REALIZATION OF THE STANDARD CABINET AS THE “EQUIPMENT” BY LE CORBUSIER:

Abstract

This paper aims to clarify the spatial composition of the standard cabinets as the “equipment” by Le Corbusier (1887-1965), in order to discuss the revolution of the notion of interior “decor” in the 20th century. At first, we pick up the discourse concerning the standard cabinets in the architectural projects for private houses, and classify them as the methodology of interior setting of a building (Chapter 2). Next, we extract the case examples of the studies of the cabinets from all Le Corbusier's private house projects, and clarify the secular change of the realization methods of the cabinets (Chapter 3). Finally, we discuss the reasons and the implications of such a transition about the spatial composition of houses (Chapter 4). Le Corbusier has already proposed a prototype of interior life space in the occation of the construction of the pavilion L'Esprit Nouveau in 1925. At that time, he mentioned three methods of setting the standard cabinets: to incorporate (“incorporer”) into the wall - cabinet (in) -, to put (“appuyer”) on the wall - cabinet (app) -, and to separate (“disposer”) from the wall － cabinet (dis) -. However, although he replaced the stylized furniture with a standardized mass production cabinets, he could not realize from the biginning all three types of the cabinets : cabinet (in), cabinet (app), and cabinet (dis). In the private house projects from the 1920s to the 1930s, cabinet (app) was often applied due to the restrictions on site conditions and the requests of daily life from the owners. This is methodologically the same as the setting of the conventional decorative arts. Houever, what Le Corbusier aimed was the cabinet (dis) as partition separaterd frome the wall to escape from the trational furniture as the decorative arts. It was greatly affected by the opportunities of the mass-produced housing researches after the First World War and of constructions at the remote locations. That is, it was necessary for the architect to detach the cabinets from the immovable wall surface in order to automatically set up them without controlling all construction processes on the spot far from the architect. It was also partly effective to answer the details of various requests of the owners. Such a cabinet (dis) has been continuously studied after the Second World War, and finally, it was not only independent from the wall, but also it was itself being studied as movable cabinets. On the other hand, the cabinet integrated with the wall, which could not be realized in the 1920s, was examined by houses with vault roofs. Unlike houses with pillars and floors as structural framework, Le Corbusier examined the cabinet incorporated into the wall, due to the large number of walls supporting the vault roof. Such a cabinet (in) was pursued further in India under the tropical climatic conditions, for the necessity of ventilation not obstructed by furniture. The realization of the standard cabinets by Le Corbusier does not develop linearly, but expands to the both poles while continuing to the methodology of the decorative arts. Although this result seemingly contradicts, whether movable cabinet or incorporated cabinet, it can be thought that Le Corbusier's studies of the standard cabinet was the research of a new "wall".