Le Corbusier's "Regulating Lines" for the Villa at Garches (1927) and Other Early Works

Abstract

Le Corbusier's drawing on page 144 of his Oeuvre complète indicates that he had used the "golden number" while designing the villa at Garches. Documents at the Fondation Le Corbusier show that this drawing was made at least 18 months after the original design. Moreover, the regulating lines here do not agree with those on an earlier drawing. The same sort of discrepancy is also found when comparing drawings of other early works. To explain the apparent contradictions and to understand Le Corbusier's method, his writings must be consulted. From these it becomes clear that the regulating lines were not used to design buildings but rather to modify or confirm the original plans. Hence more than one set of lines would fit a given structure. The plans for Garches must be understood in this light. When Le Corbusier took up the "golden number" he simply used it, after the fact, to further confirm his work at Garches. It is this later confirmation that we see in the Oeuvre complète.

Proportions in the Architecture Curriculum

“…However despite the boldface formula proclaiming the use of the golden number at Garches, this drawing is what one might call a "plant", for, as I discovered in the course of my research, not only was it drawn at least eighteen months after the building was completed, but the original sketches showed that Le Corbusier used his "place of the right angle" to design the villa. Further Le Corbusier's own writing show that he had previously been extremely critical of the use of the golden number in design [Fischler 1979;Herz-Fischler 1984]. These two examples show that even when we have pictorial and written evidence, we must act with extreme caution in deciding upon the theoretical basis of an architectural structure.…”

“…The Rhind Papyrus is from the Fifteenth Dynasty (c. -1800), but is known to be based on a Twelfth Dynasty text. For details of the pyramid problems, as well as a discussion of the archaeological, historical and philosophical aspects, related to the problem of determining how the Great Pyramid was designed, see [Herz-Fischler 2000].…”

“…In my book The Shape of the Great Pyramid [Herz-Fischler 2000] I have devoted a chapter to the philosophical and practical problems involved in trying to reconstruct the design proportions of an architectural structure. For the purpose of introducing proportions to students of architecture I found that the following two well-known examples were not only of intrinsic interest to the students, but also made them realize how important it was to treat these matters with great care.…”

“…For each of the following five theories find the angle of inclination (a) of the faces and compare it with the observed angle of inclination, which we take to be 51.84° (Figure 4) [Herz-Fischler 2000] ii. For what well-known estimate for the value of p does the angle given by the "pi" theory exactly equal to that given by the seked theory?…”

“…Then under the influence of Ghyka's Esthétique des proportions dans la nature et dans les arts-which appeared sometime in mid-1927 and thus at a point in time when the building was finished or almost so-Le Corbusier completely changed his attitude to the "golden number". Not only did he become one of the strongest advocates of the use of the "golden number", he changed his drawing of Garches so as to make readers believe that he had used it as a design principle [Herz-Fischler 1984]! Ghyka's books caused not a few people-I being no exception-to believe in the "golden number" both as a historical reality and as the basis of architectural design.…”