ABSTRACT
Along with Olivier Messiaen, the other major force helping to shape Xenakis’s rapidly evolving compositional aesthetic was Le Corbusier. Their relationship was difficult, and Xenakis has since emphasized his independence from the elder architect. When the Greek refugee began working in his studio in 1948, Le Corbusier had become obsessed with his “Modulor” approach to form and proportion (Le Corbusier 1980). Taking the human figure as the unit of reference, Le Corbusier worked out a numerical series built from additions and subtractions of the Golden Mean. He was then able to project large-scale architectural volumes and forms from this “universal” series based on the proportions of the human body. Xenakis, with a passion for ancient Greek architecture, found his creative interest in modern design awakened, stimulated by Le Corbusier’s ability to draw mathematical connections between edifices from not only antiquity but from other historical periods and cultures. He was also impressed by the architect’s “spiritual force” and his “constant questioning of things normally taken for granted” (Bois 1967, 5). Le Corbusier encouraged collaboration within his studio, and discussions were wideranging. Xenakis eventually found himself drawn into this ferment. Quite naturally, though, with most of his ambition directed toward his compositional activities, Xenakis began to consider ways in which similar processes to those developed by Le Corbusier could be applied to music.1
