HA3141

UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK

Summer Examinations: 2000/2001

LE CORBUSIER AND 20TH-CENTURY ARCHITECTURE

Time allowed: 3 hours.

Candidates must answer THREE questions.

Read carefully the instructions on the answer book and make sure that the particulars required are entered on each answer book.

1. Did the title Towards a new architecture foster misunderstanding among Le Corbusier's English readers?

2. Was CIAM apolitical?

3. How selectively did Le Corbusier present his early career?

4. 'A Revolution in the Woman's Sphere'? Did architects challenge or reinforce stereotyped social roles?

5. What was the importance of the Mediterranean for Le Corbusier?

6. Were Le Corbusier's clients and his designs well-matched?

7. Why did architects concern themselves with modular construction and proportional systems during this period?

8. Le Corbusier 'liked to view his life in Paris as a struggle with a great city which could crush and ignore him, or lift him up to fame and influence' (A.Sutcliffe, 1993). Discuss.

9. What did Sigfried Giedion mean by 'pseudomonumentality', and what did he envisage in its place?

10. Le Corbusier described furniture as 'an anomaly' (Précisions, 1930). Did his contemporaries take a different attitude?

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