason: see Pierre-Yves Beaurepaire, Grand Tour, in Eric Saunier, ed., Encyclopedie de la Franc-Maconnerie (Paris, Librairie Generale Francaise, 2000), pp. 357358. 147. . . . quella grata sorpresa che ne crea lameno conseguito per le vie del terribile: Aurelio de Giorgi Bertola, Diari del viaggio in Svizzera e in Germania (1787), op. cit., Letter V; quoted in Francesca Fedi, op. cit., pp. 45 68; p. 55. ` 148. La strada mia favorita e quella che dopo avermi guidato per mezzo al piacevole laberinto di folte sepi, e una salva di castagni, mi lascia sopra un praticello coronato di ulivi [. . .]: io mi fermo a contemplar dallalto le fatiche de pescatori, a quel modo a un dipresso che le vedrei pel vetro di una lanterna magica: Aurelio de Giorgi Bertola, Operette in verso e prosa; quoted in Francesca Fedi, op. cit., pp. 45 68; p. 55.
149. Hence the signicance of the historical source of the travel diary in Freemasonic culture, as well as of other typologies such as the German Bildungsroman, etcetera. 150. Le Corbusier, Precisions sur un etat present de larchitecture et de lurbanisme (Paris, 1930), pp. 136138; Precisions on the Present State of architecture and City Planning (Cambridge, Mass., The MIT Press, 1991), p. 139. 151. Colin Rowe, The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa [1946], in C. Rowe, The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa and Other Essays (Cambridge, Mass., The MIT Press, 1976), pp. 2 27; p. 3. 152. This raises another critical aspect of the notion of work in Masonic thinking, which relates to the work being done by the Freemason on him/ herself to improve. But this is another whole chapter, which cannot be enlarged upon in this brief article . . . 153. Le Corbusier, Sur Les Quatre Routes (Paris, Editions Denoel, 1970 [1939]). 154. Le Corbusier, Le Modulor: A Harmonious Measure to the Human Scale Universally applicable to Architecture and Mechanics (London, Faber and Faber Limited, 1954), pp. 222 225. ` 155. . . . pas seulement au fond de mon caractere mais aussi au fond meme de mon uvre batie et peinte: Le Corbusier, letter to Marcel Levaillant, 21st April, 1954, reproduced in Jean Jenger, ed., Le Corbusier Choix de Lettres: Selection, Introduction et notes par Jean Jenger (Basel, Boston, Berlin, Birkhauser, 2002), pp. 376 377; p. 376. ` 156. . . . travailler ensemble a lamelioration de lhumanite en commencant par rechercher leur propre perfectionnement moral: Alfred-Louis Jacot, Le Symbolisme Maconnique, op. cit., pp. 107111. 157. Robert Schwartzwald, Father Marie-Alain Couturier, O.P., and the Refutation of Anti-Semitism in Vichy France (published electronically), in L. Ehrilich,
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S. Bolozky, R. Rothestein, M. Schwarts, J. Bertkovitz, J. Young, eds, Textures and Meaning: Thirty Years of Judaic Studies at the University of Massachussets Amherst, (University of Massachusetss Amherst, 2004), pp. 140 156; pp. 141 142. See also Dominique Rossignol,Vichy et les Franc-Macons: La ` liquidation des societes secretes 19401944 (Editions ` Jean-Claude Lattes, 1981) and Lucien Sabah, Une Police Politique de Vichy: Le Service des Societes ` Secretes (Paris, Klincksieck, 1996). But this paranoia was even more bizarrely twisted since the Documents Maconniques issued by Vichy set out to demonstrate that the United States of America was also part of the Jewish-Bolshevik-Freemasonic plot since President Roosevelt was a Freemason, and that, as Bartholdi too was a Freemason, the Statue of Liberty was the symbol of the global Jewish-Freemasonic-BolshevikCapitalist plot. See the articles on this in Bernard Fa, ` ` Robert Vallery-Radot and Jean Marques-Riviere, Les Documents Maconniques (Vichy, Imprimerie Speciale ` des Documents Maconniques, Siege de lAdminis tration, 11, Rue Hubert-Colombier; Paris, Musee des ` Societes Secretes, 1941 1944): Numero 1, Octobre, 1941; Numero 2, Novembre, 1941; Numero 3, Decembre, 1941; Numero 4, Janvier, 1942; Numero 5, Fevrier, 1942; Numero 6, Mars, 1942; Numero 7, Avril, 1942; Numero 8, Mai, 1942; Numero 9, Juin, 1942; Numero 10, Juillet, 1942; Numero 11, Aout, 1942; Numero 12, Septembre, 1942; Numero 1, Octobre, 1942 (the numbering restarts in October, 1942 and 1943); Numero 2, Novembre, 1942; Numero 3, Decembre, 1942; Numero 4, Janvier, 1943; Numero 5, Fevrier, 1943; Numero 6, Mars, 1943; Numero 7, Avril, 143; Numero 8, Mai, 1943; Numero 9, Juin, 1943; Numero 10, Juillet, 1943; Numero 11, Aout, 1943; Numero 12, Septembre, 1943; Numero 1, Octobre, 1943; Numero 2, Novem bre, 1943; Numero 3, Decembre, 1943; Numero 4,
Janvier, 1944; Numero 5, Fevrier, 1944; Numero 6, Mars, 1944; Numero 7, Avril, 1944; Numero 8, Mai, 1944; Numero 9, Juin, 1944. 158. Robert Schwartzwald, Father Marie-Alain Couturier, O.P., and the Refutation of Anti-Semitism in Vichy France, op. cit.,pp. 140 156; pp. 148 149. 159. Ce que nous avons recu des francs-macons et des juifs: des exemplesun apport direct: see Marie-Alain Couturier, La verite blessee (Paris, Plon, 1984), p. 35. 160. Robert Schwartzwald, Father Marie-Alain Couturier, O.P., and the Refutation of Anti-Semitism in Vichy France, op. cit., pp. 140 156; pp. 148149. 161. Corbu me disait en douce Ils ne se doutent pas de ce que nous allons faire, pas plus que les eveques du Moyen-Age ne se doutaient des symboles des batis seurs de cathedrales. . .: letter from Trouin to Picasso, 23rd February, 1956 (FLC P5-2-37). This letter in fact concerns Couturier. 162. Andre Wogenscky writes that he was asked by Le Corbusier to attend this dinner, so presumably the photograph was taken by him. 163. For a list of his contributions to LEsprit Nouveau, see Robert Coombs, Mystical Themes in Le Corbusiers Architecture in the Chapel Notre-Dame-du-Haut at Ronchamp: the Ronchamp Riddle (Lewiston [New York], Queenston [Ontario], Lampeter [Wales], The Edwin Mellen Press, 2000), p. 200, note 6. He contributed articles and book reviews to LEsprit Nouveau (often several in one issue), numbers 13 and 14, then numbers 20, 21, 23, 24, 25 and 28. 164. Rene Allendy was initiated into La Loge LEtoile Polaire (19th February, 1914, from which he resigned on 20th October, 1920 in order to join Le Droit Humain). See Pascal Bajou, Juan Gris: du Bateau` Lavoir a la rue Cadet, op. cit., pp. 63 77; p. 74. 165. Joseph Rykwert, The Dark Side of the Bauhaus, in Joseph Rykwert, The Necessity of Artice (London, Academy Editions, 1982), pp. 44 49; p. 49.
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166. Ibid., pp. 44 49; p. 44. Curiously, what Rykwert did not know, which this research has discovered, was that Johannes Itten specically chose to study in ` Geneva under the professorship of Eugene Gilliard (18611921) who, having developed a method of teaching called Les cahiers rythmiques that were so admired by Itten that he eventually wanted to translate them into German, then taught at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Geneva from 1901 to 1920, where he, after having been initiated at the Freemasonic La Loge LEgalite in Fleurier in 1888, became afliated to the Genevan lodge Prudence et Fidelite. 167. The Arts Council of Great Britain, Le Corbusier, Architect of the Century (London, Hayward Gallery Exhibition Catalogue, 1987). 168. Langle droit est la base de sa pensee architecturale. Toute son oeuvre batie, tous ses projets en temoig nent. Mais ce qui le caracterise, cest quaucune ` forme nest pour lui vide de sens. Des quil dresse dans lespace une forme architecturale, il la charge de valeur signiante. Langle droit nest pas seule ment geometrie, mais symbole.: Andre Wogenscky, ` Introductory statement to Le Corbusier, Le Poeme de lAngle Droit (Paris, Fondation Le Corbusier/Editions Connivences, 1989), n p. 169. See Charles S. Peirce, Philosophical Writings (New York, Dover, [Justus Buchler ed.], 1955). 170. Jean Gimpel, Les Batisseurs de Cathedrales (Paris, Editions du Seuil, 1958). (Fondation Le Corbusier, J 149.) ` 171. Peu a peu, dans les Loges, la proportion des ouvriers a diminue en faveur des hommes cultives, de non operative masons. On peut considerer que lhistoire ` des batisseurs des cathedrales anglaises sacheve ` avec la formation de la Grande Loge a Londres en 1717. La franc-maconnerie speculative prend alors vraiment son essor . . ., ibid.,p. 181.
172. Le Corbusier, Modulor 2 (Boulogne, Editions de larchitecture daujourdhui, 1955), p. 34. 173. le Compagnonnage est toujours vivant. [. . .] Vous ne formez pas seulement des bons ouvriers, vous formez des hommes, et qui en plus sont des hommes cap` ables: Eugene Claudius-Petit, Speech on 29 January 1952 at La Soiree du Compagnonnage du Devoir at the Palais de Chaillot, Compagnonnage, Organe des Compagnons du Tour de France, No. 130 (March, 1952), p. 1. 174. Antoine Moles, lHistoire des charpentiers (Paris, Gund, 1949). 175. Le Corbusier, inscription in his copy of Viollet-le-Ducs Dictionnaire raisonne de larchitecture francaise de ` XIe au XVIe siecle; quoted in H. Allen Brooks, op. cit., p. 171. 176. Pour le Compagnonnage, cette dimension spirituellecelle qui permet detre et de faire dune ` autre maniereest dabord vecue au quotidien, au sein de la communaute des Compagnons du Devoir, mais aussi dans ce chemin de vie que ` chacun est amene a decouvrir au cours de son initiation. Cette dimension humaine, chacun doit la construire et la vivre au cours de son voyage sur les routes de France et dailleurs, pendant un certain temps, puis plus tard dans son engagement professionnel, familial, dans son engagement dans la cite des hommes: Rene Lambert (dit Provencal la Fidelite), La Sainte-Baume: Le Pelerinage des Compagnons du Devoir (Paris, Librairie du Compagnonnage, 1997), p. 4. ` 177. On nous appelle chacun a son tour; on nous introduit dans une salle bondee de Compagnons. Autour de cette salle, des draps blancs sont tendus dissimulant ` a nos yeux, tout ce que les Compagnons seuls doivent voir. En face de nous, trois hommes president. Leur bureau est tendu de blanc. On nous demande, au milieu dun silence impressionnant, si nous desir-
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ons etre recus Compagnons. Sur notre afrmative, on nous dit ensuite de deposer les preuves de notre savoir-faire, qui sont recues sur une serviette ` blanche. [. . .] Il est certainement bien pres de ` minuit; nous attendons anxieusement le palmares. Enn un jeune Compagnon descend, la liste des elus en mains: sur vingt-quatre, il y dix-huit recus. Je ` suis en queue. Quelques instants apres, nous voici deambulent par les rue brumeuses de ce soir de ` decembre. Ou allons nous, nous nen savons rien. ` Ou sommes-nous alles, nous nen saurons jamais rien. Il nous a semble nous enfoncer dans la terre: cest le symbole de la mort. Allons-nous mourir? Renatrons-nous? si nous en sommes dignes. Et lhorloge a sonne minuit. Pour renatre, il faut du courage. Les vices nous ont assaillis, ils nous ont ` ` tentes, seduits. Malheur a qui cede, le cuir chevelu ma rappele pendant une quinzaine quil ne fait pas bon biaiser avec les Compagnons. Enn nous voici puries, lorage sest tu, le soleil matinal nous retro` uve au pied dun baptistere et les parrains ont ` accede a ce que je porte le nom que jai choisi depuis bien longtemps, mais il faut lui faire honneur. [. . .] Et, quand, du fond des bois, les ` Compagnons nous reconduisirent chez la Mere, nous nous sentmes des hommes nouveaux, scandant ` allegrement les strophes de la Gloire qui faisaient sentrouvrir des persiennes au passage. Nous netions plus des Aspirants, nous etions Compagnons recus mais non Compagnons nis. Et pour etre nis, il fallait aller se faire reconnatre tels, dans une de nos cinq grandes cayennes: Abel Boyer, dit Perigord Cur Loyal, Compagnon Marechal Ferrant du Devoir, Le Tour de France dun Compagnon du Devoir (Paris, Imprimerie du Compagnonnage, 1957), pp. 45 48. ` 178. Cetait un vendredi soir. Chez la Mere afuaient tous les aspirants de la cambrousse qui desiraient subir leurs
epreuves professionnelles, briguer le titre de Compagnon. . . Puis questionnant laspirant sil a fait toutes ses reexions sur ce quil va entreprendre et ` quil est encore a temps de se retirer, vu que le ` moment sapproche ou il va subir de grandes epreuves ` et etre expose a de grands dangers . . . [ils] le prendront par la main et lui font faire le tour de la Chambre tou` ` jours a genoux! Puis se relevera et, les compagnons, ` semploieront pour faire les epreuves de la maniere accoutumee, toujours en gardent le silence sous peine des amendes ordinaires. [ . . . ] . . . alors le Roleur conduira le nouveau recu dans une autre chambre ` sans lumiere toujours les yeux bandes . . .: Emile Coornaert, Les Compagnonnages en France du ` ` Moyen Age a nos jours (Paris, Les Editions ouvrieres, 1966), p. 379. 179. The notion of a pensee maconnique/compagnonni que raises a critical problem since the term implies the existence and the observability of a mental orientation, which seems to imply stability and/or singularity. But mental states are uid, mobile, shifting and pluridimensional. The classic example is that of irony, the dynamic coexistence of several diverse and interactive meanings that in turn generate new meanings. Truant notes that even a direct transcription of a ritual or an origin narrative cannot recapture the moment of the act, the inections of the actors, or the responses of the listeners. Did they drink in every word or yawn with boredom? With rare exceptions, the texts of rituals fail to tell us if the initiates trembled with fear, laughed at ritual trappings they thought foolish, or were impressed by the spectacle: Cynthia Maria Truant, The Rites of Labor: Brotherhoods of Compagnonnage in Old and New Regime France (Ithaca and London, Cornell University Press, 1994), p. 81. In addition, irony, humour and wit are, in social anthropology, used as indicators of engagements with social
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actions and networks; mental states are thus also meaningful of the goal-orientations of social actors. In this respect, the acts of drinking in every word, yawning with boredom, trembling with fear, laughing at foolishness or being impressed are in themselves meaningful. So, returning to our case study and the notion of pensee maconnique/com pagnonnique, the question that arises is its status, to which the answer is that there is no way of knowing whether it is a transcendental belief, a design strategy or a social tactic. This mirrors the classic and irresolvable debate between Rudolf Wittkower and Giulio Argan about Palladios use of harmonic proportions. Wittkower argued for their importance as a hermeneutic belief system while Argan argued for their use as heuristic design inspiration. See Rudolf Wittkower, Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism (New York, W. W. Norton & Co., 1971); Giulio Argan, The Importance of Sammicheli in the Formation of Palladio, in Creighton Gilbert, ed., Renaissance Art (New York, Harper & Row, 1973), pp. 172 179. This again mirrors Colin Rowes passionate exposition of Le Corbusiers use of Palladios ideal mathematics, subsequently described by Rowe himself in an ironic Addendum of 1973 as so dependent on close analysis, if protracted, [that] it can only impose enormous strain upon both its consumer and producer: Colin Rowe, The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa, in Colin Rowe, The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa and Other Essays, op. cit., pp. 1 27; p. 26. The important point to be made is therefore that the notion of pensee maconnique/compagnonnique refers to a system of cultural beliefs in action. Alternatively, pensee maconnique/compagnonnique can be con strued in this study in cultural history as a theory, that is, as but only an explanatory theory of cultural beliefs in action.
180. Le Corbusier, Creation is Patient Search (New York, Frederick A. Praeger, 1960), p. 19. 181. Charles Humbert, diary of 28th, 29th, 30th and 31st January, 1925, quoted in Maurice Favre, Les Voix et leur epoque 1919 1920, Nouvelle revue neuchate loise, No 78, 20e annee (Autumn, 2003), p. 53. 182. This is discussed in Flora Samuel, Le Corbusier, Rabelais and the Oracle of the Holy Bottle, Word & Image, A Journal of Verbal/Visual Enquiry, Volume 17, Number 4 (OctoberDecember 2001), pp. 325338. ` 183. Francois Rabelais, uvres Completes (Paris, Collection La Pleiade, 1951). (Fondation Le Corbusier, J 162.) 184. Le litterateur ne jure et ne juge que par la chose imprimee, oubliant que le Moyen Age se servit du ` dessin plus que du langage pour exprimer sa secrete pensee, sans peur ni risque, et que beaucoup duvres de la Renaissance sexpliquent par les arts et les metiers. Il faut savoir larchitecture et surtout lheraldique pour comprendre Rabelais: Josephin Peladan, Le Secret des Corporations; ` La Cle de Rabelais (Paris, Bibliotheque Internationale dEdition E. Sansot et Cie., 1905), p. 94. 185. Barbara C. Bowen, The Age of Bluff: Paradox & Ambiguity in Rabelais & Montaigne (Urbana, Chicago, London, University of Illinois Press, 1972), pp. 5 6. 186. Ibid.,p. 162. 187. Cest pourquoi toutes les formes et tous les sym boles de la langue carnavalesque sont impregnes du lyrisme de lalternance et du renouveau, de la conscience de la joyeuse relativite des verites et autorites au pouvoir. Elle est marquee, notamment, ` par la logique originale des choses a lenvers, au contraire, des permutations constantes du haut et ` du bas (la roue), de la face et du derriere, par les formes les plus diverses de parodies et travestissements, rabaissements, profanations, couronne ments et detronements bouffons . . . comme un ` monde a lenvers.: Mikhail Bakhtine, Luvre de
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188.
189. 190.
191.
192.
Francois Rabelais et la culture populaire au Moyen Age et sous la Renaissance (Paris, Gallimard, 1970), p. 19. . . . par exemple, en remplacant les termes usites pour les couleurs par ceux du langage vulgaire et les gures par ce quelles symbolisent. Cest ainsi, par exemple, que gueule devient rouge, azur (bleu) devient baille (jeu de mots avec la grande baille, la mer; mais baille veut dire aussi bailler), sinople ` devient si noble, etcetera. On joue sur les mots a la facon de Rabelais. (Personal communication, May, 2004.) Le Corbusier, My Work (London, Architectural Press, 1960), p. 19. There is no need to enter into the debate about ` whether the posthumous Cinquieme Livre is, is not or is partly by Rabelais, which, for the argument of this essay, is irrelevant. Liane Lefaivre, Leon Battista Albertis Hypnerotomachia Poliphilii: Re-Cognizing the Architectural Body in the Early Italian Renaissance (Cambridge, Mass., The MIT Press, 1997), p. 250. Joseph Rykwert, The Dark Side of the Bauhaus, op. cit., pp. 44 49; p. 44. This essay considers the architectural promenade, but there are other areas of Le Corbusiers architectural language which cannot be considered in a short essay, such as the concepts of ineffable space and the notion of temple. Le Corbusier aways wanted to relate domestic environments to temples. I thank Judi Loach for pointing out another instance of this, when, in the rst monograph about the Unite in Marseillessee Danielle Janin, La Maison Radieuse, in Homme et architecture, Numero special 11/12/13/14 (1947), pp. 68 73the illustrations included on its opening page, a photograph of the pilotis in a model of the (as yet unbuilt) Unite, with an Egyptian statue in their midst, so as to make
193.
194. 195.
196.
197.
198.
199.
them read as the columns of an ancient Egyptian temple. It thus specically allows the assimilation of many other such concepts, for example, La Loi du meandre, etc., as tting into the overall structure. Yve-Alain Bois, A Picturesque Stroll around ClaraClara, October, Vol. 29 (1984), pp. 32 62; p. 57. See Albert Boime, The Academy and French Painting in the Nineteenth Century (London, Phaidon, 1971); Richard Shiff, Cezanne and the End of Impressionism: a Study of the Theory, Technique, and Critical Evaluation of Modern Art (Chicago, Chicago University Press, 1984); Thomas Crow, Emulation: making artists for revolutionary France (New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1994). She kept the salon until 1969. See Elisabeth de ` Gramont, Souvenirs du Monde de 1890 a 1940 (Paris, Editions Bernard Grasset, 1966); Franncesco Rapazzini, Elisabeth de Gramont, Avant-gardiste (Paris, Fayard, 2001). Une jeune Italienne dans la lucarne du batiment continu au mien, lance sur les jardins dAdrienne, dune voix de prima donna, tout un emoi de petite ame esseulee. Cest tout. Un jour dorage fou, un soir, son chant absolument eperdu se melait en joie de delivrance, au bruit de la nature, du tonnerre et des feuilles eclaboussees de pluie, tel de ces rossignols, de ces merles qui au printemps de ces alou ettes qui en ete remplissent de leur cri lespace: Le Corbusier, letter to William Ritter, 1st July, 1917 (Fondation Le Corbusier, R-3-19-145/193; 153). George Wickes, The Amazon of Letters, The Life and Loves of Natalie Barney (London, W.H. Allen, 1977), p. 104. . . . 20 rue Jacob (adresse pour le courrier prive); autrement dit, dans lancien hotel dAdrienne Lecouvreur; dans le jardin se trouve le petit temple
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que lui construisit Maurice de Saxe. . .Une chance, une veine! Vous voyez bien que je le trompette!: Charles-Edouard Jeanneret, letter to William Ritter, 26th January, 1917 (Fondation Le Corbusier, R-319-113). 200. Jacques Sbriglio, Immeuble 24 N.C. et appartement/ Le Corbusier: Apartment Block 24 N.C. and Le
Corbusiers at (Boston, Birkhauser Verlag, 1996), p. 14. 201. Maurice Besset, Introduction, in Le Corbusier, Le Corbusier Sketchbooks (London, Thames & Hudson, 1981), pp. xi xiii; p. xi.

Le Corbusier's Concept of the Architectural Promenade

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Le Corbusier's Concept of the Architectural Promenade

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55

The Journal of Architecture Volume 11 Number 1

Beyond the cliches of the hand-books: Le Corbusiers architectural promenade1

Jan Kenneth Birksted

The Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London

The picturesque architectural promenade

Figure 10. Guide pittoresque de letranger dans Paris et ses environs.

Reading Ruskin in La Chaux-de-Fonds, circa 1900

La Chaux-de-Fonds, circa 1900

Les Trois Voyages

Symbolic work and voyage

Endings and beginnings

Notes and references

30. 31. 32.

36. 37. 38.

39. 40. 41.

43. 44. 45.

60. 61. 62.

118. 119. 120. 121. 122. 123.

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