Ledoux, Kaufmann & Le Corbusier — the Beginnings of Modern Architecture
In his book “Von Ledoux bis Le Corbusier. Ursprung und Entwicklung der autonomen Architektur” (From Ledoux to Le Corbusier. Origin and Development of Autonomous Architecture) written in 1933 Emil Kaufmann depicts Claude Nicolas Ledoux, his designs and texts as the beginning of modern architecture. In his analysis of Ledoux’ work (and that of his pupils Durand and Debut) he strips away the ornamental classicist “dresses” wrapping his buildings to uncover the revolutionary core of his architecture.
According to Kaufmann it was after the three decades split apart by the French revolution, that two architectural systems became explicit: one came to an end (Ecole des Beaux Art) and one had just begun (Ecole Polytechnique). Kaufmann acknowledges that classicism gave the beaux-arts plan and its facade a pre-longed life. Nonetheless, although declared one hundred years later by Gropius, Loos, Berlage, and Le Corbusier, it was with Ledoux that the new architecture commenced.
Kaufmann argues Ledoux was the first to break with the baroque sense of unity and the organic whole. He went from the Gesamtkunstwerk to a pavilion system. In baroque order the parts must relate to a complete whole — taking a piece away would mean ruining the organic unity.
This shift becomes most evident when comparing Ledoux’ design for the Barrière St. Martin with a chateau designed by his teacher J.F. Blondel. Ledoux’s building is a radical superimposition of a barrel and a cube (with Greek temple fronts). You could have one with out the other — in other words, they are not just parts of a whole but entities within a dynamic composition. Blondel’s design on the other hand is an example of a true organic whole, where each element has its irreplaceable part to play in creating the overall impression of a complete Gesamtkunstwerk. In his designs Ledoux breaks with the aesthetic principles of proportion, order, harmony, and symmetry — principals that go as far back as Alberti and Vitruv.
Ledoux utilizes the new part-to-part relationship in his design for the ideal city where functions become isolated units. His city is a conglomerate of freed independent parts. It is here that Ledoux anticipates the modernist city of isolated and differentiated functional zones:
By breaking with the beuax-art rule systems Ledoux set the first step towards an autonomous architectural discourse. Architecture is to be evaluated on its own terms and not on aesthetic rules imposed from outside. In his textbooks “Precis des leçons d’architecture” Durand affirms what Ledoux started and lifts him to canonical standard in architectural education. Durand declares that architecture has to be beautiful, but that its purpose is usefulness and functionality. The idea of program and function wasn’t a new concept — it is as old as architecture itself — but the idea that architecture does not need beautification or outer disciplinary justification (like aesthetic and stylistic formulas) was. To Durand architecture is inherently good and beautiful.
“I am the architect puriste” said Ledoux. This new autonomous architect was freed from the beaux-art axis. He was now able to design new and dramatic interior sequences, with asymmetric room arrangements. Arrangements that are not chained to the ever repeating enfilade system. No piono nobile or belle étage has to be expressed in elevation any longer, thus new possibilities for vertical circulation and design in section emerged:
The revolution that drove Ledoux was the move from individual-versus-mass towards a mass of individuals. Architecture was no longer just a royal affair but one of new citizens and their expanding demands for a better quality of life. Paused by Napoleon and reiterated as part of iindustrialisationit is the same revolution that Le Corbusier reacted to one hundred years later.
