Le Corbusier Lives in China

Bijlmermeer neighbourhood, the south-east suburb of Amsterdam, which today houses almost 50,000 people of over 150 nationalities, was designed as a single project as part of the modernist approach to urban development. Its first few buildings were completed towards the end of 1960s, after which some residents begun to move in what was advertised as ‘paradise with modern towers’. The original neighbourhood was designed as a series of nearly identical high-rise buildings in a hexagonal grid and has been called honeycomb housing. The urban planning principles were influenced by CIAM, the International Congress for Modern Architecture, set up by Le Corbusier, the master of modern Architecture and his contemporaries.

Le Corbusier’s idea of urban planning was the concept of ‘Radiant City’, wherein, the people were to be put in multi-storey housing so as to allow for large open spaces for recreation and green cover. The circulation was to be at two levels, the elevated roads to reduce traffic congestion and hence pollution and lower level for pedestrians and bicyclists. Upwardly rising residential towers would provide residents with the views as also clean air and sunlight. The original honeycomb housing can be seen in Photo 1.

Photo 1: Aerial view of Bijlmermeer, Amsterdam

This location of Bijlmermeer was selected as it was then outside the city of Amsterdam and land costs were low. However, it took a long time before the public infrastructure such as good roads and metro line were constructed to provide good connectivity to the place. The residents of Amsterdam lost interest in the project and subsequently, it was used as a social housing which came to be occupied by the immigrant community of the city. The Surinamese immigrants were located here by the government, in what then became social housing. It became essentially a low-income neighbourhood. Low-income neighbourhood with concentration of immigrant community also meant high levels of unemployment among the youth of the neighbourhood. Eventually, it came to be known as a neighbourhood with high crime rates. The grade separation of roads provided automobiles to move fast on the elevated roads but the spaces below when the roads crossed the pedestrian walkways created potential negative spaces wherein crime thrived. In an endeavour to reduce crime in this neighbourhood, the city of Amsterdam decided to convert this into mixed-income neighbourhood, that is, to gentrify the neighbourhood by attracting middle-income families to it.

However, high rise living is not conducive to the living style of middle-income groups, who prefer to live in low-rise condominium housing so that the children can play outside and parents can keep a watch on them. The new concerns such as of safe cities and climate change mitigation efforts such as promoting cycling, has led to flattening of the roads wherein the mixed traffic, motorised as well as non-motorised and pedestrians can move together. In all, many of the high rises have been torn down to create a safe and liveable neighbourhood. The neighbourhood has now good public transport connections and a commercial centre with multifarious activities. There has been conscious efforts to convert unsafe spaces into safe spaces.

Photo 2: Renewal of Bijlmermeer, with low rise apartments

We shift to another continent, another country, China, another era, twenty first century. China, in its rapid pace of urbanisation and strides towards modernisation has also adopted vertical urban form. The cities, central parts as well as the peripheries are transforming into high-rise complexes. Within the city, the former low-rise housing with lower per capita living area have given way to multi-storey buildings, about 25 to 30 storey high having modern facilities and higher dwelling unit size. The per capita living area on an average has increased from 5.3 sq m per person to 36.6 square per person in 2016 (Source: http://www.chinabankingnews.com/2017/07/07/chinas-per-capita-residential-space-rose-40-8-square-metres-2016/). To keep lands free for green spaces and other public goods such as roads, gardens, education and health facilities, convention centres and sports complexes, the housing form has taken to be multi-storey.

On the urban periphery, in the rural areas and peri-urban areas, the high-rises house the rural population. The rural residents, some out of choice (mainly the young generation) and some by mandate (mainly the elderly who prefer rural housing type for social reasons) have been shifted to multi-storey buildings to release rural lands. In some villages, the village committees, which are the local governance units, have sold surplus lands through long term leases. The profits from such land-sales have been invested in improving the rural conditions and constructing public amenities of the urban areas. Such profits have also been used to cross subsidize new housing construction. 

Photo 3: A Village near Suzhou City in South China

Photo 4: New High Rises on Suzhou City’s Periphery, China

There has been a push in the recent years in China for increasing urbanisation, which is seen as a way to improve the living conditions of the rural population. The proportion of employment in agriculture in 2017 has come down to 17.5% in China from 55.3% in 1991 (Source: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.AGR.EMPL.ZS?locations=CN). Large number of rural residents are employed in non-farm work and a large proportion of agriculture is in the green houses with the application of modern technology. There is a shift towards industrialised agriculture, an aspect which is being promoted by the national government. Industrialised agriculture requires large land parcels. Further, the Chinese government is paying the farmers to grow trees, which will contribute towards carbon sequestration to meet its commitment under the Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) after the Paris Agreement on Climate Change Mitigation. This also requires that lands be released.


A village in Suzhou City’s periphery in South China – Suzhou is a tourist town with traditional Chinese gardens of the former elites – where the residents were either engaged in some business (See Photo 3) or the males working in the city, was to be transformed into high rise living. Clearly, many had shifted out of agriculture to non-agriculture occupations and were unmindful of moving into modern housing. The type of modern housing that is coming up in this village’s periphery and likely for also this village can be seen in Photo 4. Photo 5 shows that general landscape of cities in China, which is of Suzhou city. Photo 6 is the landscape of peripheral areas of Tianjin City, which is an industrial city and this road is towards the Tianjin Free Trade Area.

Photo 5: From the internal city highway, Suzhou City, China

Photo 6: In Tianjin City Free Trade Area, China

Thus, we see very much the modernist transformation of China’s cities and its peripheral rural areas. This is very much the idea of New Urbanization, which is managed and is focussed on releasing lands for private and public transportation, green spaces and other public amenities. It is Le Corbusier ideas in practice in the twenty first century!