Architecture. Зайцева И.В. - 65 стр.

to form an ensemble with subsidiary buildings
to head the school of architecture

        6.4.2 Ask your partner the following questions:

1) Whom was Kazakov educated by?
2) What was Kazakov’s first masterpiece?
3) What was one of Kazakov’s favourite motifs?
4) What was Kazakov’s greatest contribution to the neo-classical décor of Moscow?
5) What official buildings were built in Moscow by Kazakov?

        6.4.3 Compare Kazakov’s residential houses and official buildings

        6.5 Read the text to find answers to the questions

                                            Text 6 C

       Charles-Edouard ( Jeanneret ) Le Corbusier

1)      What are the formulas of Le Corbusier’s new architecture?
         Le Corbusier ( 1887 – 1966 ) was the most influential and the most brilliant of
   th
20 century architects. He published and publicized a number of total plans for cities
with a centre of identical skyscrapers, symmetrically arranged in a park setting, with
lower buildings and complex traffic routes between. The formulas
of Corbu’s architectural typology, his “five points for a new architecture”: the slab, the
split-level dwelling unit, the sunbreaker, the pilotis and the roof garden were to be the
essential elements of the new aesthetic.
2) What does Le Corbusier’s “Le Modulor” mean?
         He proposed the “Modulor”, a system of proportions grounded on the golden
section or the Fibonacci series using the human figures as its basis, formulated the
famous definition of architecture as ‘the masterly correct and magnificent play of
masses brought together in light’. His comparisons with engineering constructions and
with modern forms of transportation were formulated into such oft-misunderstood
postulates as ‘the house is a machine for living in’ and that it should be as practically
constructed as a typewriter. By this he meant not a mechanistic ‘machine aesthetic’
but rather complete rationality in plan, capacity for serial-production and function.
3) What were Le Corbusier’s expressions of luxury in architecture?
         Le Corbusier’s works have become monuments of modern architecture with
their general independence of terrain as well as a rich variety of interior and exterior
spaces achieved by means of ‘double-height rooms, gallery floors, bridges and ramps
with views into the interior as well as ‘framed’ views looking out, all expressions of a
genuine luxury in architecture.
4) Why is Le Corbusier thought to be a leading figure in modern architecture?
         Le Corbusier’s long period as a leading figure in modern architecture – for
nearly half a century – was unique among architects of his time and is, finally, a
reflection of his capacity to endow architecture with an expression which evokes the
spirit of his epoch. In this sense he was at once the ‘terrible simplificateur’ in the