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by twelvechairs
1087 days ago
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Like I say its akin to blaming Ken Thompson or Dennis Ritchie or Bill Gates or Steve Jobs or whoever for every problem you have with computers today. He was there as they were and found ways to move things forward. Have we gotten better since? Of course. Did they also make some claims that seem silly in retrospect? You betcha You want to live in a world of pantomime villains its your choice but reality and history is much more nuanced. This article actually gives a very good summary of that if you care to get through it When you say his influence is detrimental I think you need to understand who else might have been more influential if Corbusier didnt exist. The answer is not some proto-Jane Jacobs itd be someone like Gideon, Häring or Moser. People who equally didnt understand urban life (its taken us a century since to progress even as meagrely as we have) but also wouldnt have been able to articulate where modern construction and cities were moving to like Corbusier did. |
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I think we're all operating under a dysfunctional paradigm, Great Man or whatever. You say he wasn't that bad, I say he was worse, you say, "Don't complain about Vandal Savage because they have Hitler on ice,"[1] but fundamentally, the question remains: why did we turn over so much of urban design theory over to any singular kook at all?
I question the premise; urban life was well-understood, but dealing with rapid post-war (re)builds and hordes of personal vehicles, not so much. It was a choice, to consider either. And we let him/them choose, and let the choices filter down to those who'd marry them with weird and destructive and uncompassionate social ideals (and, often, a profit motive).
So, I continue to hold that we had the means and knowledge to ignore him and build better neighborhoods, but we listened to him and suffered, instead.
[1] https://dcau.fandom.com/wiki/The_Savage_Time