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Architecturale Promenade

Architecturale Promenade is an essential idea of modern architecture invented by Le Corbusier (French: [lə kɔʁbyzje]; October 6, 1887 – August 27, 1965), one of the frontiers of architecture in modern time. He used this concept in many of his architectural works as well as in his publication, Vers Une Architecture. The Promenade Architecturale means literally ‘walking through architecture,’ and the idea is closely related to the relationship between the development of architecture and the movement of a human. Before the modern age, most classic architecture had focused on its symbolism and ornament to emphasize the authority of churches and governments. However, the modern architects such as Le Corbusier and Giedion tried to redefine the relationship between architecture and human. Le Corbusier believed that visitors could experience and appreciate the architecture in numerous or unlimited ways through creating a circulation in architecture.

Even though the Promenade Architecturale was named and used by Le Corbusier, the concept of this idea could be found in several precedents. In his book Vers Une Architecture published for his architectural manifesto (Translated as Towards an architecture), he describes the sequential images of Acropolis in Athens composed of architecture and objects as one of the key influences for Architecturale Promenade. Moreover, Sigfried Giedion (14 April 1888 in Prague – 10 April 1968 in Zürich), one of modern architects, organized the history of architectural movements in his book Mechanization takes command. He says that visualizing movement in space was one of the most popular topics in many areas—philosophy, art, and architecture—during the modern era. Muybridge and Marcel Duchamp conducted photographic studies of motion (see Fig. #), and many cubists such as Braque and Picasso further accelerated the movement by claiming that time is another dimension in space.

Some architecture were built based on the principles of Architectural Promenade including Le Corbusier`s Villa Savoye and Niemeyer`s Brazilian Pavilion for the 1939 New York World’s Fair. One of the greatest achievement of these works is Villa La Roche in Paris designed by Le Corbusier in 1923. (see Fig. #) Von Moos describes Villa La Roche as a frame for a painting. The entrance hall of the house is designed as a triple height space that is between the house and a private gallery; the owner of the house was an art collector. The internal circulation such as ramps and staircases gives visitors diverse experiences. In the gallery, the visitor meets a ramp, which can serve as a platform to experience the gallery in various ways. Visitors are led to the destination of the promenade, a library, located on the third floor. The library allows them to look down to the main hall a starting point of the promenade. At the same time, the windows that were designed along with the promenade allow visitors to see the exterior views based on the level of the house and the streams of natural light coming into the building.