Corbu - Space, Light, Order

Le Corbusier (Corbu) quotes (Swiss architect and city planner, whose designs combine the functionalism of the modern movement with a bold, sculptural expressionism.  1887-1965) :
“To create architecture is to put in order. Put what in order? Function and objects.”
“The home should be the treasure chest of living.”
"Space and light and order. Those are the things that men need just as much as they need bread or a place to sleep"
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Memory is eidetic, thinking back to my Corbu experience, almost 14 years ago. http://embellish4art.blogspot.com/2004/09/villa-sarabhai.html

This link (above) begins to describe a part of my soul's formation and how Corbusier had a hand in this. 

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http://issuu.com/shear/docs/24sept09_visual_portfolio_low?mode=a_p

http://www.askart.com/askart/w/robert_winslow/robert_winslow.aspx

Randy Shear of ShearDesigns, posted the third quote listed above to his Facebook page. Robert Winslow, sculptor/painter commented. I also posted a comment. These FB contributions discuss the concept of order.  I learned there is an architectural order that is referred to by Corbu, and this inherent order is beyond my capacity to emulate. I can embrace that capacity in others, especially because Corbusier, author of this quote, has provided a profound living memory through his order, his space and light that continues to structure my life. More, I am grateful for social networking to revive this memory, its impact and further develop its consequence. 

Villa Sarabhai is a "treasure chest of living". Here, Corbusier incised space through architectural order amplifying light and enabling energetic connectivity. I remember rooms merging and ceilings expanding, surprising spaces presenting opportunities for congregating and repose, eating, sleeping and reflection. Pouncing and dancing of juxtapositions that engaged and cuddled, that invited and developed a magical space of contrapuntal rhapsody. There was a comforting weight of solidity, windows of intrigue and mystifying integration of landscape that cradled the walls. Breathing with anticipation, each corner, every turn revealed an new way of thinking, allowed integrity of beauty to expand. The many artists that lived and worked in this home must have felt this, from the explosive production of art they left for Sarabhai. 

W.B. Yeats described the 'space between' in a poem I once read. The title of this poem title escapes me, however, the experience he epitomized refers to the energy that is created between people, their experience of each other, what they create by interacting, feeling, and all that people do together. Corbu's Villa Sarabhai orders space and light,  encouraging this dynamic. The intoxication, a love affair with his architecture is intensified by the order.  I don't know if I heard the cacophony of Paradise Flycatchers, Magpie Robins and Malabar Whistling Thrushes or the mimicry of Racket-tailed Drongos. I do know that teasing monkeys in the canopy of tall trees were likely oblivious to my presence. Whether Areca Nut, Mango or some other variety is of no matter. I am overjoyed to be a participant in the effervescence that Courbousier created. 

Villa Sarabhai

http://www.kalleswork.net/projects/building/build_corb.html

http://www.interiordesign.net/article/CA278486.html

These sites refer to the house that I visited in 1997.

What I remember first is the sultry garden where I sat drinking thick, cool cane drinks under the canopy of nim trees, enveloped by the jasmine scented air on the 3rd level of grassed plateau intregal to the Villa Sarabhai.

The coveted invitation to dine came by submitting my portfolio to the biochemist, Anand Sarabhai. I had asked for an interview through the head of the architecture school in Ahmadabad.

Listening to monkeys cajoling each other in the invisible branches above the gravel drive to the house as the conveyance called a 'three wheeler' brought me to the sanctified entrance; I was encapsulated with the mystery and heightened awareness of this gift of opportunity. Admittance through armed guarded barbed gates beyond the stoned fortress surrounding the enclave began an enchantment, an evening of promise and beguile.

Cobusier had planted part of his soul here. I was entering a timeless homage to an exclusive lifestyle and home to 50's and 60's art.

My sculpture had let me enter. My writing about cultural phenomena in the west of India gave me the means to experience this Corbusier architecture and the owner's passion for modernism.

I am writing about this now, 6 and a half years later, because, although my thoughts were documented in a full-page article I wrote in the Times of India, I have no insight into how this momentous and other extraordinary Indian based experiences relate to my present life, and I need to find a means of finding the magic, regenerating the immediacy and discovery, the beauty and depth that occured at that time in my life.

I was blessed by many eminent events while in India. My work was accepted, and honoured. Since I returned to Canada, life has not been kind. I have been stripped of art and I struggle to remain free from resentment. Caring for loved ones during their crises was needed. Developing a rewarding relationship is decisive, but not enough to fulfill. I need self-fulfillment.

More later.