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Le Corbusier’s Four Compositions’ Promotion of Wellbeing and Meaning
Phillip Gunn Mead
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DOI:10.17265/1934-7359/2024.10.001
Department of Architecture, College of Art and Architecture, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID 83844, USA
The architect Le Corbusier’s “Four Compositions” outlined in his Oeuvre Complete provides a flexible platform that allows for a range of design options to promote wellbeing. Like a biological stem cell, his compositions can advance multiple wellbeing elements found in the emerging field of Positive Psychology where positive emotions, engagement, relationships, and meaning play a critical role. Using the visual analysis method, this paper examines his compositions for their relevance in today’s more complex demands for wellbeing. Three of four of Le Corbusier’s preferred compositions provide a flexible system to foster healthy outdoor and near-outdoor spaces that can generate: (1) greater levels of thermal and visual comfort, (2) higher qualities of daylight and fresh air, (3) more opportunities to engage with stress-reducing nature, (4) more opportunities for social engagements and, (5) more opportunities for the building to express a virtuous meaning. For these reasons, this may explain why three of his preferred compositions keep expressing themselves in today’s designs. The author will examine a selection of Corbus’s late architecture in the 1950’s and 1960’s and more recent buildings that utilized Corbu’s “Four Compositions” to promote overall wellbeing for which virtuous meaning plays a critical part.
Wellbeing, health, formal design strategies.
Journal of Civil Engineering and Architecture 18 (2024) 465-474 doi: 10.17265/1934-7359/2024.10.001
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