The modernity of Le Corbusier

The great masterworks of our ancestors convey humanity's higher thinking. In contrast we are witnessing how today's dysfunctional buildings or bad architecture is produced by professionals. Through ancient laws of proportion and number, architecture once expressed the harmonious relationship between man and the cosmos. In early times, the architect worked within a sacred and esoteric tradition of creating structures through which human beings could gain insight into the nature of divine reality. Today, that tradition has been abandoned in favour of narrowly-defined utilitarian principles of efficiency and economy.

The emphasis will be on the belief that new trends in architecture must borrow at least one leaf from the pages of the past, when they continue to harmonise, stimulate, enhance, interpret, and lend new meanings to their buildings. So when humans build, whether a simple dwelling or a vast sacred complex, they do so for a number of identifiable and meaningful reasons. This research aims to explain the symbolic and ritual role of architecture and the relation between form and meaning, or the physical and the spiritual Sacred Geometry is a key knowledge for any architect to understand and practice of building design.

The paper demonstrates the changes and revolution in building industry after and during the WWII especially in Europe and study the works of Le Corbusier.