WATER AND THE SNAIL: ADIABATIC ATMOSPHERES THROUGH SCALE MODELS OF THE VILLAS À LA MODE TROPICALE OF LE CORBUSIER

Abstract

Situated in the tropic of Cancer, Ahmedabad was the site of the first housing projects carried out by Le Corbusier in India. Chimanbhai Villa was the only one that was not built, but a scale model was made, which Le Corbusier would refer to in The Modulor 2 as a “snail shell”. The location in which photographs were taken, next to the water and among plants and pebbles, like a gastropod seeking the cool of the shade and humidity, emphasises the climactic discourse of the architect for “a pact with nature”. A pact that when it comes to setting domestic comfort against heat, resorts to combining winds as a strategic location of expanses of water, and with other architectural devices set out in La Grille Climatique, that are emphasised in the dismantling of the model. The fusion between place and model through photography is repeated in the ones subsequently carried out for the Shodhan Villa and the Governor’s Palace, in addition to the manual character of these objects, which reinforces the idea of a production by and for the people of a new nation.
 The shadow of an innovative window-mounted air-conditioning unit in the photographs of the opening of the Shodhan Villa highlights the predominance of machines over adiabatic atmospheres in Le Corbusier’s Indian architectures. Today, Ahmedabad is one of the world’s cities with the largest air-conditioning emission energy footprint.