Le Corbusier's Kansei (Sensibility) of ‘Roof’ in Voyage d'Orient

- The Comparison of the Descriptions between Carnets and Voyage d'Orient -

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to consider the Kansei (sensibility) of the architect concerning ‘roof’ in the journey by the text analysis from the viewpoint of Kansei-philosophy. This paper deals with Le Corbusier's journey to the east (1911). At first, we analyze Le Corbusier's descriptions extracted from Voyage d'Orient Carnets and Le Voyage d'Orient. We find that Le Corbusier describes the non-modern and physical themes for ‘roof’ (‘material’, ‘form’ and ‘color’), and the metaphysical theme concerning ‘toplight’ and ‘landscape’. We can say that the fundamental Kansei of the architect, in other words, the operation of hand on journey, takes part in the process that the non verbal tacit knowledge in the journey are written from his records, or the process that the non-modern themes obtained through the experience of journey are converted into the modern architectural theories.