LETTER OF ATHENS

Since 1928, the CIAM (International Congresses of Modern Architecture) had collected some energies hitherto scattered, holding their meetings in different cities of Europe. In 1935 it was her turn to Athens ... During the period of oppression and rejection of the profession (Architecture and Urbanism) in 1941 to 1942 the name of Athens appeared as a shield shining, and the word Charter, as a mandate to think straight.

The work of Congress in Athens formed the basis of the Charter

A mutation immense total, takes over the world: The machine civilization is anchored in the disorder, improvisation going in the rubble. And all that has lasted for a century! But a century ago that the new blood continues its upward march ... One day maybe ...

Paris, September 6. 1957 - Le Corbusier.

PART I

GENERAL

THE CITY AND ITS REGION

1.     The city is only a part of the economic, social and political constitutes the region.

2.     Juxtaposed to the economic, social to the political will, the values ​​of a psychological and physiological linked to the individual entered into the discussion concerns individual order and collective order. 

Life unfolds only in so far as matching the two contradictory principles curl human personality: the individual and the collective.

3.     These constants psychological and biological experience the influence of the environment: location and topographic, economic, and political situation. First, the geographical location and topography, the nature of the elements, water and earth, nature, soil, climate ...

4.     Second, the economic situation.

The resources of the region, natural or artificial contacts with the outside.

5.     Third, the political, administrative system.

6.     Certain circumstances have determined the character of the city throughout history: military defense, scientific discoveries, successive administrations, the progressive development of communications and transport (overland routes, river or sea , railways and air routes)

7.     The reasons which govern the development of cities are thus subject to continuous change.

8.     The advent of the era of mechanization has caused huge disruption in the behavior of men in their distribution over the earth and its activities themselves, unrestrained movement of concentration in the cities, under mechanical speeds, brutal and evolution universal unprecedented in history. The chaos has made ​​its entradla in cities.

PART TWO

CURRENT STATUS OF CITIES.

CRITICAL AND REMEDIES

ROOM

9.     Inside the historic core of cities and in certain areas of nineteenth century industrial expansion, the population is too dense (it Ilesa to add up to a thousand or even 1500 people per hectare)

10. In congested urban areas, living conditions are dire for lack of sufficient space for housing, lack of green space available and, finally, by neglect of maintenance for buildings (operation based on speculation)

State of affairs further aggravated by the presence of a population with low living standards, unable itself take defensive measures (mortality is as high as twenty percent)

11. The growth of the city gradually devours green space, successive neighboring suburbs.

This increasing detachment from the natural elements in equal measure increases the disorder of hygiene.

12. housing constructions are designed to spread over the surface of the city, contrary to the requirements of hygiene.

13. denser neighborhoods are in disadvantaged areas (slopes misguided, areas invaded by fog or industrial gases, accessible to flooding, etc.).

14. airy constructions (houses accommodated) occupy favored areas, sheltered from harsh winds, overlooking prospective outlets safe and graceful landscape: lake, sea, mountains, etc.., and with plenty of sun exposure.

15. This partial distribution of the housing is sanctioned by use and by some municipal regulations that are justified: ZONING.

16. The buildings erected along the roads and in the vicinity of the crossings are damaging to the habitability: noise, dust and noxious gases.

17. The traditional alignment of the houses on the edge of the streets only guarantees sun exposure to a fraction of the accommodations.

18. The distribution of collective use buildings housing is dependent on the arbitrary.

19. Schools in particular are often barriers along high volume traffic and too far from home.

20. The suburbs are arranged without plan and without normal link with the city.

21. We have tried to incorporate the suburbs in the administrative field.

22. Often the suburbs are only a cluster of huts where the necessary feasibility is hardly profitable.

SITUATION

23. Thereafter, the districts of housing should occupy the best locations in urban space, taking advantage of the topography, taking into account the weather and having more favorable insolation and appropriate green spaces.

24. The determination of living areas should be dictated by reasons of hygiene.

25. should impose reasonable densities of room in the manner provided by the very nature of the terrain.

26. It should be noted a minimum number of hours of sun exposure for all housing.

27. should be banned alignment of houses along the roads.

28. should be taken into account the resources of modern technology to boost high buildings.

29. The high building, located at great distances from one another, must release the floor in favor of large green areas.

RECREATION

30. free surfaces are generally insufficient .

31. When the free surfaces have sufficient length, are often poorly distributed and are therefore not very useful for the mass of the inhabitants.

32. The peripheral location of the free surface does not lend itself to improving the living conditions in congested urban areas.

33. the rare sports facilities, in general, to deploy them in the vicinity of the users were temporarily installed in land for future residential or industrial neighborhoods.

34. The land that could be assigned to free weekly hours are often poorly connected with the city .

SITUATION

35. From now on, all residential district must have the necessary green space for rational management of sports and games of children, adolescents and adults.

36. The insalubrious should be demolished and replaced by green areas: with this, the neighboring districts will result sanitized.

37. The new green space should be allocated to clearly defined purposes: should contain playgrounds, schools, youth centers or buildings for community use, closely linked to housing.

38. free hours per week must be spent in places favorably prepared: parks, forests, sports fields, stadiums, beaches, etc.. 

39. parks, sports fields, stadiums, beaches, etc..

40. existing elements should be estimated: rivers, forests, hills, mountains, valleys, lake, sea, etc..

WORK

41. Workplaces and willing are not rationally within the urban complex: industry, crafts, business, administration and commerce.

42. The relationship between the room and the workplace is no longer normal routes imposes disproportionate.

43. hours - tip of transport show a critical condition.

44. Due to the lack of any program - uncontrolled growth of cities, no forecasts, land speculation, and so on. The industry is installed at random, without obeying any rules.

45. In cities, the offices have focused on business centers. These mounted in the privileged places of the city, equipped with the most comprehensive means of circulation, soon fall prey to speculation . Since these are private businesses, lack the useful organization for natural development.

46. ​​The distances between workplaces and homes should be minimized.

47. industrial sectors should be independent of the sectors of room , or other we must be separated by a green area.

48. Industrial zones are found along the railroad, the canal and the road.

49. Handicrafts, closely linked to urban life, which comes directly, you must clearly determined to occupy places inside the city.

50. business center dedicated to private management or public, must have good communications with the districts of housing, as well as with industries and handicrafts that has been in the city or nearby.

MOVEMENT

COMMENTS

51. The current urban road network is a set of branches developed around the major roads. These last, go back in time, in Europe, far beyond the Middle Ages, and sometimes even in antiquity. 

52. Major roads were designed for the passage of pedestrians or of carriages, now no longer respond to the mechanical means of transport.

53. The dimensions of the streets, inadequate for the future, oppose the use of new mechanical speeds and steady expansion of the city.

54. The distances between the intersections of the streets are too small.

55. The width of the streets is insufficient. The attempt to widen is often an expensive and inefficient as well.

56. Given the mechanical speed, the street network is shown to be irrational, lacking in accuracy, flexibility, diversity, fitness.

57. paths luxury, representative purposes, have been or may be serious difficulties in the circulation.

58. In many cases, the rail network has become, with the extension of the city and a serious obstacle for development.

This network contains residential neighborhoods, depriving them of useful contacts with the vital elements of the city.

SITUATION

59. From rigorous statistics, must be made ​​useful analysis of the overall circulation in the city and its region, working to reveal what are the channels of circulation and the nature of traffic.

60. Traffic routes should be classified according to their nature and become the basis of vehicles and their speeds.

61. intense traffic crossings will be ordered as continuous circulation through changes in level. (overpasses)

62. The pedestrian must be able to follow different paths to the car.

63. The streets should be distinguished by purpose: housing streets, walking streets, transit streets and major arteries.

64. Green spaces should be insulated, in principle, cause them a wide circulation.

HERITAGE OF CITIES

65. architectural values ​​should be safeguarded (single or joint municipal buildings)

66. The testimonies of the past will be safeguarded if they are expressions of an earlier culture and if they respond to a general interest ...

67. If conservation does not imply the sacrifice of people kept in unhealthy conditions.

68. If possible remedy the detriment of its presence with radical measures: for example, the deviation of elements of movement determined, or even the shift of centers hitherto regarded as immutable.

69. The destruction of slums on the outskirts of historic buildings provide an opportunity to create green space.

70. The use of past styles, aesthetic pretexts raised in new construction in historic areas, has dire consequences.

The retention of such uses and the introduction of such initiatives will not be tolerated in any way.

PART THREE

CONCLUSIONS

POINTS OF DOCTRINE

71. Most cities today have studied a chaotic picture.   These cities do not respond in any way to your destination, you should be to meet basic needs, biological and psychological, of its population.

72. This situation reveals, from the beginning of the machine age, incessant overlapping private interests.

73. Violence by private interests a disastrous causes the imbalance between the pressure of economic forces on the one hand, and administrative control weakness and impotence of social solidarity, on the other.

74. Although cities are in constant state of transformation, its development targets without precision and control, and without taking into account the principles of contemporary urbanism, developed in the technical qualifications.

75. The city must ensure, at the spiritual and material, individual liberty and the benefits of collective action.

76. dimensions operation to all things urban in the device can only be governed by the scale of man.

77. The keys to planning are contained in the following four functions: living, working, recreation, CIRCULAR.

78. plans determine the structure of each of the sectors assigned to the four key functions and indicate their respective location in the set. 

79. The cycle of daily functions, live, work and recreate, (recovery) will be regulated by the planning within the strictest economy of time.  The house is considered the heart of urban concerns and the point binding of all sizes.

80. The new mechanical speeds have transformed the urban environment by introducing into it a permanent danger by causing gridlock and paralysis of communications and jeopardizing hygiene.

81. We must review the principle of urban and suburban traffic. You have to make a classification of the available speeds. zoning reform to harmonize the key functions of the city will create natural links between them for strengthening which shall provide a rational network of large arteries.

82. the town planning is a science of three dimensions , not just two. With the intervention of the element height will solve the modern movement and leisure by exploiting the gaps thus created.

83. The city must be studied within the whole of its region of influence.  Just Municipal Plan will be replaced by a regional plan.  He will limit the function of the radius agglomeration of economic action.

84. The city, defined herein as a functional unit, should grow harmoniously in each of its parts, having spaces in which linkages can register, balanced, stages of development.

85. It is most imperative that each city set its agenda, enacting laws that allow its implementation.

86. The program should be developed from rigorous analysis by specialists. You must provide the steps in space and time.

Should unite in a rich natural resource agreement, the topography of the whole, economic data, sociological needs and spiritual values.

87. For the architect, busy here in town planning tasks, the measuring instrument is the human scale.

88. The initial core planning cell is a room (a home) and its insertion in a group that forms a housing unit of effective size.

89. From this unit - housing will be established in urban space the relations between the room, workplaces and facilities devoted to the free hours.

90. To resolve this great task is essential to use the resources of modern technology. This, with the help of his specialties, support the art of building with all the assurances of science and enrich the inventions and resources of the ages. 

91. The course of events will be influenced primarily by political, social and economic ...

92. And it is here that ultimately intervene architecture.

93. The scale of the work to be undertaken urgently to the management of cities and on the other hand, the state infinitely fragmented land ownership, are two conflicting realities.

94. The dangerous contradiction observed here raises one of the most dangerous issues of our time: the urge to regulate, through a legal means available to all land useful for balancing the vital needs of the individual in harmony with the collective needs .  

95. The private interest is subject to the collective interest.

GENERAL ECONOMY

The equipment of a country requires the close relationship of architecture to the overall economy.  The notion of <rendimiento> introduced as an axiom of modern life, in no way implies the maximum commercial gain if not a fully sufficient production to meet human needs .

The real yield is the result of rationalization and standardization applied with flexibility to both the architectural plans as to industrial methods of execution.

URBAN

Urbanism is the management of sites and premises to be harboring various development of material life, emotional and spiritual in all its forms, individual or collective. It covers both urban areas and rural clusters.

Is by its very essence, of a functional. The three key functions for the realization of which should ensure a planning are: 1. - Dwelling, 2. - Work, 3. - Recreation.

Its objects are: a) The land use: b) The organization of traffic, c) The law (ordinance)

The chaotic land fragmentation, the result of divisions, sales and speculation should be replaced by a basic economics of reunification.

ARCHITECTURE AND OPINION

It is essential that architects have an influence on public opinion and disclosed to it the means and resources of the new architecture.

The academic teaching perverted public taste and is very often not even the real problems arise from the room. Public opinion is misinformed, and users in general or just get nothing but make bad housing desires.

So this house has long been excluded from the main concerns of the architect.

A handful of elementary truths, taught in elementary school, could form the basis of domestic education.

The consequence of this teaching would be a few generations they would have a sound understanding of the home.

Compilation by the ARQ. ESPINOSA JOSE   FOR ARCHITECTURE STUDENTS