Le Corbusier’s Museum as a Critical Attitude

Abstract

The museum projects designed by Le Corbusier give the impression of being examples of a single template. Between 1930 and 1965 he countlessly proposed his typical museum for different locations and placed it into his urban plans, in addition to three realized museums. In this paper, the unusual number of the appearance of the museum template will be pointed out, and the importance of his museum for his architecture as a critical stance will be expressed. The main reason for this persistence can be found in his unique perspective on the museum. According to him, a museum should represent its own time by growing as time passes, so that new artifacts from the present can be added. The infinite growth brings forth the spiral shape as a reference to nature; the elasticity required for the growth paves the way for standardization; the preference of an anti-hierarchic arrangement leads to plan libre, and the open-plan introduces a fluent, total space with multiple vistas. His template redefined the museum conception through the features of expansion, standardization, spatial flow, and the existence of various perspectives for the observer, all of which in turn reflect his personal vision. It is an original definition of the function of the museum expressing his critical attitude as an architect. What lies behind the importance given to his museum idea is that he completely redefined the function of the building type by criticizing the traditional understanding of the museum.