EMMA DUMMET
Architecture Department
University of Edinburgh

Le Corbusier was throughout his career a passionate advocate of the high-density city.  For him, however, the purpose of density was not to achieve a rich and varied urban fabric or to promote a lively street life, but to increase access to nature: medium and high-rise blocks would free up space for parkland, bringing the “essential joys” of light, air and greenery into the modern city.  Le Corbusier spoke out vehemently against suburbs planned on a Garden City model because of the hours of commuting which their low densities imposed.  Nonetheless, his conviction that cities must bring about a reconciliation between man and nature grew out of the Garden City movement: he was a reader of Howard, Unwin and Muthesius and an admirer of Hellerau and Hampstead Garden Suburb as a young man, and christened his own Ville radieuse a “vertical garden city”.  His high-density urban plans, I suggest, owe much to low-density precedents.