Reference- Tafuri’s text- ‘architect is an organiser and not a designer’
Manfredo Tafuri provides a comprehensive survey of transformations in an urban setting and its role in influencing architecture. Its focus on the genesis of a rational plan for a city generated from socio-economic needs, makes the architect an organiser and not a designer of objects.
Corbusier’s master plan, Plan Voisin, honors these needs for that particular period. From a planning perspective, the masterplan is seen as a social machine where the architect is removed from the creation and the design process and solely plays a role of an organiser to solve problems in society. Simply put, in an attempt to play a social engineer, Corbusier failed to design the experience of the city. Contrary to his proposal for Paris, where he played organiser, Corbusier conducts a more prescribed study on the experience of a city as a whole and goes onto further ruminate on the influence of social needs in his design for Chandigarh. By drawing relevance to a human body as a design concept, his focus shifts to cater first to experience and then to social needs in Chandigarh’s city plan. Segregated programs, ‘lungs’ and breathing zones of open landscapes and well connected areas with gridded streets that imitate the nervous system is a concept that is designed to create such an experience.
Chandigarh is the most sought after city in India only because its design impacts the way we experience the city. While Corbusier has ‘organised’ a city plan for Paris according to Tafuri, the city fails in the long term due to the ever changing social needs that cannot be catered to. Simply put, the architect, the messenger, transforms from organiser to designer when he adheres and gives importance to aspects such as the experience, apart from the socio economic needs.
