there was once a plan to change Paris forever large parts of the historic Center destroyed and in its place buildings that touched the sky and served as the headquarters for the French Elite it was the master plan of one of the most influential architects of the 20th century as much a man who wanted to design buildings as one who wanted absolute power and to see his vision for essentially controlled hierarchical Society come to life from the 1920s to the 1930s paris's population grew from four to five million it was the highest density European city outdoing
London and Berlin life was dirty diseased and overcrowded so in 1922 Le corbisier came up with a supposed solution he had designed a new City built for a modern man and he took the ideals of that City and imagined a new Paris his first city attempted to solve four problems congestion in the center inefficient density inadequate transportation and a lack of green open space it divides into nine zones a main city with an intersection of 24 60-story cruciform Towers a middle section dedicated to residential space split between luxury and working-class homes and of course a
green belt separating industrial as well as Garden cities but it's important that we look closer because it's a city designed with an iron fist the city is made out of only three buildings the cruciform skyscraper the redent and the closed compound each made to guarantee equal access to views and sunlight from whichever position for the cruciform skyscraper the serrated shape created traps for light and the elites who worked there would receive a better oversight over the masses that they were privileged enough to guide and the other two buildings were residential built with modular Apartments ready
for mass production all three meticulously designed and controlled by a single person but he went further some of his buildings were designed with concrete piles creating a city on stilts not only did this give access to light on the ground floors but it also created his new Transportation Network he separated traffic into heavy normal and fast heavy traffic went underground with a city raised on concrete piles the underside of buildings could be used directly as areas for offloading and onloading since the ground floor was raised that's where you'd find normal Goods traffic including pedestrian walkways
and the last Network concerning fast traffic would be on raised highways running on a north-south East and West axis and all of these roads met at the center at a multi-story Transportation Hub which included an aerodome for air traffic for the planes that landed between the skyscrapers and it's this city that was the model for a new Paris from the sky we can just begin to understand the sheer scale of Corby Shay's plans Paris has always had a dense network of roads and inner Courtyards and he purposely selected the most infectious neighborhoods the narrowest of
streets to pave over impacting around seven avondismonts in total by projecting the skyscraper onto the same scale section of Paris we can get an idea of how many buildings the plan would raise like Corby Shay's first city Paris would be divided into zones sector a the business center containing 18 cruciform skyscrapers with read-ins for additional residential space sector B containing two cruciform skyscrapers as well as a Central Station that was located Underground sector C the residential and administrative area which is almost entirely occupied by the sneaking read-ents of the first city and then there is
sector D containing eight cruciform skyscrapers Corby Shay believed that the introduction of tall buildings would increase the density of Paris from around 300 to 1400 inhabitants per acre while increasing total area Green Space between the skyscrapers would be triple floored malls and Subways which would connect all the skyscrapers with each other his goal was to make Paris the world city of administration if it wasn't already clear to you it's probably worth knowing that corbuchet was kind of a weird man he created his own entirely new measurement system based on human length and the golden ratio
he was obsessed with reinforced concrete and the desire to put human beings in uniform standardized cells and unsurprisingly he had a weird relationship with his mom and also fascists which often goes hand in hand see like the cities he designed corbuchet believed in a strict hierarchical and centrally controlled Society his city was at its core figuratively and literally one of elite Administration the skyscrapers were to be the headquarters for the captains of business of Industry a finance of politics Masters of Science of pedagogy of thought the spokesman of the heart the artists poets musicians who
drew up his own pyramid of natural hierarchies arranging Society with a technocratic elite at the top to an increasing bottom of the Lesser skilled and the top of that pyramid would use the skyscrapers being able to clearly examine the world that they commanded and at the end of the day these Elites would return to their luxury housing system in sector C by using of course a massive elevated Highway running on a north-south East-West axis to make his plans more stomachable in sector a he'd maintain around 14 historical buildings in sector B around five and in
sector C around seven if it came true today you'd find a cathedral next to a gigantic skyscraper he also tried to dive into finances according to corbuchet if land values equaled a and the previous rebuilding of Paris resulted in an increase of five times the land value without an increase in density then surely his plan for building at a higher density would result in an increase of four times that land value the logic irrefutable he approached the chief Executives of major automobile companies who he thought would support the massive new streets he had planned and
although he got some to agree with him he didn't get enough his plans were considered too radical and they'd be rejected that wouldn't stop him till he died Corby Shay promoted his vision and world view to other cities and sometimes he did get his way including with Brasilia designed by a student of his orchanigar in India designed almost exclusively by Corby Shay and then there's also the Belmar in the Netherlands although it's not designed by corbuchet it's probably the best example of the planning he had inspired and he drew up plans for a lot of
other major cities not just Paris he had plans for Geneva Berlin and Bogota but likely the most insane plan he proposed was the plan he had for Algiers the plan obis it would lead to the construction of a super highway skyscraper running over a historical City with business skyscrapers overshadowing and hiding the views of the indigenous it was the line before it wasn't ever cool Corby Shay's goal was to make Algiers the head of the African continent and by extension France the story is fascinating which is why I've made an entirely different video on it
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