Ratio and the Divine Proportions: Le Corbusier and Rudolf Wittkower

James Kirk Irwin

doi:10.4995/lc2015.2015.743

Abstract

Abstract: This paper will evaluate Le Corbusier’s notion of ratio as expressed in his Modulor and Modulor 2. Particular emphasis will be placed on the dialogue (or polemical exchange) between Rudolf Wittkower and Le Corbusier contained within Modulor 2 concerning the nature of the Divine Proporzione. The historiography of this area of art and architecture includes a vigorous debate from the mid-twentieth century among Modernist architects and art historians over the nature of the Divine Proportions. It is in this context that the dialogue between Le Corbusier and Wittkower occurs. Le Corbusier describes human form with a Fibonacci-based number system expressed through a universally applied system of measure, Le Modulor. Wittkower describes a set of harmonic proportions, conceptually universal, that describe the essence of Renaissance Architecture. Both influenced the course of Modern Architecture in the late twentieth-century. Keywords: Le Modulor, Wittkower. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4995/LC2015.2015.743

Highlights

This paper will evaluate Le Corbusier’s notion of ratio as expressed in his Modulor and Modulor 2
Le Modulor, with its descriptive subtitle, “a Harmonious Measure to the Human Scale Universally applicable to Architecture and Mechanics,” is fundamentally anthropomorphic and it is Le Corbusier’s image of a human figure with an enlarged hand raised above its head that has become a familiar icon of Modernism
Particular emphasis will be placed on the dialogue between Wittkower and Le Corbusier contained within Modulor 2 concerning the nature of the Divine Proporzione

Summary

Introduction

This paper will evaluate Le Corbusier’s notion of ratio as expressed in his Modulor and Modulor 2. Le Modulor, with its descriptive subtitle, “a Harmonious Measure to the Human Scale Universally applicable to Architecture and Mechanics,” is fundamentally anthropomorphic and it is Le Corbusier’s image of a human figure with an enlarged hand raised above its head that has become a familiar icon of Modernism. What may be less familiar is the mid twentieth-century dialogue in which Le Modulor existed, and in particular, the dynamic between Le Corbusier and Rudolf Wittkower.

Results

Conclusion