Le Modulor and designing for people

 

    How do we design buildings around people?

    This is a question that famed architect and proponent of modernism, Le Corbusier, sought to answer with his "Modular Man". Also known as Le Modular, this "man" consisted of a set of proportions and measurements.

    At the time, World War II had just ended and reconstruction was taking place all across Europe, which presented architects with the opportunity to reshape the face of Western architecture. Le Corbusier saw this as his chance to revive the Classical tradition of creating buildings based on the golden ratio and human form. Buildings based on Le Modular would have counters at the perfect height, and cabinets that were always in reach.

   

    While the idea of bringing human scale back into design is a commendable one, there was one major issue with Le Modular. That is, namely, that there is no one "human form". The Modular Man was based entirely on the measurements of a six foot tall, muscular man. This is partly due to the influences of media at the time, which heavily idealized this body type. Picture the glamorous images of soldiers, detectives, and adventurers who were so often the heroes of books or movies at the time. 

    At the same time, these ideals didn't come from nowhere. Belief in the pseudoscience of eugenics and the "perfect human form" was not uncommon at the time. This led to a society that valued one kind of body over others, which led to Le Modular.

  
    At what point does this turn into designing who is allowed to use the building instead of designing the building itself?

     The feeling of being in a space that is not designed for you is a jarring and singular one.  It comes in the form of not being able to reach a handhold on the subway or access a building in a wheelchair. The more you think about it, the more you notice that many spaces are, intentionally or unintentionally, only designed for certain kinds of people. 

    Le Modular was an appealing concept because it greatly simplified human-centric design. But this simplicity comes at a cost. It comes at the cost of excluding the majority of the public.

    Going forward, it is crucial to remember that good design is inclusive at its core. It is easy to think of accessibility as something to be tacked onto a project at the end, a last consideration. This is something I have done, modifying a design last-minute in order to say that it is wheelchair accessible. 

    In order to truly design for people, a project has to begin with inclusion, not end with it. And inclusion means designing for real people, not scale figures. 

Sources:

Mathematical Commentary on Le Corbusier's Modular. October 24, 2019. Author unknown. 

https://www.math.ksu.edu/~rozhkovs/Modulor_oct19final.pdf

Monica Arellano, On the Dislocation of the Body in Architecture: Le Corbusier's Modulor. archdaily.com, September 27, 2018.

https://www.archdaily.com/902597/on-the-dislocation-of-the-body-in-architecture-le-corbusiers-modulor

Emily Zsarko, Fascist Architecture in Relation to Modernism. Zsarkitecture, November 22, 2014.

https://zsarkitecture.wordpress.com/2014/11/23/fascist-architecture-in-relation-to-modernism/

Federica Buzzi, 'Human, All Too Human': A Critique on the Modulor. Failed Architecture, May 25, 2017.

https://failedarchitecture.com/human-all-too-human-a-critique-on-the-modulor/

Modulor Man by Le Corbusier. Author unknown. June 23, 2009. iconeye.com

https://www.iconeye.com/opinion/icon-of-the-month/modulor-man-by-le-corbusier

Alexandria Dolan, Identity Crisis: The Post-WWII Reconstruction of the City of London. March 2017. 

https://repositories.lib.utexas.edu/handle/2152/61345