Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts
Harvard University
24 Quincy Street (at Prescott Street)
Cambridge
Massachusetts 02138 USA
Le Corbusier 1963
The Carpenter Center is Le
Corbusier's only building in North America, and one of the last to be
completed during his lifetime. Its wonderful collection of concrete forms
bring together many of the design principles and devices from Le Corbusier's
earlier works: the ondulatoires (windows above left) from
La Tourette;
the brise soleils (below) originally from the Marseille unité
d'habitation but angled later in Chandigarh (but here with glass for
the Massachusetts climate); and the original Five Points from the 1920s
'accentuated in a new way: as if the Villa
Savoye had been exploded inside out, with ramp and curved partitions
extending into the environment.' The ramp and architectural promenade is
particularly strong at the Carpenter Center.
'At the heart is a cubic volume
from which curved studios pull away from one another on the diagonal. The
whole is cut through by an S-shaped ramp which rises from one street and
descends towards the other... The layers and levels swing out and back
from the grid of concrete pilotis within, making the most of cantilevering
to create interpenetrations of exterior and interior, as well as a
sequence of spatial events linked by the promenade architecturale of
the ramp.'
William J.R. Curtis in Le
Corbusier: Ideas and Forms
Simon Glynn 1999 and 2001
(updated 2005)
How to visit
The Carpenter Center is on the edge of Harvard
Yard, and is open seven days a week from early till late, except for Saturday evenings and
Sunday mornings. The open structure of the building, with a curved ramp passing through
the building from one side to the other with glass walls on either side, means that in
practice you can see much of the building even outside these times.
Le Corbusier's
original architectural 'manifesto', describing what he sought to achieve, as it first
appeared in English in 1931. Accessible (if an unconventional style for today) and
stimulating.
