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.
This is being written while in my Le Corbusier grand confort chair. Unless your an odd duck into creative designer furniture like I am you probably don’t know the name but you likely know the chair. Better known as the chair used in the Maxell Tape “Blown Away Guy” commercial from the 80s but mine are Chinese knockoffs because authentic ones are stupid expensive. His architecture, furniture and many other designs remain thought provoking and that’s the best compliment a designer can get. Like the difference between an 80s GM Rubbermaid interior versus a Ferrari Dino a designers tone sets the mood.
The Voiture Minimum is cool and deserves a writeup.
“Why couldn’t you make me an architect? You know I always wanted to pretend I was an architect.”
George Costanza
Voiture Minimum might have inspired Nissan designers when designing S-Cargo albeit turning the front to rear.