Radiant City by Le Corbusier

1. RADIANT CITY
• The Radiant City grew out of this new
conception of capitalist authority and a pseudo
appreciation for workers’ individual freedoms.
• The plan had much in common with the
Contemporary City - clearance of the historic
cityscape and rebuilding utilizing modern
methods of production.
• In the Radiant City, however, the pre-fabricated
apartment houses, les unites, were at the
centre of "urban" life. Les unites were available
to everyone based upon the size and needs of
each particular family.
• Sunlight and recirculating air were provided as
part of the design.
• The scale of the apartment houses was fifty
meters high, which would accommodate,
according to Corbusier, 2,700 inhabitants with
fourteen square meters of space per person.
• The building would be placed upon pilotis, five
meters off the ground, so that more land could
be given over to nature. Setback from other
unites would be achieved by les redents,
patterns that Corbusier created to lessen the
effect of uniformity.

2. • Inside les unites were the vertical
streets, i.e. the elevators, and the
pedestrian interior streets that
connected one building to another.
• Automobile traffic was to circulate on
pilotis supported roadways five meters
above the earth.
• The entire ground was given as a "gift"
to pedestrians, with pathways running in
orthogonal and diagonal projections.
• Other transportation modes, like
subways and trucks, had their own
roadways separate from automobiles.
• The skyscrapers were to provide office
space for 3,200 workers per building.
• Corbusier spends a great deal of the
Radiant City manifesto elaborating on
services available to the residents.
• Each apartment block was equipped
with a catering section, laundry chores
in basement.
• Directly on top of the apartment houses
were the roof top gardens and beaches,
where residents sun themselves in A
natural" surroundings - fifty meters in
the air.

3. • Children were to be dropped off at les
unites’ day care centre and raised by
scientifically trained professionals.
• The workday, so as to avoid the crisis of
overproduction, was lowered to five hours
a day.
• Women were enjoined to stay at home and
perform household chores, if necessary, for
five hours daily.
• Transportation systems were also
formulated to save the individual time.
• Corbusier bitterly reproaches advocates of
the horizontal garden city (suburbs) for the
time wasted commuting to the city.
• Because of its compact and separated
nature, transportation in the Radiant City
was to move quickly and efficiently.
• Corbusier called it the vertical garden city.
• Many scholars have adopted the notion
that the Corbusier of the Radiant City was
a kinder, gentler Corbusier.
• However, they have failed to consider that
the so-called individual freedoms that
Corbusier promoted were not freedoms at
all.
• Certainly, Corbusier provided leisure time
activities that he enjoyed, such as
sunbathing on the roof or playing
basketball.

4. • But, are these pastimes necessarily freedom? Corbusier’s individuals were
not allowed to have a voice in the governance of their lives; they are able
to behave, but not to act.
• Additionally, there is no room in the Radiant City for individuals to act non-
rationally.
• The leisure time advocated by Corbusier is one filled with healthy "day
minded" pursuits. There can be no extravagance or chaotic excess.
• The town lunatic would have to go the way of ninety-nine percent of the
historic city.
• Indeed, it is improbable that ninety-nine percent of humanity will ever
behave in so-called rational ways.
• Thus, Corbusier’s vision suffers from an naive conception of human
nature.
• But, this is not the main problem with his thesis for the Radiant City.
• Quite simply, his notion of authority is both patriarchal and bureaucratic,
what Richard Sennett refers to as the authority of false love and the
authority of no love (Sennett 1980).

5. • Corbusier maintained, following Plato and Schure, that universal truth,
beauty, and goodness could be ascertained by those who had divorced
themselves from matter (human bodies).
• Les grand unities could then prescribe a plan grounded in objective
calculations and scientific facts.
• There could be no debate, i.e. no politics regarding the precepts of the
plan.
• Humanity was to accept this discipline as a necessary, objective ordering
of reality by a doting, paternalistic authority.
• Corbusier put it like this, "Authority must step in, patriarchal authority,
the authority of a father concerned for his children.