LE MODULOR POSSIBILITIES

Le Corbusier’s Le Modulor, is iconic.  It is referenced in the history books as a milestone.  We toss off references to it as if everyone knows how it works.  But do you really know what it is?

At the foundation, Le Modulor is a system of possibilites.  It is a method, an invention, to use Corb’s term, which builders and architects can use to set the sizes and proportions of the built world.  The Modulor proportioning / measuring system, ideally, would supplant the imperial and metric rulers.  It was an instrument of unification of the two measuring systems.  A patent was applied for, but never obtained.  A Le Modulor ruler was produced, along with two books.  Yet his system was only used by him.  It was never adopted outside of Corb’s practice.

Vitruvius, it seems, was the first to advocate a system where buildings are proportioned based on the human body.  Di Gorgio took this further, and Leonardo continued with the famous drawing of a human inscribed into a circle.  There are a vast number of unique measuring systems that humans have developed, some of which include Miner’s inch, Acre-foot, Cord and rick, etc.  

So, why do we remain fascinated with Le Modulor?  I submit that the Modulor retains its appeal because of the possibilities.  That is to say, we like to think that there is another, holistic, way.  It is nice to meditate on the precepts that benefit from non dichotomous (metric / imperial) artificialities.  A proportioning and measurement system based on the human body which shapes the enclosures to accommodate that body.  The possibilities are tremendous. 

“The Modulor, used as a graduated strip in the hands of the operator, permits him to see the dimensions he is endeavoring to find.  This is a factor of paramount of importance.”  Le Corbusier.  p160.  

“This idea is new, in so far as previous theories of proportion only tried to manifest the human order, without using the real size of man as a basic measure.  Norberg-Schulz.  p 93.  

And, never mind that the system was based on the proportions of men, not men and women.  Nor should we focus on the fact that the size of human beings varies to a considerable degree.  

The use of the Modulor rule is really no different than using an ordinary rule.  You still measure things.  We might say, well, a kitchen counter height that is 36” has been established to be the most convenient and the least fatiguing for most of the human race in the West.  What’s the difference of applying the Modulor unit of 86 S.b. and 36”?

But it is the possibility of Corb’s system that is key.  We like to think about the greater purity of a system that would increase our perceptual links between our enclosures and that which inhabits them.   We like to think about harmony, with everything tuned to a mathematical wholeness.   What is critical to understand is that it is a change of thinking, a change of perception.  Corb saw his system as an instrument of unification.  47.  

Transparent Drawing, likewise, is fundamentally a mode of visual unification, and it does this via unification of form.  It is a discipline of awareness.  It is a system of tools which you can use to analyze and generate resolved form.  Likewise, it is a system of unification and a system of possibilities.

Is there an absolute equality between Le Modulor and Transparent Drawing?  Of course not.  You could make the argument that they are opposite.  Yet, to me at least, there is an undeniable parallel.  Both strive toward unity.  Both remove dichotomy.  Both are systems of possibilities.

1. LeCorbusier.  The Modulor.  Faber and Faber Limited, London.  mcmlxi.

2. Norberg-Schulz, Christian.  Intentions in Architecture.  MIT Press, Cambridge.  1965. 

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My drawing above is Corb appropriate. It started with the holistic form of Villa Savoye. Then there was a tape / black spray paint intervention, as a Form Combine. The intersection of these two forms provided the nodes for a new expression of holistic form, which can be seen with the white lines. The resultant ensemble fuses uncovered Villa Savoye with my new forms.