Le Corbusier and urban planning

I thought I'd blog a little more about Le Corbusier's ideas on urban planning. I think most of his ideas were a reaction against the crowded, congested cities of his era. He wanted wide, high-speed highways cutting across the city. These highways would either be elevated or depressed so that they would be completely separated from the pedestrian network. Housing in Le Corbusier's ideal city would be in high-rise apartment buildings, often raised above the ground on pilotis to provide sheltered space underneath.

In essence, Le Corbusier's cities turned their back to the street. This strategy has been tried in many American cities, which resulted in the decline of those particular neighborhoods. One of the most spectacular failures (not designed by Le Corbusier but still following  his theories) of this sort was the Pruitt-Igoe housing project in Saint Louis, Missouri. This low-income housing replaced many blocks of nineteenth-century tenement housing, but began experiencing problems almost immediately after its completion. Within 20 years of its construction, most of the development was demolished.