Are you familiar with Le Corbusier? He was a Swiss (later French) architect who was one of the originators of what we would now call modern architecture. Controversial and fascinating, a full discussion of Le Corbusier and his works is far beyond the scope of this installment of Cold Start, being written in a bed at 3 am, but that’s fine, because all I really want to talk about is how much the man loved his car, a 1927 Voisin C7 Lumineuse.
You can tell Le Corbusier was very into his car because he seemed to make sure it was included in as many pictures of his various architectural projects as possible, and in the photographs where you see him with the car, like the one above, his pride is quite obvious, and, to those of us also smitten with our cars, familiar.
I mean, look at him up there, in his funny sweater, standing proudly by the fender of his Voisin! Here’s another photo from what appears to be that same day, this time with LeC’s wife Yvonne:
The car itself is quite interesting; this was the small Voisin, with a 1.5-liter four making about 44 horsepower, and a very lightweight body made of aluminum. The car itself has a very architectural – even modern architectural – look to it, being quite boxy and featuring large expanses of glass.
It’s not exactly sleek, but it is clean and crisp and quite unadorned (save for the iconic winged hood ornament) and stands proudly bold and upright, that vertical windshield a defiant laugh in the face of the wind.
Le Corbusier parked the car in front of many of his famous buildings, as you can see here in front of the Villa Stein from around 1928, a house built for the sister-in-law of the famous writer Gertrude Stein. I like how the car always seems to look a bit dirty and well-used in these pictures.
Here it is peeking out of the garage of the Villa Stein, and here it is at the base of the famous Villa Savoy – wait, as a commenter pointed out, this is a different Voisin. Also, I’m told the radius of the cylindrical base and surrounding driveway were scaled based on the turning radius of a Citroën:
Le Corbusier really, really liked his car. He eventually got to know Gabriel Voisin, and Voisin sponsored Le Corbusier’s plan to rework central Paris to be a modernized, rational type of city, clever and clean and efficient while also somewhat cold, sterile, and (arguably) charmless. This was the Voisin Project:
Perhaps thankfully, it was never really taken seriously, but it gives a good insight into the kind of aesthetic and philosophy Le Corbusier brought to architecture, just on a really grand scale.
I think Le Corbusier genuinely believed such a city plan would bring the most benefits to the most people, and in some ways, he may not have been wrong. But it also shows an almost complete disinterest in the history and culture of a given city, and while this may work great for a place already lacking in charm and history like, say, Fresno (I kid, I kid, I’m sure it’s gotten better than when I was there and it was all muffler shops and sad-looking strip clubs) but this was never going to fly in Paris, of all places.
Remember, this was the guy who once said “a house is a machine for living,” and you know, he’s not really wrong.
Le Corbusier actually once designed a car on his own, too, a fascinating and clever little peoples’ car called the Voiture Minimum, designed in response to a contest run by the Société des Ingénieurs de l’Automobile (SIA) in 1936.
It’s a little rear-engined three-seat snail shell of a car, incredibly minimal and clever, and would likely have made a successful city car for anyone had it ever been actually built, which it hadn’t. I should cover this in more detail at some point, because I really do like the idea of this thing.
For now though, I just want all of us to feel a bit of kinship with this old architect, perhaps the one that first established the architects-wear-funny-statement-glasses archetype, and how much he really, really liked his car.
The car is still around, in a collection in Spain, which I suspect would make the old architect pretty happy to hear.
“[A]nd here it is at the base of the famous Villa Savoy – wait, as a commenter pointed out, this is a different Voisin.”
Yeah, that one looks quite similar to the utterly lovely example the Lane Motor Museum has: https://www.lanemotormuseum.org/collection/cars/item/voisin-c28-1936/
Gabriel Voisin was an aviation pioneer who turned to making cars partly due to his distaste for seeing his aeronautical products used in military applications; his cars were an odd mix of aeronautically inspired aerodynamics (such as the scalloped edges on the running boards of some of his cars which served as a slipstream aid, not unlike the dimpled surface of a golf ball) and “that vertical windshield a defiant laugh in the face of the wind.”
After his luxury car endeavors closed down due to the Depression Voisin then turned to producing economy cars for the people; these cars were called Biscuter or Biscooter (a humorous reference likening the cars to two scooters): https://www.lanemotormuseum.org/collection/cars/item/autonacional-biscuter-100-1956/ which actually echoes Le Corbusier’s Voiture Minimum.
“I should cover this in more detail at some point, because I really do like the idea of this thing.” Yes, please do!! The Voiture Minimum (and also Voisin’s Biscooter) would make for some mighty fascinating reading!!
The Biscuter didn’t do well in France – a Citroen 2CV was so much more car for not much more money – but it put Franco’s Spain on wheels before the SEAT 600 provided a “real-car” upgrade.
Never liked his buildings, too much grey concrete, and draughty windows. And just recently the extent of his collaboration with the Nazis during their occupation of France has come out.
I know architects are the most amoral of professionals but still. Turns out he joined very anti-semite groups in the 1930s too.
It is still a mystery how he was not arrested in the “purge” after De Gaulle took power, especially as some of his projects probably involved slave labour.
Others, post war, lasted all of 30 years before being pulled down as slums.
Voisins are very beautiful, interesting cars.
They made a documentary called “Dredd” about living in a Le Corbusier high rise, Karl Urban was the narrator. Interesting stuff.
“The Horror!, The Horror!”
The front of the car looks period pleasing enough, but the passenger compartment has all the grace of a concrete bunker, and unfortunately that is the aesthetic he went with.
Was the new Jaguar designer a fan?
This is really fascinating – excellent stuff, Jason! I had never thought of a house as “a machine for living” but now that might be unavoidable.
And holy cow…
“Giorgetto Giugiaro, founder of the Turin design house Italdesign and, as of this writing, 80 years old, could safely be called one of the most successful and prolific auto designers of all time. Giugiaro was impressed and intrigued enough with Le Corbusier’s Voiture Minimum that in 1987 he commissioned a full-scale studio model. After more than half a century of existence only on paper, Le Corbusier’s dream car had finally taken solid, three-dimensional form.”
https://www.macsmotorcitygarage.com/le-corbusiers-dream-car-the-1936-voiture-minimum/
My wife would be pretty pissed if I was writing on a computer, in bed, at 3am. But, then I remembered you are travelling, right??
Are you travelling for work or pleasure? Seems a bit close to the holiday season to travel for work.
Sorry, being nosey.
I’m back! And always in a bit of trouble.
She doesn’t get angry that you write in bed at 3am???
L’Homer
https://images-stag.jazelc.com/uploads/theautopian-m2en/cs_lecorb_vm1.jpg
Crazy how old fashioned that Voisin looks parked at Villa Stein!
“here it is at the base of the famous Villa Savoy” — I’m pretty sure it’s not the same car — it’s a Voisin, but clearly a different model.
Like seemingly anyone famous connected with cars, he’s a complex guy. It’s always amazing to me how revolutionary his ideas were at the time. To my eyes, a ’20s car looks out of place next to what’s actually contemporaneous but looks completely current architecture to us.
But at the same time, while he definitely meant well, his dictatorial manner and belief in his complete brilliance lead to some pretty enduring bad stuff…for those of us old enough to have witnessed it, the urban public housing fiasco of the late 20th century came about b/c of his influence and actual ideas.
Still, I’ve owned a chaise lounge for decades, and it’s a wonderful place to take a short nap on a weekend.
Best dog bed ever.
Wow, does that car match the guy’s aesthetic. Like Jason, I looked at it and thought “architectural.”
Also, wow, does Villa Stein look like any medical office building blending into the background on any exurban service road anywhere in America. And it was built in 1928! Thanks for nothing, buddy!
He’s not alone, sadly. Multifamily and mixed use projects look like stacks of shipping containers with a variety of veneers to hide the boxyness. It seems like architects no longer have any more imagination or sense of beauty than your average engineer. It really sucks, but I suppose it’s actually more driven by cost than anything else.
I was hoping that the Voiture Minimum would be standing on pilotis on which it would runs down the roads (and across rutted fields cradling a fat load of eggs, so take that, Andre Citröen), but I guess that would be unrealistic for the base model.