Le Corbusier Criticized from the Beginning
In the latest newsletter from the Norwegian Foundation for Urban Renewal, chairman Carl Wilhelm Tyrén points out, citing German professor of urban planning Wolfgang Sonne, that Le Corbusier was met with criticism already at the publication of his The City of To-morrow and its Planning.
The following is from volume 66 of The Architectural Review, issued the same year as Le Corbusier’s book was published (1929), in an article by A. Trystan Edwards, titled ‘The Dead City’:
M. Le Corbusier’s solution is to do away with the complexity. This complexity, however, is part of the subject of civic design. The modern great city is like a large orchestra. It is the business of a reformer to improve the music and the instruments, but not to cut down the range of the orchestra. M. Le Corbusier has not the patience to attempt this, but substitutes for this orchestra a single tin whistle with about five notes, with which he plays a perfectly rhythmical tune. But it is not enough.