On Diagonal Time in Le Corbusier’s Visual Arts Center

• Michael Jasper ^[1]
  1. [1] University of Canberra

     University of Canberra

     Australia

     
• Localización: Le Corbusier: 50 años después / Jorge Torres Cueco (aut.), 2016, ISBN 978-84-9048-373-2, págs. 1043-1060
• Idioma: español
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• Resumen

  • This paper introduces the concept of diagonal time as an interpretive category for understanding compositionstrategies and spatial effects in certain projects of Le Corbusier. It is organized around two propositions: first, there is alargely untheorised temporality created in certain works of modernist architecture and those of Le Corbusier in particular;second, this temporality can be characterized as one not bound to a vision in motion nor does it require a body’s movement togain presence. In order to test these propositions the paper undertakes a formal analysis of Le Corbusier’s Visual Arts Center,Cambridge, Massachusetts (1960-1964). The Visual Arts Center’s apparent reliance on movement for its coming into being isinterrogated by focusing on other devices and strategies. Four such strategies are explored: oblique and transverse formrelationships, expressive volumes, figure/ground ambiguities, and voided centres. Building on the archival and criticalhistorical work of Curtis and Sekler, the paper advances a line of inquiry into modernist architecture’s trajectory only alludedto in secondary scholarship, contributes to understanding key formal elements in an important building from Le Corbusier’slate period, and addresses a major conference theme, that of the transversal.