Urbanism: URBANISME

"Cities are tools for work.

Cities can no longer perform this function properly. They are no longer efficient: they consume the body, they block the mind.

The disturbances that abound in cities are deeply offensive: their immensity hurts our self-love, shatters our self-respect.

They are not for this age: they are no longer for us. "── Kirby

"Urbanisme" (Urbanisme), the second volume of the "New Spirit" (l'Esprit nouveau) series, is between "Towards Architecture" and "Decorate Arts Today". In this trilogy, Kirby established the principles that would guide his writing and architectural work in the future. The concepts developed in "Urbanology", especially the illustrated example: "Paris Voisin Project", since its publication in 1925, have sparked fierce debates. Even in the 21st century, these arguments are still of profound dialectical and thought-provoking value.

An admirer of Haussmann's work, "the legacy that the emperor bequeathed to his people," Kirby declares that the city must be adapted to its times, its nobility and efficacy restored, and that to do so it must be radically transformed.

This important underlying principle is:

──The dredging of the chaos in the city center;

──Increase in density;

──Increased means of transportation;

──Increase of green area.

Because it is impossible to relocate the city center and "create new cities outright next to the old ones". What must be saved is our city in its present state. Kirby exposes the obstacles to this gigantic project: misgivings, timidity, routine, which he opposes in an unformed Ragonian style, "the feeling of modernity... definite urgency, against which nothing can sustain...it Pushing, moving."

Hurry must be taken: Voisin's Plane exhibited in the "New Spirit" Pavilion of the Exposition of Decorative Arts (1925). 240 hectares in the center of Paris are completely rebuilt. Clear, utopian proposal or provocation? Kirby stated clearly: "The Voisin project does not intend to provide a precise solution for the center of Paris. But it can help to stimulate contemporary discussions and raise questions within the right range. It is based on its principles. Against the complex plot of insignificant reforms that delude our spirits day after day."