The City as a Machine: A Sociological Study of Le Corbusier’s Thought and Its Relationship to Social Interaction in the City of Ali Mendjeli

Abstract

The idea of the city as a machine is among the most prominent concepts through which modernist urban thought was applied during the twentieth century, and it is fundamentally associated with the Swiss–French architect and planner Le Corbusier. This conception was not merely a technical approach to organizing society; rather, it constituted a comprehensive vision of the city as a rational and functional system, presumed to guarantee efficiency, health, order, and spatial justice. Despite its progressive character, however, this vision has generated profound debate regarding its relationship to human beings, particularly in terms of social interaction, human relationships, and the production of an interactive character within the society.
This article seeks to offer a sociological reading of Le Corbusier’s thought on the concept of the city as a machine by analyzing its intellectual foundations and planning vision, and by examining how his functionalist approach contributed to the reconfiguration of urban spaces and social relations. It also aims to discuss the extent to which this conception is suited to the needs of contemporary societies, and to highlight the challenges it poses in achieving a balance between urban efficiency and the preservation of the human aspect of the city. The analysis is applied to the case of the city of Ali Mendjeli, considered as a contemporary model of rational–functionalist planning within the Algerian context.
The study shows that the city-as-a-machine model contributed to establishing the foundations of modernist planning based on efficiency and function; however, it also led, conversely, to:
- the dominance of the functional aspect in the planning of societies
- weak social interaction within residential spaces;
- a decline in the sense of belonging within the neighborhoods of the “mechanical” city;
- the emergence of a contradiction between urban design and social practices.