JAILCD2026-008: Le Corbusier's View of the Body Culture to Extend the “Dwelling” through an Analysis Focusing on 17 Housing Works and Their Morphological Languages

Abstract

The modern era saw the development of machinery shorten the daily workday. To utilize the newly created leisure time, various active physical activities were developed. Entering the 1920s, we see the trend of “body culture (la culture physique).” Architect Le Corbusier (1887–1965, hereafter referred to as Corbusier) also enjoyed both playing and watching sports in his private life. In artistic creation as well, paintings depict women with healthy physiques. Reflections of body culture can be seen in both daily life and creative expression. Following the Industrial Revolution, Corbusier's “Les 5 points d'une architecture nouvelle” (hereafter abbreviated as “5 Points”) demonstrated a new aesthetic born from industrial materials and attempted to articulate the components of architecture based on the logic of machinery. The proposal of the “5 Points” shares a contemporary context with the human-centered philosophy of body culture. The purpose of this study is to examine how the “5 Points” were reflected in architectural works through their connection to “body culture.” It also aims to explore how Corbusier's ideas on body culture and the unity of dwelling were put into practice. First, I conducted discourse analysis of Corbusier's writings to examine his ideology on body culture. Next, I analyzed Corbusier's design proposals. In his residential works, I identified 17 projects where room names reflected bodily cultural spaces. I collected drawings and perspective views for these projects and analyzed the positioning and environment of bodily cultural spaces within the dwellings, as well as the morphological language employed. Based on analysis results and considerations, the meaning of the morphological language developed through the “5 Points” was derived as the “points that integrate body culture and dwelling.” This research explores the value of architectural forms and components for humans from the perspective of “body culture.”