Theodore Dalrymple makes the case in City Journal.
Like Pol Pot, he wanted to start from Year Zero: before me, nothing;
after me, everything. By their very presence, the raw-concrete-clad rectangular towers that obsessed him canceled out centuries of architecture. Hardly any town or city in Britain (to take just one nation) has not had its composition wrecked by architects and planners inspired by his ideas.














haha true. Corb is God.
http://www.whyeverythingisinteresting.wordpress.com
How long before the blind local reverence of anything by Arthur Erickson, Vancouver’s most effective Le Corbusier-inspired designer, comes to an end? He certainly displayed the same traits – disdain for the street and disrespect of the old, among others (see the petulant treatment of the old provincial courts as part of Robson Square, or of the old bank façade at the Scotia Dance Centre as examples of the latter.)
+1. While Corb’s planning and architecture is held in contempt today, comparing him to a murderous autocrat is just a little over the top. I guess it’s meant to provoke a reaction.
Will there come a day when Vancouver’s celebrated POTO falls out of favour?
I think the Vancouver tower on podium model is already somewhat hackneyed and monotonous. I think people have started to notice this, and adding a few multicoloured panels on newer buildings isn’t going to change anything.
It’s already being adapted.
In Vancouver, the 2 storey townhouses on Richards St. look inadequate for a downtown location (but OK for the Concord lands). The view cone that cuts across downtown south has forced the constriction of shorter squat towers with taller podiums. Robson St has thankfully fostered the growth of taller podiums with commercial space in more recent buildings. SEFC is developing with shorter squat towers and taller podiums along W 2nd Ave. (following a Richmond prototype, it seems), although there are some short twonhouses in the mix.
In Toronto, the towers in CityPlace have much taller podiums.
It’s really not /that/ over the top. Corbu tried to whore himself out to both Hitler and Stalin (one after the other, rather than at the same time) to build them nice monumental stadia for military parades and the like.