Le Corbusier finds the sledgehamme: body, space and modernity in the film The man next door

Abstract

This article is the result of the analysis of the argentinian film The Man Next Door (2009), which unfolds itself in an iconic space of modernist architecture: the House Curutchet, the only residential project built by Le Corbusier in Latin America. The film's plot shows a very common conflict between neighbors: a window built in a wall that divides their two houses. From this quarrel, a plot starts, in which Leonardo, a resident of Le Corbusier’s house, will try in every way to prevent his neighbor Victor – a man of opposite habits and personality – from opening that window. Victor, on the other hand, will do everything that he can to get a bit of the light that Leonardo has to spare. From this duel, which takes the caricatured contours of this dramatic comedy, as well as the analysis of the design process of the house, this article intends to explore the relationship between the work of the radical modernist Le Corbusier, his conception of living machine and the body that occupies it.