Le Corbusier + Jeanneret 
29 October 2015
Le Corbusier + Jeanneret 
108

Le Corbusier

Rare and Important Accused Cabin from the High Court, Chandigarh

France/India, c. 1955
teak 46 h × 56½ w × 47 d in (117 × 144 × 119 cm)
estimate: $100,000–150,000
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The present lot is the only known extant example of this design.
provenance: High Court, Chandigarh, India | Private collection, London
exhibited: The Furniture of Chandigarh: Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret, 20 June - 12 July 2009, Ambika P3, University of Westminster, London
literature: The Judge's Desk: The High Court, Chandigarh, O'Shea, ppg. 39-40

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The Accused Cabin

The ‘Harmonic Spiral’, a coiled, shell-like diagram that articulates a series of decreasing measurements relating to the proportions of Modulor Man, is a visual device Le Corbusier references throughout his oeuvre, both in built and painted works. At Chandigarh, he presents us with perhaps the purest interpretation of this spiral form translated into a functional object, in the shape of the Accused Cabin. This exceptional piece is derived directly from the proportions of the golden section, being generated from a plan extrusion of the harmonic spiral. The centripetal, shell-like form clasps the occupant while also creating a powerful focus to the mise en scène. Intended solely to contain the person being interrogated, it was strategically positioned under the inclined weight of the parasol roof, as if to impose the whole weight of the building onto the shoulders of its occupant.

It is clear from even the earliest drawing produced in Paris that the spiral was central to Le Corbusier’s plan for the courtrooms, and it remained a constant feature across various iterations of the plan. The final composition positions the spiral of the Accused Cabin into a strictly orthogonal plan, epitomizing Le Corbusier’s often-used technique of juxtaposing sculptural forms and curves against an overriding rectilinear order.

Le Corbusier 1887–1965

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Le Corbusier was born Charles-Édouard Jeanneret in 1887. As a child, Le Corbusier worked in his family’s trade of clock making. In 1917, he moved to Paris where he founded the artistic movement of Purism, and began publishing a manifesto under the pseudonym “Le Corbusier.” Later abandoning Purism to focus on architecture, Le Corbusier opened a design atelier with his cousin Pierre Jeanneret in 1922.

To Le Corbusier, houses were “machines for living in,” and he strove to make streamlined structures with function as their primary aim. Le Corbusier was among the first architects to champion textured concrete, as exemplified in his creation of the Unité d’habitation, a brutalist yet colorful residential housing structure in Nantes-Rezé. Le Corbusier believed that through design, he could create a utopia for the new age. In 1947 he received the opportunity to realize his vision of a modernist cosmopolitan center with the commission to design the entire city complex of Chandigarh, India. Le Corbusier worked with his cousin, Pierre Jeanneret on the creation and design of Chandigarh from 1947 until his death in 1965, and the city remains exemplary of Le Corbusier’s utopian goals for architecture.

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