Le Modulor: Annotated Typescript Signed with Drawings
- SIGNED folder
- Paris: np, 1951
Paris: np, 1951. first edition. folder. Very Good. UNIQUE ANNOTATED TYPESCRIPT SIGNED WITH TWO FULL PAGES OF LE CORBUSIER DRAWINGS PRESENTING ONE OF HIS MOST FAMOUS AND INFLUENTIAL PHILOSOPHICAL ACHIEVEMENTS. Born in 1887, Le Corbusier found himself situated between two competing historical and architectural moments: an intricate history of grandiose Gothic and Renaissance style, and the sleek, efficient creation of the Second Industrial Revolution. In his canonical 1923 Towards an Architecture, Le Corbusier argued that modernity must be matched with architectural innovation. Functionality took a core place in Le Corubusier’s thinking. Houses were to be understood as machines for living, said Le Corbusier famously, and machines were to be governed by the economies in which they existed. From this conviction came Le Corbusier’s famous villas, his massive housing blocks in the suburbs of Paris, and, perhaps most importantly, a fathering of modern architecture as defined by an emphasis on function, simplicity, and new material [Towards an Architecture].
In 1942, Le Corbusier was asked to create a universal measurement for construction materials. What Le Corbusier deemed necessary was not only the creation of a new unit, but the arduous task of unifying metric and Anglo-Saxon systems, integrating the inch and the centimeter into one intuitive scale. Although an ambitious project, this unification, coined Modulor, existed within the ethos of Le Corbusier’s New Architecture. As Le Corbusier identified it, the importance of an architect was in their giving of “a [physical] order which we feel to be in accordance with that of [the] world.” This order was not only in aesthetic sleekness, but in an ethos of design that mirrored the social, moral, and political reality surrounding the architect. Therefore, units of measurement —as enablers of creation—were to reflect modern efficiency with new universal standards [Towards an Architecture].
It was not immediately clear what should be the basis for the new standardized units. Metric and Anglo-Saxon systems, after all, are based on different ‘orders’—a meter defined by the speed of light, a law of science; a foot defined by the proportions of the human body. Le Corbusier framed this tension in this rare manuscript: “the human body [exists] on one side, and the mathematicians on the other.”
Le Corbusier struggled with the concept of the Modulor over many years and the present text, dated by Le Corbusier [28/1/1951], represents a more mature and developed presentation of his theories. It reads as a manifesto-like preamble to the Modulor’s ambitions in the postwar world: to “harmonize the flow of worldwide production,” to systematize standardization without deadening compromise, and to reduce the friction of incompatible systems (metric versus foot–inch). Le Corbusier presents the Modulor as a human-scale “gamut” of measurements—explicitly compared to the musician’s scale—grounding chosen dimensions in bodily proportion and number. He invokes the golden ratio and the Fibonacci series as ordering principles, and includes the well-known endorsement attributed to Einstein (“a scale of proportions that makes the bad difficult and the good easy”), framing the Modulor as a tool of order, rigor, and harmony applicable from the architect’s drafting table to the engineer’s office and the building site.
The two full drawing sheets, marked with figure callouts (e.g., “Fig. 35…,” “Fig. 65…,” “Fig. 100…”) and geometric/proportional constructions (including a right-angle scheme marked “90°” and φ symbols), reinforce the document’s working character: argument paired with visual proof, capturing Le Corbusier’s drive to make proportion not merely theoretical, but operational.
Although we haven’t been able to find this exact text published anywhere, the present typescript closely aligns—often in phrasing and argumentative sequence—with Le Corbusier’s published presentation of the Modulor, and can be read as a self-contained “preamble” distilled from that larger project. However, the dated and signed terminal leaf (28 January 1951) and the presence of working ink annotations and separate diagram leaves with figure callouts suggest an independent studio or promotional iteration rather than a simple excised page from a printed book, documenting the Modulor as an evolving, actively circulated tool.
The Modulor proved enduringly influential as a conceptual and pedagogical framework for proportion—reinforced by its use in Le Corbusier’s own buildings and its broad afterlife in architectural discourse—even as it never achieved its founder’s ambition of becoming a universally adopted international standard of measurement.
[Paris]: January 28, 1951. Text in French. 6 leaves, each approx. 8.25 × 10.75 in.; with writing or drawings on rectos only, including 4 typed leaves with ink annotations and small drawings; 2 leaves of original drawings; last typed leaf signed and dated. In excellent condition with only very light toning and minor handling wear consistent with working material. English translation available upon request.
A UNIQUE FIRST-HAND ACCOUNT WITH NUMEROUS DRAWINGS PRESENTING ONE OF LE CORBUSIER'S CORE PHILOSOPHIES.
In 1942, Le Corbusier was asked to create a universal measurement for construction materials. What Le Corbusier deemed necessary was not only the creation of a new unit, but the arduous task of unifying metric and Anglo-Saxon systems, integrating the inch and the centimeter into one intuitive scale. Although an ambitious project, this unification, coined Modulor, existed within the ethos of Le Corbusier’s New Architecture. As Le Corbusier identified it, the importance of an architect was in their giving of “a [physical] order which we feel to be in accordance with that of [the] world.” This order was not only in aesthetic sleekness, but in an ethos of design that mirrored the social, moral, and political reality surrounding the architect. Therefore, units of measurement —as enablers of creation—were to reflect modern efficiency with new universal standards [Towards an Architecture].
It was not immediately clear what should be the basis for the new standardized units. Metric and Anglo-Saxon systems, after all, are based on different ‘orders’—a meter defined by the speed of light, a law of science; a foot defined by the proportions of the human body. Le Corbusier framed this tension in this rare manuscript: “the human body [exists] on one side, and the mathematicians on the other.”
Le Corbusier struggled with the concept of the Modulor over many years and the present text, dated by Le Corbusier [28/1/1951], represents a more mature and developed presentation of his theories. It reads as a manifesto-like preamble to the Modulor’s ambitions in the postwar world: to “harmonize the flow of worldwide production,” to systematize standardization without deadening compromise, and to reduce the friction of incompatible systems (metric versus foot–inch). Le Corbusier presents the Modulor as a human-scale “gamut” of measurements—explicitly compared to the musician’s scale—grounding chosen dimensions in bodily proportion and number. He invokes the golden ratio and the Fibonacci series as ordering principles, and includes the well-known endorsement attributed to Einstein (“a scale of proportions that makes the bad difficult and the good easy”), framing the Modulor as a tool of order, rigor, and harmony applicable from the architect’s drafting table to the engineer’s office and the building site.
The two full drawing sheets, marked with figure callouts (e.g., “Fig. 35…,” “Fig. 65…,” “Fig. 100…”) and geometric/proportional constructions (including a right-angle scheme marked “90°” and φ symbols), reinforce the document’s working character: argument paired with visual proof, capturing Le Corbusier’s drive to make proportion not merely theoretical, but operational.
Although we haven’t been able to find this exact text published anywhere, the present typescript closely aligns—often in phrasing and argumentative sequence—with Le Corbusier’s published presentation of the Modulor, and can be read as a self-contained “preamble” distilled from that larger project. However, the dated and signed terminal leaf (28 January 1951) and the presence of working ink annotations and separate diagram leaves with figure callouts suggest an independent studio or promotional iteration rather than a simple excised page from a printed book, documenting the Modulor as an evolving, actively circulated tool.
The Modulor proved enduringly influential as a conceptual and pedagogical framework for proportion—reinforced by its use in Le Corbusier’s own buildings and its broad afterlife in architectural discourse—even as it never achieved its founder’s ambition of becoming a universally adopted international standard of measurement.
[Paris]: January 28, 1951. Text in French. 6 leaves, each approx. 8.25 × 10.75 in.; with writing or drawings on rectos only, including 4 typed leaves with ink annotations and small drawings; 2 leaves of original drawings; last typed leaf signed and dated. In excellent condition with only very light toning and minor handling wear consistent with working material. English translation available upon request.
A UNIQUE FIRST-HAND ACCOUNT WITH NUMEROUS DRAWINGS PRESENTING ONE OF LE CORBUSIER'S CORE PHILOSOPHIES.
Details
Title
Le Modulor: Annotated Typescript Signed with Drawings
Author
LE CORBUSIER. [Charles-Édouard Jeanneret]
Binding
folder
Condition
Very Good
Publisher
np: Paris
Date
1951
Edition
first edition