[468]. The preoccupation with the shapes of things that move—which architecture does not—reflects doubtless the motion-aesthetic of the Futurists. How well Le Corbusier knew the pre-war projects of the brilliant Italian Antonio Sant’Elia is not clear. But his own aesthetic is less related to the particular forms found in Sant’Elia’s designs for buildings than to generalized Futurist dreams of speed and technical modernity. See also Note [[495]] to Chapter [23].
[469]. However, Le Corbusier’s sketch books make evident that he had used his eyes to advantage on a very wide range of buildings in the Mediterranean world on his early travels, from peasant huts to the Parthenon, the Campidoglio, and Versailles. His attitude towards the past was very different, evidently, from that of the Futurists, of which a somewhat closer reflection is to be found in the doctrines of Gropius.
[470]. Throughout this period, and indeed down to 1943, Le Corbusier practised in partnership with his cousin Pierre Jeanneret (b. 1896); technically most of his work should therefore be attributed to ‘Le Corbusier & Jeanneret’. No attempt has yet been made by critics or historians to determine to what extent Jeanneret deserves credit for the work of the firm, nor to evaluate the work he has since done independently.
[471]. See Roth, A., Zwei Wohnhäuser von Le Corbusier und Pierre Jeanneret, Stuttgart, 1927.
[472]. The open plan of the Vaucresson house was more significant than the treatment of the exterior; that was ‘scraped’ of all features in a Loos-like way, yet still quite symmetrical, at least on the garden side.
The studio-house for Ozenfant, built on a very restricted corner site, was too special in its vertical organization to be very influential. Although today in good general condition, the very ‘industrial’ saw-toothed skylights on the roof have been removed and the terrace surrounded with a crude railing.
[473]. Confused by Le Corbusier’s description of his houses as machines à habiter and the general ‘machinolatry’ of much of his early writing, many have mistakenly supposed that his was a machine-aesthetic. Just how to define his aesthetic other than by begging the question and merely calling it ‘Corbusian’ is, however, far from clear. For an analysis stressing Le Corbusier’s ‘formalism’, but not in the pejorative sense of Stalinist criticism, see Rowe, C., ‘Mannerism and Modern Architecture’, Architectural Review, CVII (1950), 289-300.
[474]. Le Corbusier’s personal system of proportion, first used for the 1916 house, gradually crystallized into a very detailed mathematical scheme which has been made generally available in his books Le Modular, Boulogne-sur-Seine, 1950; English ed., London, 1954; and Modular II, London, 1958.
[475]. See Moussinac, L., Robert Mallet-Stevens, Paris, 1931.
[476]. See André Lurçat, projets et réalisations, Paris, 1929.