Le Cabanon ii

Doesn't it seem unusual that for one of the most influential architects of all time, such a small wooden shed is seen as such an important piece of work? Enormous state ministries and vast private residences from one end of the earth to the other are all well known, but Le Cabanon is definitely up there amongst some his most legendary works.

So simply looking at a few pictures on the internet clearly isn't enough to get a real sense of the place, not just in a physical spatial sense, but in context of Corbu's other works at the time, what he was trying to achieve with it and what else was going on in a social and philosophical sense.

From the limited amount of reading I have done it sounds like he was moving to a more spiritual position after the war, not just in terms of working on religious projects (La Tourret and the chapel at Ronchamps) but completing the Moduler... a system of proportion based around the human form (specifically a 6ft man). The reason that mathematical formulae of this type can be seen as spiritual comes from the Bible... Man, created in God's image, is therefore perfectly proportioned... in general, if not in individual instance. The Vitruvian Man is a previous example of this geometric "order" being used to express Man's divinity (in form) and the links spreading through the cosmos based on maths...

Anyway, if scales based on human geometry are applied to the proportions of a building, then the proportionality must be perfect, or so Corb's argument goes... as well as the multi functional nature of having parts all based on a similar scale - it makes industrial fabrication a lot easier if everything is interchangeable, based on one scale. Corbusier's ideas of a Machine's for Living seems to be one of his main themes, as he looked into a heavily industrialised future.

Maybe, after the horrors of the war, he felt (in what seems to be his own unbelievably self-confident way) that mankind needed a re-connection with the divine, and a sense of spirituality which had probably been lost through the secular 20's and 30's rise of socialism and fascism... I don't know, but it'd be interesting to find out what his religious views were.

So what was he trying to do with Le Cabanon? Was he simply making a little retreat for himself and his wife, as a birthday present for her, some simple little shack above the sea where they could go and relax, breathe and live simple, uncluttered lives? A private space?

Or was this something else? A message to the architectural community that the great Corbu could go back to basics, could live in the small but perfectly proportioned spaces he advocated in these new communal towers he was designing? Was he trying to prove the rightness of his own ideas? A vindication? Was this in some way a publicity stunt, like the minister feeding his kids beefburgers in the middle of the mad cow scare?

Unlikely I think - he spent considerable time there, obviously genuinely did enjoy the view, lifestyle and probably the escapism of the entire concept, and ended his life there... but I think that something of his philosophy on modern living must have tried to have been expressed. Either way, simple and elegant though it is, it was not the perfect form he had entirely hoped. He had to build a separate shack shortly after due to lack of space within the original, as work required more room. Not altogether surprising really though...

In the end, the place confuses me and raises more questions than it answers. Without knowing his lifestyle at the other times, away from Le Cabanon, whether his ideas of other larger units were being as well accepted as he had hoped at the time, what his wife thought of it, I think its too easy to just look at this as a quaint, romanticised simple wooden shack...