Le Corbusier was the first modernist to explore the relevance of human form and proportions in architectural design, made popular through his seminal treatise Le Modulor, a mathematical approach to codifying human scale and proportion, resulting in modern architectural forms that he created which could compete aesthetically with the classical proportions explored much earlier in history.

It was quite apparent that with concrete as the new material of modern times, there was no scope for the craft movements and embellishments that were part of architecture for centuries. In the absence of craft and embellishments there was a monotony in the box like forms that modernism gave birth to. Corbusier's work on Le Modulor broke this monotony of the box into a new asthetics of proportions in massing of forms, from whole to the parts and vice versa.

It may be noted that the relationship of the human form with architectural form, space and structure was very much part of various traditional practices, as Corbusier himself had observed in his book Le Modulor...

"One thing remains to be explained: the Parthenon, the Indian temples and the cathedrals were all built according to precise measures which constituted a code, a coherent system: a system which proclaimed an essential unity. Primitive men at all times, in all places, as also the bearers of high civilizations, Egyptians, Chaldean, Greek, all these have built and, by that token, measured...

"What were the tools they used? They were eternal and enduring, precious, because they were linked to the human person. The names of these tools were: elbow (cubit), finger (digit), thumb (inch), foot, pace and so forth… Let us say it at once: they formed an integral part of the human body, and for that reason they were fit to serve as measures for the huts, the houses and the temples that had to be built..."

And thus Corbusier experimented on himself to discover certain proportions within, in the nature of the much studied golden proportions of the renaissance...

This study of Le Modulor resulted in breaking down the proportions and scale of the human body into anthropometrically appropriate dimensions of the human body, relevant in architectural design of spaces and furnitures...

Decoding Corbusier is an exercise designed for the first year student to understand architectural built form compositions in the form of models, applying Corbusier's Le Modulor proportions. (It is interesting that as a secondary exercise each student can discover these proportions in own body dimensions, through measurements and compare with others in the class or studio, both male and female proportions and work out averages for all present. )

A three days workshop on Decoding Corbusier was conducted for first year students of Department of Architecture and Planning, I.I.T. Kharagpur in March 2017. As is my method, as  brief of objective of the workshop, I demonstrated a design, seen in the following video, following which the students engaged in own interpretations and made physical models proportionate to human dimensions, in the form of an exhibition pavilion to showcase Corbusier's contribution.

Watch the video of demonstrative design brief @

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHvxLaAv_Uw

The students' designs follow here, represented through images and videos, a wide variety of them, all woven together with the common thread of human proportions as proposed by Corbusier in his Le Modulor.

Watch Abhishek Singh's Design @

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OE506m-bIkg

Watch Ahana Khandelwal's Design @

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cz6t1F_z71Y

Watch Amlan Sahu's Design @

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pgoMqMMQ4k

Watch Ankit Meena's Design @

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTOxdCEAPa8



 Watch Ankur Gurjar's design @

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26Eaa48BIzM

 Watch Anuj Daga's design @

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCtzsMMFjlY

Watch Ashutosh Agarwal's Design @  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orS3RnryjUQ&t=9s

Watch Chaitanya Shinde's Design @ 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHjRi2Cv8jI

Watch Devan Bharadwaj's Design @

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssL-RZ4b5gA

Watch Dinesh Kumar's Design @

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLP-xycc3oo

Watch Gaurav Saini's Design @

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3-wZYI-eu0



Watch Hariharan's Design @

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WwKlRfrz9s

Watch K. Saicharan's Design @

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esQdmj-YLps

Watch Kartik Tyagi's Design @

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBPlrIXAibQ

Watch Kshitij Sharma's Design @

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIcSfkoOvY0

Watch Kushagra Ramnani's Design @

https://www.youtube.com/edit?o=U&video_id=Trx7yHKH4fk

Watch Liza Ghosh's Design @

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdsGQ2zI1Q0

Watch Parth Vats's Design @

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSqHpJBSNN4

Watch Rishabh Ratwaya's Design @ 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8LgwRf0MoE

Watch Roshni Bhowmik's Design @

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lbuho7GfySM



Watch Sachin Uttarwar's Design @

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z46SLIfYK3c

Watch Sai Ram's Design @

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7PY9ycdKmA

Watch Shashank Singh's Design @

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gP75aTIPYkM

Watch Shivam Singh's Design @

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1W09huZTn0

Watch Shubham Pandey's Design @

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPWU6LFql8Y

Watch Thakur Sangram Singh's Design @

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCq7BfZegTw

Watch Vunnamu Ashish's Design @

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Nm1K1SCxYM

Contributions by students of First Year B.Arch , IIT Kharagpur, Department of Architecture and Planning,

During Design Workshop conducted in March 2017

Contact to conduct these kinds of workshops:

Dr. Harimohan Pillai . Architect

09447188446

harimohan.pillai@gmail.com