Modulor

Le Corbusier developed the Modulor in the long tradition of Vitruvius, Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man, the work of Leon Battista Alberti, and other attempts to discover mathematical proportions in the human body and then to use that knowledge to improve both the appearance and function of architecture.

Le Corbusier described it as a "range of harmonious measurements to suit the human scale, universally applicable to architecture and to mechanical things".

This was refined after a visit to the Dean of the Faculty of Sciences in Sorbonne on 7 February 1945 which resulted in the inclusion of a golden section into the representation.

[7] The dimensions were refined to give round numbers and the overall height of the raised arm was set at 2.262 m. Of the works leading to the creation of the Modulor, Robin Evans notes that the female body "was only belatedly considered and rejected as a source of proportional harmony".

[8] During the interview, Le Corbusier sympathised with Kaiser's problems of coordinating the adoption of equipment between the American and British armies because of the differences in units of length; and promoted his own harmonious scale.

[9] On the same trip he met with David E. Lilienthal of the Tennessee Valley Authority to promote the use of his harmonious scale on further civil engineering projects.

The 2004 reprinted box set including both books was printed in a square format using the Modulor with the series twenty seven to one hundred and forty reduced in size to one tenth.