LE MODULOR

The Modulor is an anthropometric scale of proportions devised by the Swiss-born French architect Le Corbusier (1887–1965).

It was developed as a visual bridge between two incompatible scales, the Imperial system and the Metric system. It is based on the height of an English man with his arm raised.

LE MODULOR
LE CORBUSIER,1948

180 x 180 mm / 60 gridded sheets
Measuring system based on mathematics and
the human body

The Modulor made a major contribution to the form of modern architecture and became the foundation stone for most design systems and modern grids. The Modulor was primarily concerned with architectural form, but Le Corbusier was quick to point out its application to other areas, including the design of the printed page. The design system took the golden section one step further by linking it to the scale and proportion of the human anatomy.

Le Corbusier selected the solar plexus, the top of the head, and the tips of the fingers of an extended arm as the principal anatomical locations. the distance from the ground to the solar plexus represents the extremes division of the golden section, and the distnace between the solar plexus and the top of the head is the mean. From this base Le Corbusier produced an infinite series of mathematical proportions that could be applied to a wide range of architectural dimensions.

Most apllications of Le Modulor to graphic design, including Le Corbusier's own designs of Le Modulor, and Suite de la Modulor, have not been particularly impressive. Perhaps the most important contribution of the Modulor to two-dimensional design was the inspiration it gave to the typographic designers of Germany and Switzerland to create the modular systems that would transfer utilitarian makeup sheets to design-oriented modern grids. (extracted from Allen Hurlburt, The Grid, John Wiley & Sons, 1978)

HISTORY

Le Corbusier developed the Modulor in the long tradition of Vitruvius, Leonardo de Vinci's vitruvian's man, the work of leone Battista Alberti, and other attempts to discover mathematical proportions in the human body and then to use that knowledge to improve both the appearance and function of architecture. The system is based on human measurements, the double unit, the Fibonacci numbers, and the golden ratio. Le Corbusier described it as a "range of harmonious measurements to suit the human scale, universally applicable to architecture and to mechanical things."

With the Modulor, Le Corbusier sought to introduce a scale of visual measures that would unite two virtually incompatible systems: the Anglo Saxon footand inch and the French Metric system. Whilst he was intrigued by ancient civilisations who used measuring systems linked to the human body: elbow (cubit), finger (digit), thumb (inch) etc., he was troubled by the metre as a measure that was a forty-millionth part of the meridian of the earth.

In 1943, in response to the French National Organisation for Standardisation's (AFNOR) requirement for standardising all the objects involved in the construction process, Le Corbusier asked an apprentice to consider a scale based upon a man with his arm raised to 2.20m in height. The result, in August 1943 was the first graphical representation of the derivation of the scale. This was refined after a visit to the Dean of the Faculty of Sciences in Sorbonne on 7 February 1945 which resulted in the inclusion of a golden section into the representation.

Whilst initially the Modulor Man's height was based on a French man's height of 1.75m it was changed to six feet in 1946 because "in English detective novels, the good-looking men, such as policemen, are always six feet tall!" The dimensions were refined to give round numbers and the overall height of the raised arm was set at 2.26m.