ABSTRACT
The 'promenade architecturale' is a key term in the language of modern architecture. It appears for the first time in Le Corbusier's description of the Villa Savoye at Poissy as built, where it supersedes the term 'circulation', so often used in his early work. He was acutely aware of the multiple subjectivities that might play a part in completing the building. Multiple viewpoints were, after all, central to the creation of the purist canvas, where bottles, jugs and so on can be seen from below, above and in elevation simultaneously. The promenades in Le Corbusier's buildings are available to all, whether the rich industrialist or the radiant farmer, but, in the end, the delights of architectural detail as art, spatial games and hidden meanings, are the territory of the rarified who enter into the club of architecture. Le Corbusier's audience is 'the spectator' and, ultimately, 'the human eye', completely disembodied, floating around the building at a specified height.
