06: Unité D’Habitation and Le Corbusier

Architecture is as much basic arithmetic as well as geometry, since it actually occupies physical space. Geometry can aspire to express 3 dimensional space - that is perspective in visual art (where properties of the circle help to create Fibonacci). Music can aspire to 4 dimensions by measuring time. (Jean Nouvel does this by making his building ‘move’, in response to the light from the sun.) That building is 24 squares long (plus a stairwell), in order to match the 24 hours of a day. Mechanisms, which fill every window, are activated by sunlight. Consequently, each window will produce slightly different patterns.

I made use of the architectural plans of Unité (built in 1946: more or less the time that I was born) to create EM for 24 voices (1970). On the left side of his building there is a communal staircase, which is an add-on to the building and rises to its full height (gardens and an open-air café were planned for the top of this building). The full length of this building is raised off the ground – for parking I presume. There are two ventilation shafts/towers situated on top of the structure.