LE CORBUSIER AND THE HISTORIC CITY. NEW REFLECTIONS BASED ON THE THREE HUMAN SETTLEMENTS. THE CASE OF SAINT-GAUDENS

Abstract

There are several prejudices that surround Le Corbusier’s work. In the urban planning field, the association with the ‘tabula rasa’ and insensitivity to heritage, based mainly on the Plan Voisin for Paris of 1925, is recurrent. However, the partial vision of his work and the exclusive focus on his initial phase have consolidated ideas that do not represent his whole career. This research explores the case of Saint-Gaudens as a sample of the urban approaches developed since the publication of The Three Human Establishments. This case allows us to approach his proposals for intervention on inherited cities on a smaller scale, far removed from the ideas that have become widespread. Through an extensive literature review, the graphic document management and the planimetric superimposition, the city analysis demonstrates the existence of another Le Corbusier’s vision towards the historic city, on which it shows respect and safeguards, and, therefore, the hypothesis of this research.