BUILT ENVIRONMENT vs URBAN DISEASE

BUILT ENVIRONMENT VS URBAN DISEASE Reprogramming Architecture after the pandemic in response to the Urban disease.

Study of Villa Savoye by Le Corbusier

SUBMISSION DATE: 11.07.2022 SUBMISSION ID: W1685485 TUTOR: NICK BEECH 1|Page

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………3 CHAPTER 1- Urban Disease: Tuberculosis & Modernism Architecture………………………………….4 CHAPTER 2- LE CORBUSIER AND THE VILLA SAVOYE…………………………………………………………….6 CHAPTER 3- FIVE POINTS OF ARCHITECTURE BY LE CORBUSIER……………………………………………9 CHAPTER 4- PROGRAM AND ORGANISATION OF SPACES IN THE VILLA, AREAS OF ARRIVAL AND CIRCULATION THROUGH THE VILLA……………………………………………..14 CONCLUSION………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………16 BIBLIOGRAPHY……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………17

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Introduction Urban disease- a threat that humankind has been faced with for centuries, it has spread across countries, which has resulted in worldwide pandemics. These circumstances have shifted the ways in which architects design the built environments. Having the need to find solutions to problems that disease causes, resulted in architects implementing specific architectural elements and principles into their design approach to create a more responsive environment for people to inhabit. I got interested in the subject of reprogramming architecture as a response to urban disease, due to its relatability to today’s day and age. The most recent pandemic Covid-19 has had a great negative impact on all people’s health and everyday life. This disease has personally affected me in many ways during a period of the past 2 years. Imposed restrictions and a new set of behaviours by the government, such as social distancing, isolation, in case, infected, from people in the same household, and prevention of tactical contact made me aware of the way architecture isn’t designed to fit the circumstances of the current pandemic yet. I began seeing present architecture as a problem and how after this pandemic, design practices will be influenced to think differently, trying to find solutions by reprogramming its infrastructure and shaping the future for the purpose of peoples’ safe and healthy living conditions. No one can make predictions of what architecture will be like after Covid-19 virus however, looking into the past to explore elements that aided in response to historical pandemic periods will help me learn more in-depth about built environment vs urban disease and ways in which these elements fought to combat the disease and introduce more sanitary environments to people. Moving forward, as a future architect myself, these present pandemic circumstances made me interested in studying the history of the past pandemic and what architectural elements were used as a response to disease in the historical times, to relearn the lessons and theories from the past Modernism period. In this research study, I will be investigating the historical context of tuberculosis and the way this disease compromised peoples’ health. Further I will be studying its relationship with modern architecture and essential elements that came out of that period. The writing will be focusing on a specific disease called Tuberculosis. This Dissertation will be a reading of a Case study: Villa Savoy architectural design language by Le Corbusier, as a reaction to the urban disease. Villa follows the health concerns of tuberculosis in its design and therefore is influenced by the risk disease causes mankind. The study of these architectural elements will give me the ability to understand in which ways was architecture in Villa Savoy shaped by disease and the response these elements created for the health and well-being of people. I will be carrying out an investigation into Le Corbusier’s 5 points, organizations of spaces and their circulation through the villa, areas of arrival, as well as Le Corbusier’s spatial organization strategies used to create this architecture, in response to the disease of the 20th century.

From this writing, I intend to relearn from a past pandemic. The main argument of this study is that the architecture principles that resulted from a historic pandemic did respond to the urban disease of tuberculosis by pleasing the health of people and resulting in sanitary living conditions. In addition, built environment most definitely does affect the health and wellbeing of people and this will be looked at in-depth by analysing which architectural elements in Villa Savoy resulted from the urban disease and ways in which they responded 3|Page

to the urban disease. I will be using evidence gained books articles and online research to support my argument and give it justification.

CHAPTER 1: Historical context of Urban Disease: Tuberculosis & Modernism Architecture The historic pandemic that has had a significant impact on people’s living conditions all across the world, including the USA, the UK, and the rest of Western Europe, was Tuberculosis. This urban disease is one of the oldest and most infectious diseases. The bacteria(mycobacterium) that causes the disease was officially discovered by Dr. Robert Koch on March 24, 1882. During the 19th century, Tuberculosis killed about a quarter of the adult population of Europe. In western continental Europe, the epidemic may have peaked in the first half of the 19th century1 By 1918, the disease still caused one in six deaths in France. This urban disease mainly affects the lungs of a person and is transmitted from person to person, through tiny droplets released into the air by coughing or sneezing.2 This social disease, affecting densely populated groups of people, was closely related to the rapid growth of urbanization and the poorly nourished urban working class. Communities that live in countries facing poverty live in overcrowded and poorly ventilated conditions, these factors contribute to more cases of getting infected by the bacteria. As a result, bacteria can survive longer in unhygienic, unventilated, and dark environments, as this implies that there is no sunlight to kill the bacteria that spreads the virus as well as no air to ventilate the rooms filled with dust and bacteria. There has been a lot of written literature conducted on tuberculosis concerning housing and the built environment. Mrs. Albion Fellows Bacon was one of the early reform leaders for better housing conditions as a preventative measure against tuberculosis. Tuberculosis was recognized as a "house disease,"3. She pleaded for research to be conducted that would shed more light on the connection between substandard housing and tuberculosis. The observation was made that poor housing conditions and a high death rate from tuberculosis were connected (Walker, 1923). This correlation caused changes in architectural design as seen in the past when the discovery of the highly infectious tubercle bacillus led to the sanatorium movement in relation to tuberculosis in European and American cities. These institutions were built to house, treat, and isolate patients, and they placed a strong emphasis on maintaining rigorous hygiene standards and providing patients with ample opportunities to be exposed to sunlight and air. Environmental control was the primary method of treatment for tuberculosis before the discovery of effective medications. These institutional settings served as an inspiration for the new modern architecture. According to the words of the Swiss architect Le Corbusier, "A 1

Influenza Pandemics and Tuberculosis Mortality in 1889 and 1918: Analysis of Historical Data from Switzerland - PMC (nih.gov) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5051959/ 2

Tuberculosis - Symptoms and causes - Mayo Clinic https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseasesconditions/tuberculosis/symptoms-causes/syc20351250#:~:text=Tuberculosis%20(TB)%20is%20a%20potentially,air%20via%20coughs%20and%20sneezes.

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R Burridge and D Ormandy (eds), Unhealthy housing: research, remedies and reform, London, E & F N Spon, 1993, pp. 311–12.

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house is only habitable when it is full of light and air.”4 This disease was used as a design driver in modern architecture. Built Environment enables to strip away these poor conditions by responding to the disease with the right design decision-making by using the right architectural elements that correspond to the living problems and issues that urban disease causes. Historically, Modernist Architecture has played a significant role in creating a response to the issues surrounding the disease environment by using its architectural tools and elements as a cure for the disease.

Modernism Movement and Architecture The Architectural Style-Modernist Architecture made an appearance in the early 20th century after World War 2 and became the most significant architecture and design movement of the century. Its development was a response to the new technologies of machines, automation, and urban design. It was based upon new innovative technologies of construction and associated with an analytical approach to the functions of the buildings, which was the idea that ‘form should follow the function’ by Louis Sullivan. It was known for its rational use of materials as they were easy to clean, which was the key solution at that time period of the rise of tuberculosis. They were manufactured industrially, such as glass, steel, and reinforced concrete, structural innovation as well as rejection of ornaments and embracing minimalism.567 This was a cultural movement that, in architecture and other applied design fields, involved combining aesthetics with a social purpose of adopting a sense of responsibility towards the community. One of the well-known architects and researchers’ Beatriz Colomina’s main theory in her book ‘X-ray architecture’ is based on, that modern architecture was shaped not only by tuberculosis but also by the X-Ray, which was the most prevalent disease of the twentieth century and the diagnostic tool that was most closely associated with it. The concept of the architect as healer goes back to Vitruvius. Architects have always had primary responsibility for health, but what has evolved is the idea of health. Arguably modern architecture is organized around a new theory of health, and this theory can be found in every argument promoting modern architecture. It is argued that Modernism was a reaction to disease, through its distinctive architectural characteristics following: flat roofs, large windows, balconies, and roof or garden terraces.8 These elements in architecture were found at latitudes and in climatic conditions that usually would not suit the outside use, however, the reason they were used as such was they served the purpose of treating tuberculosis.9 Insanitary conditions, lack of sunlight, and ventilation in houses were the key 4

https://slate.com/business/2020/04/coronavirus-architecture-1918-flu-cholera-modernism.html

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https://www.designingbuildings.co.uk/wiki/Modernist_architecture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_architecture 7 https://www.architecture.com/explore-architecture/modernism 8 https://www-tandfonline-com.uow.idm.oclc.org/doi/full/10.1080/13602365.2020.1767433 6

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Margaret Campbell, ‘Architecture of hope: hope for a cure. Tuberculosis, a design response’, MPhil thesis, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, 1999 5|Page

issues that lead to bacteria and dust being stored in spaces of inhabitation. These signature features of modernist architecture exemplified its preoccupations with curative effects of light, air, and nature.10 Flat roofs can be built as terraces or green roofs to create space above which can be in use for open-air relaxation or physical exercise, which as a result provides health benefits overall to the people. Following additional characteristics of modernism, large windows offered sunlight as well as correct ventilation that was crucial for healthy living conditions and curing the diseased. Arguably it did that to a high degree as the implementation of these architectural principles and characteristics resulted in an increase in the exposure to sunlight and effective air ventilation, which was encouraged by medical experts to fight the bacteria found in the disease and create clean and sanitary spaces to occupy. The Architects of the modernism movement held the belief that clean and sanitary environments were critical for the successful treatment of illness. One of those Architects being famous modernist Le Corbusier.

CHAPTER 2: Villa Savoy & Le Corbusier in relation to health and hygiene One of the most influential architects of modernism was Charles-Édouard Jeanneret also known as Le Corbusier. He was a Swiss-French architect, designer, painter, urban planner, and writer. Le Corbusier was a founding member of the International Congress on Modern Architecture (or CIAM), launched in 1928.11 Emphasis on cleanliness in the design was a result of 20th-century circumstances (tuberculosis pandemic), which is depicted by Le Corbusier, who made it essential to bring health factors such as sunlight and air circulation into the structure of his designs. Le Corbusier himself followed a healthy daily routine by exercising every day before work which included playing basketball, and swimming, as ‘around 1920 health became a new form of religion’.12 His designs follow the typology of properties and elements that aid in the health of the people occupying it. The architecture that he designed reflected the aesthetic of the machine age, which he has lived through himself at the time. Le Corbusier referred to the home as "a machine for living in," creating what has since become one of the most significant metaphors utilized in contemporary architectural design. It is an image that illustrates the increasing impact that scientific and technological evolution had over the world in the late 19th century and the early 20th century. The machine acts as a symbol for all the other changes that have occurred since the beginning of the modern age, including social, political, and aesthetical shifts, which have all been introduced as a result of the modernization of society. The concept of functionality was the most important aspect of modernist architecture. This concept suggests that like a machine, a home, or any building for that matter, should be created according to the function that it will serve in the future. Le Corbusier was knowledgeable about the Renaissance theories that connected architecture to the human body, which derived from Vitruvius. Thus, to make the home a significant place for the promotion of technological 10

Campbell, M. (2005). What Tuberculosis did for Modernism: The Influence of a Curative Environment on Modernist Design and Architecture. Medical History, 49(4), 463-488. doi:10.1017/S0025727300009169 11 http://www.villa-savoye.fr/en/ 12

https://www.frieze.com/article/x-ray-architecture

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principles and health, Corbusier unified these various ideas. Due to this Le Corbusier had in mind interesting functions for the machine-house. He stated the following in his essay: "A house is a machine for living in. Baths, sun, hot-water, cold-water, warmth at will, conservation of food, hygiene, beauty in the sense of good proportion.”13 By outlining these crucial elements, Le Corbusier’s association with a sanitary environment, health conditions, and the well-being of the inhabitants are evidently depicted. The machine-house that Le Corbusier designed was like much of the home technology that was available during that period, a tool of cleanliness that reflected the developments of science on the body of a human in this case. Furthermore, he expresses “We have acquired a taste for fresh air and clear daylight.”14 He wanted people to view the house with the same high curating, ethical and aesthetical standards that sanitary reformers did. The use of technology when building and using a home had become very beneficial. These factors describe Le Corbusier’s relationship with health, hygiene, and cleanliness that he had an ‘obsession’ with.

The images of airplanes and automobiles included in Vers Une Architecture demonstrate Le Corbusier's fascination with mechanization and automation. He believed that much like engineers created the airplane to allow a man to fly, Le Corbusier believed that architects needed to restore the house for a man to live in modern terms, with updated cultural views of space, hygiene, and technology; the house, like the machine, should effectively function in the service of its occupants.15In the "Manual of the Dwelling" section of Vers Une Architecture, Le Corbusier follows the style and tone of contemporary hygiene manuals: ‘Demand a bathroom looking south, one of the largest rooms in the house or flat, the old drawing room for instance. One wall to be entirely glazed, opening if possible, on to a balcony for sun baths; the most up-to-date fittings with a shower-bath and gymnastic appliances. An adjoining room to be a dressing-room in which you can dress and undress.

Never undress in your bedroom. It is not a clean thing to do and makes the room horribly untidy[...] Demand one large living room instead of a number of small ones. Demand bare walls in your bedroom, your living room and your dining-room.. If you can, put the kitchen at the top of the house to avoid smells[...] Demand a vacuum cleaner[…]Demand ventilating panes to the windows in every room. Teach your children that a house is only habitable when it is full of light and air, and when the floors and walls are clear. To keep your floors in order eliminate heavy furniture and thick carpets.’16 This indicates that Le Corbusier was portraying the idea that obtaining the right architectural elements and the correct use of them in the right locations led to healthier habits and made a great impact on people’s health. All these factors contributed to the prevention of disease and the spread of bacteria, due to the cleanliness of the design. This 13

Dwelling Machines | Ian Bogost http://bogost.com/writing/blog/dwelling_machines/ Le Corbusier, Towards a New Architecture, p. 85 Full text of "Towards A New Architecture Corbusier Le" (archive.org) https://archive.org/stream/TowardsANewArchitectureCorbusierLe/Towards%20a%20New%20Architecture%2 0-%20Corbusier%20Le%20_djvu.txt 15 le_corbusier.pdf (weebly.com) p123 http://architecturesurvey.weebly.com/uploads/2/8/1/5/2815013/le_corbusier.pdf 16 Le Corbusier, Towards a New Architecture, pp. 114-115 14

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represents the association between the architect, the design of the built environment, and combating the urban disease(tuberculosis). A further correlation that suggests Le Corbusier was expressing this point of view of design principles’ response to urban disease, is in his critique of the existing living conditions that at the time he viewed their lack of technological advancement as a health risk by saying ‘the machine we live in is an old coach full of tuberculosis’. Consequently, by introducing these new features of modernist architecture he was responding to the disease.

One of the most well-known houses of the modern movement in architecture was the Villa Savoye, which exemplified Le Corbusier’s purist style. It was completed in 1931 by Le Corbusier and his cousin Pierre Jeanneret. The villa is situated at 82 Rue de Villiers, 78300 Poissy, in the suburbs of Paris, France. The rise of tuberculosis and the significance of hygiene from a modern movement of adopting architecture that positively contributed to the health of people such as large windows with lots of sunshine or roof terraces and easyto-clean modern materials carried on its idea to Le Corbusier who included these elements and concepts in his famous Five Points of Architecture in 1920.17 These were a set of architectural philosophies and classifications that are rationalized across five main components: Reinforced Concrete Pilotis(columns), free design of the ground floor plan, free design of the façade, horizontal window, and roof garden. These were rules one can follow that lead to a building that expresses just how well the building can facilitate the needs of the modern activity. Villa Savoye is where the architect applies for the first time the five key points of his architectural program.

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Architecture of Health: Modernism as a Tool for Healing - Design Hotels™ https://www.designhotels.com/culture/architecture/architecture-of-health-modernism-as-a-tool-for-healing/

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CHAPTER 3: Five Points of Architecture by Le Corbusier

1. Pilotis One of the first main elements of Le Corbusier’s 5 points of architecture were the pilotis which are structural elements, that take the same form as columns and enable the building to be raised from the ground. In addition, to their role as structural supports, the pilotis elevate the architectural volume, creating a space below the structure that can be used for the circulation of people and vehicles. They improve a structure's connectivity with the surrounding land by making it possible to have parking and driveway for movement and a garden for continuity of the greenery underneath it. This gives the impression that the architecture itself is floating and light. Creating an open space below generates ‘The house is a box in the air’18 . The architect has achieved this in Villa Savoye by making a replacement of the supporting walls with a grid of 15 cylindrical, reinforced load-bearing pilotis. Every one of them has a radius of 30 cm and extends as high as 2.87 m. Le Corbusier specifically writes in his book ‘The Radiant City’(1993) about the relation between this element(the pilotis) and the disease. He dismisses the ‘natural ground’ as a ‘dispenser of rheumatism and tuberculosis’ and declares it to be ‘the enemy of man’.

He insists on using pilotis to detach the house from the ‘wet, humid, ground, where disease breeds’. 19 This means that Le Corbusier made a health-conscious design decision of raising the structure to avoid closeness to the ground where bacteria were spreading as he didn’t want the bacteria to reach the inhabitants’ spaces where they did their daily activities. Making the house hygienic and clean for his clients the Savoye family was crucial for Le Corbusier. As a result, this evidence supports the argument of architectural elements act as a response to urban disease and consequently please the health of people.

Le Corbusier, Toward an Architecture, trans. John Goodman (Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2007).

19 X-Ray Architecture | Frieze https://www.frieze.com/article/x-ray-architecture 18

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2. Free Design of the Ground Floor Plan

The following point that Le Corbusier gave great importance to, was the free design of the Ground Floor plan. Usage of reinforced concrete carrier system, acted as support for the floors and ceiling as it extends up to the roof. This benefit of not requiring supporting walls to hold up the structure means that the floor space could be arranged in any way, with no constraints. The transition from structural walls to structural columns resulted in the development of the free plan. Since the primary function of walls is to divide space and the primary function of columns is to support floor slabs, walls and columns do not need to be located in the same place anymore. The walls can be located with no consideration of the need for support. This freedom of space was applied to areas of the house with shared use of residents for example a living room. Spaces such as bedrooms and bathrooms were separated by walls due to their need for privacy inside. Minimizing the walls for only private spaces meant more open space in the floor layout of the building freeing both the walls and the windows, allowing them to let in continuous rays of daylight and air circulation without any barriers from the building's structure. Subsequently, the application of the free plan in the design shows the implementation of the health property of daylight that was used at that time to fight the disease. Additionally, the creation of a flow in the space allowed the air to circulate to a higher extent, which was another hygiene necessity of sanitary living conditions.

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3. Free Design of the Façade Le Corbusier’s realization of the Free Design of the facades in Villa Savoye was created by disposing of the window that was required by the interior spaces. The separated exterior of the building is free from conventional structural restrictions, allowing the façade to drift away from the structure and be unrestrained, lighter, and more open. It is distinguished and separated from the structure. As a result of façade being located beyond supporting pillars, it, therefore, doesn’t acquire the support quality any longer and allows for the windows to be extended to any lengths horizontally. This enables the inclusion of ribbon windows into the design that provide natural light into the interior, which is another point of Le Corbusier. If the façade wasn’t free, it wouldn’t be able to have the long horizontal windows that give huge benefits of light into the structure. This depicts the relationship between free façade and ribbon windows and the way one depends on the other to reach the same goal of health factor that is sunlight. The utilization of these elements in the Villa highly contributes to the prevention of bacteria and dust in the house and therefore provides an architectural response to urban disease.

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4. Horizontal Windows or ribbon windows One of the 5 significant points was the Horizontal windows, which are supported by pilotis.

The window extends from support to support and therefore becomes a horizontal window.20 They are positioned along the whole side of the façade to provide all rooms with the same amount of light and air to enter inside the structure, making the floor space more open.

Daylight played a crucial role in the design of the Villa Savoye, this can be proved by Le Corbusier’s design decision to position 4 sides of the villa in response to the orientation of the sun and the view. The hall faced North-West occupying the whole façade and the terrace faced the sun with a sheltered portion at the south east end. ‘Experiments have shown that a room thus lit has an eight times stronger illumination than the same room lit by vertical windows with the same window area.’21 Which proved that horizontal windows gave much more dispersal of light then vertical ones. By using ribbon windows in Villa Savoye ‘reinforced concrete suddenly provides the possibility of maximum illumination’22 Increased amount of sunlight and air ventilation led to a higher level of sanitary environment. The positioning of the windows in Villa Savoy was done on purpose to lead the inhabitant’s eyes to the horizon, which offered a great view of the surrounded yard and landscape. This gave the interior of the villa close contact with the outside nature and its clean air and sunlight. The indoor and outdoor connection to landscape and greenery brought nature inside the villa which further benefited the health of the occupants and responded to disease by providing these curating elements of nature, sun, and air.

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Le Corbusier (buffaloah.com) https://buffaloah.com/a/DCTNRY/l/lecorb/lecorb.html le_corbusier.pdf (weebly.com) http://architecturesurvey.weebly.com/uploads/2/8/1/5/2815013/le_corbusier.pdf Towards a New Architecture, page 134 22 le_corbusier.pdf (weebly.com) http://architecturesurvey.weebly.com/uploads/2/8/1/5/2815013/le_corbusier.pdf Towards a New Architecture, page 135 21

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5. Roof Garden Le Corbusier’s last point was the Roof Garden which is seen bringing nature into an urban setting in Villa Savoy. The ground that was formerly occupied by the building may now be given back to nature thanks to a functional flat roof that has been converted into a garden and terrace, described as a ‘garden in the sky’ 23.Le Corbusier treated the terrace as a room without walls, reflecting his desire to fully integrate landscape and architecture.24 It provides an outside space for occupants to spend time doing healthy activities such as described in Le Corbusier’s book ‘Radiant Cities’ where he ‘insists on using the roof as a garden for sunbathing and exercise’ 25. During that period these activities were considered to cure the disease before medicine was introduced, as they were used in sanatoriums for treating people with tuberculosis and improving their health. This creates a link between the spaces le Corbusier designed with the purpose of its use and how that will affect people’s health and shape their habits into healthier ones, which is considered another response to disease using a built environment at the time of modernism when there was a concern of the disease.

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Le Corbusier (buffaloah.com) https://buffaloah.com/a/DCTNRY/l/lecorb/lecorb.html Villa Savoye by Le Corbusier (article) | Khan Academy https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/apart-history/later-europe-and-americas/modernity-ap/a/corbusier-savoye 25 X-Ray Architecture | Frieze https://www.frieze.com/article/x-ray-architecture 24

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CHAPTER 4: Program & organization of spaces in the villa, areas of arrival, and circulation through the villa Villa Savoye’s four-story house program of spaces is dispersed across 480 square meters area. Through its layout, materials, forms, and program it perfectly fits into the concept of the architect being ‘The house is a machine for living in26’ where the machine was used as a healer. Villa Savoye reacts to the new machine age which is shown in his design of the Villa’s driveway around the ground floor, which is shaped as a semi-circular path and measures the exact turning radius of a 1927 Citroën automobile.27 This softens the experience of arriving by car as the building welcomes its mechanical inhabitant. Once the inhabitant is at the area of arrival inside the house on the ground floor, one of the first things to see is the free-standing washing sink in the hallway, which signified water use in the clean design of the villa. This element of the interior property expresses the art of cleansing that was implemented into the design. Washing your hands upon the entrance into the home was a habit le Corbusier wanted to bring into the life of people as during the 20th-century spread of tuberculosis bacteria was high, and people could have come into contact with the bacteria and disease when being outside.

Villa Savoye is divided into 3 distinct levels of the first level being ground level, the middle level, and the highest roof floor. The inner space on the ground floor is the level with the most darkness in comparison to the floors above it. That I why the program of it includes an entrance, garage, laundry rooms, maid’s room, and ramp. More habitable spaces are found on the floor above which include a living room, private room, bathroom, kitchen, kitchen terrace, terrace, bath and toilet. On the last level solarium and terrace are situated. The organization of spaces is created in that order due to the amount of light each space absorbs and the program and function it performs. The brightest level is the highest one where solarium is located due to it being open and allowing direct light to enter. The Architect’s conscious idea of considering organizing a program of spaces according to how much light they receive goes back to earlier points of light seen as a cure for the disease. In addition, the use of solarium and roof garden terrace in the program of the Villa provides further health benefits and conditions.

Villa included the free floor plan throughout its design from Le Corbusier’s 5 points. Perhaps the most important element of this free plan setup is circulation elements. There is a ramp that continues uninterrupted from the ground level to the terrace, inside and it offers movement with ease. When rising from the pilotis on the ground floor, a ramp provides a gentle incline, which results in sensations that are completely distinct from those experienced when climbing stairs. A staircase separates one floor from another, whilst a ramp links them together. A ramp going up from ground level to the third-floor roof terrace allows for a ‘promenade architecturale’ through the structure28, which was a predetermined route of movement that has been carefully curated to take in several different perspectives that have been framed by the building. Some views are directed inward, while others are 26

Corbusier_Le_Towards_a_New_Architecture_no_OCR.pdf (monoskop.org) https://monoskop.org/images/b/bf/Corbusier_Le_Towards_a_New_Architecture_no_OCR.pdf 27 Villa Savoye: Le Corbusier Iconic House and Modern Architecture (archeyes.com) https://archeyes.com/thevilla-savoye-le-corbusier/ 28 https://archeyes.com/the-villa-savoye-le-corbusier/

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directed outside. The celebration of the health-giving properties of the sun in the solarium on the roof is given significance by being the terminal upper point of the ramp. This suggests that Villa Savoy has incorporated a program of spaces that provide healing properties and situated them in a way to achieve that to the maximum of its ability.

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Conclusion Social disease Tuberculosis affected mostly people that have lived in poor housing conditions such as unhygienic, poorly ventilated and obtained dark conditions. In this environment bacteria found in tuberculosis could spread very easily as there was no sun to eliminate it, nor ventilation. As a result, spaces were left with dust and bacteria which was then called a ‘House disease’. Tuberculosis statistics demonstrate that a lower rate of infection was present among a working-class population that had been rehoused in new ‘‘hygienic’’ dwellings. This showed the connection between poor housing of the time and the disease. The environment that people lived in at that time was the main method for curing tuberculosis, well-lit and full of fresh air environments were essential during that period. This was achieved by using the right architectural elements and principles of Modernist Architecture. Its’ application of easy-to-clean materials, large windows, balconies, and roof terraces were responding to the disease. Providing qualities of the properties of those elements caused an improvement in people’s environments and promoted healthier habits for them.

Specifically in the case study investigated above Villa Savoy by Le Corbusier, who adopted healthy and clean habits and concepts himself, that he translated into his architectural design by creating Five Points of Architecture and applying them for the first time in Villa Savoye. Through applying pilotis the structure was lifted off the ground where, as Le Corbusier described ‘disease breeds’ and that was to him ‘the enemy of the man’. The Free design of the floor plan offered the ability to let in continuous sunlight and air without many partition walls. The Free Design of the façade gave the possibility to make use of another point horizontal windows( ribbon windows) instead of vertical, which later was proven that horizontal windows dispersed much more light into the interior than vertical ones. Lastly Roof Garden acquired a healthy program of functions in the space, where inhabitants could do activities such as sunbathing and exercising. Additionally, the presence of the free-standing washing sink at the entrance depicts the behavior of the time of washing hands once entering the house. It also shows the cleanliness of the design of Villa Savoye. Lastly, the organization of spaces was arranged according to the function of the floor, by offering the best conditions for the purpose it was serving. All of the elements and principles of architecture mentioned above served a healing purpose and provided sanitary condition for the people of the society. In conclusion, the elements did respond to the urban disease each one in a different way.

The majority of these architectural elements used nowadays are considered to be normal to have, however from this study I have learned that in past it was actually a response to a pandemic period, which improved health issues and resulted in these elements being used today.

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REFERENCES:

Books: Beatriz Colomina, X-RAY Architecture, Zurich, Switzerland: Lars Muller Publishers, 2019.

Paul Overy, Light Air and Openness: Modern Architecture Between the Wars, United Kingdom: Thames and Hudson,2007.

Iain Sinclair, Living with Buildings & Walking with ghosts, Welcome Collection, 2018 Christine Nickl-Weller and Hans Nickl, Architecture for Health, Germany: Braun Publishing AG, 2021 Le Corbusier, Toward an Architecture, London: published by John Rodker 1931.

Le Corbusier,The Radiant City, Paris: published by Faber & Faber 1933

Articles: Margaret Campbell, ‘Architecture of hope: hope for a cure. Tuberculosis, a design response’, MPhil thesis, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, 1999 Campbell, M. (2005). What Tuberculosis did for Modernism: The Influence of a Curative Environment on Modernist Design and Architecture. Medical History, 49(4), 463-488. doi:10.1017/S0025727300009169 Pari Riahi (2020) X-Ray Architecture, The Journal of Architecture, 25:4, 507-511, Beatriz Maturana, Ashraf M. Salama, Anthony McInneny, ‘Architecture, urbanism and health in a post-pandemic virtual world’, Archnet-IJAR: International Journal of Architectural Research Vol. 15 No. 1, 2021 pp. 1-9 © Emerald Publishing Limited.

Pinter-Wollman N, Jelic´ A, Wells NM. 2018 The impact of the built environment on health behaviours and disease transmission in social systems. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 373: 20170245.

Welcome Collection ‘ Living with buildings’ 4 October 2018—3 March 2019 Ellis Woodman, Revisit: ‘Aalto’s Paimio Sanatorium continues to radiate a profound sense of human empathy’, the Architectural Review, 17th November 2016.

Naglaa A. Megahed and Ehab M. Ghoneim, Antivirus-built environment: Lessons learned from Covid19 pandemic, NCBI, 2020 Jun 24.

David Cole, ‘Design in the Age of Coronavirus: Relearning from the Past Pandemics’, Mahlum, 5 th April 2020.

Philip Kennicott, ‘Designing to Survive’, Coronavirus, The Washington Post Magazine, 13 July 2020 Greg Miller, ‘How the pandemic could change architecture’, Health and Disease, Knowable Magazine from annual reviews , 3 January 2021

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Pinter-Wollman Noa, Jelić Andrea and Wells Nancy M. 2018The impact of the built environment on health behaviours and disease transmission in social systemsPhil. Trans. R. Soc. B3732017024520170245 Pari Riahi (2020) X-Ray Architecture, The Journal of Architecture, 25:4, 507-511, DOI: 10.1080/13602365.2020.1767433 Kevin D. Murphy. (2002). The Villa Savoye and the Modernist Historic Monument. Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 61(1), 68–89. https://doi.org/10.2307/991812 KISACKY, J. (2017). Rise of the Modern Hospital: An Architectural History of Health and Healing, 1870-1940. University of Pittsburgh Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1x76g5f Schmidt CW. Linking TB and the environment: an overlooked mitigation strategy [published correction appears in Environ Health Perspect. 2008 Dec;116(12):A519]. Environ Health Perspect. 2008;116(11):A478-A485. doi:10.1289/ehp.116-a478

Websites Open Concepts: Le Corbusier's Free Plan | ArchDaily https://www.archdaily.com/955461/openconcepts-le-corbusiers-free-plan

https://www.frieze.com/article/x-ray-architecture https://www-tandfonline-com.uow.idm.oclc.org/doi/full/10.1080/13602365.2020.1767433 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1251640/ https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridgecore/content/view/0A67A6945CA135FCDD7B1D2AB838A990/S0025727300009169a.pdf/w hat-tuberculosis-did-for-modernism-the-influence-of-a-curative-environment-on-modernistdesign-and-architecture.pdf https://tg-uk.com/arch-design/architecture-as-an-epidemic-of-tuberculosis-affected-themodernism-of-the-1920s/ https://www.designingbuildings.co.uk/wiki/Modernist_architecture https://we-make-money-not-art.com/x-rayarchitecture/#:~:text=X%2DRay%20had%20an%20even,that%20revealed%20the%20inner% 20structure. https://aqso.net/office/news/6722/the-controversy-of-flat-roofs http://www.villa-savoye.fr/en/ https://monoskop.org/images/b/bf/Corbusier_Le_Towards_a_New_Architecture_no_OCR.p df https://buffaloah.com/a/DCTNRY/l/lecorb/lecorb.html 18 | P a g e

http://bogost.com/writing/blog/dwelling_machines/ https://archive.org/stream/TowardsANewArchitectureCorbusierLe/Towards%20a%20New% 20Architecture%20-%20Corbusier%20Le%20_djvu.txt https://www.northernarchitecture.us/architectural-theory/le-corbusier-and-the-machinehouse.html http://architecturesurvey.weebly.com/uploads/2/8/1/5/2815013/le_corbusier.pdf https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ap-art-history/later-europe-andamericas/modernity-ap/a/corbusier-savoye https://www.archdaily.com/955461/open-concepts-le-corbusiers-free-plan https://www.designingbuildings.co.uk/wiki/Modernist_architecture https://www.architecture.com/explore-architecture/modernism http://www.villa-savoye.fr/en/ https://www.designhotels.com/culture/architecture/architecture-of-health-modernism-asa-tool-for-healing/ https://buffaloah.com/a/DCTNRY/l/lecorb/lecorb.html https://archeyes.com/the-villa-savoye-le-corbusier/ https://archeyes.com/the-villa-savoye-le-corbusier/

https://slate.com/business/2020/04/coronavirus-architecture-1918-flu-choleramodernism.html https://www.mahlum.com/design-in-the-age-of-coronavirus-relearning-from-pastpandemics/ http://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/design/corbusier-on-my-mind-design-thinking-and-postcovid-living/ https://archeetect.com/le-corbusiers-villa-savoye-5-points-of-architecture/ https://passerelles.essentiels.bnf.fr/fr/image/3906fb44-7fb3-46d4-a0e1-b927017e7d4bfacade-la-villa-savoye-poissy-yvelines https://passerelles.essentiels.bnf.fr/fr/image/033ddaf9-7cfa-4723-9d49-95ce44a57fd3chantier-la-villa-savoye-le-corbusier https://contemporarypractice.wordpress.com/2010/01/27/the-rise-of-le-corbusier/ https://igsmag.com/videos/villa-savoye-the-five-points-of-architecture/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2020/07/13/pandemic-has-shown-us-whatfuture-architecture-could-be/ 19 | P a g e

https://www-tandfonline-com.uow.idm.oclc.org/doi/full/10.1080/13602365.2020.1767433 https://blog.oup.com/2020/08/how-germs-or-the-fear-of-them-spawned-modernism/ https://thecharnelhouse.org/2010/09/17/exact-air/ https://passerelles.essentiels.bnf.fr/fr/image/941a9808-ada9-4c7d-9f53-6685bf902688plans-et-elevations-la-maison-jardinier-la-villa-savoye-par-corbusier

https://passerelles.essentiels.bnf.fr/fr/image/941a9808-ada9-4c7d-9f53-6685bf902688plans-et-elevations-la-maison-jardinier-la-villa-savoye-par-corbusier https://archeyes.com/the-villa-savoye-le-corbusier/ https://archeyes.com/the-villa-savoye-le-corbusier/#jp-carousel-16885 http://architecturehistory.org/architects/architects/LE%20CORBUSIER/OBJECTS/1931,%20Villa%20Savoye,%20 Poissy,%20France.html https://www.bdonline.co.uk/opinion/a-short-history-of-epidemics-and-their-impact-on-thebuilt-environment/5105528.article?adredir=1 https://www.designhotels.com/culture/architecture/architecture-of-health-modernism-asa-tool-for-healing/ https://blogs.biomedcentral.com/on-health/2018/04/04/rural-and-urban-differences-intuberculosis-epidemiology-and-treatment/

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