Do you know who Le Corbusier is? I imagine our French (and Swiss) readers almost certainly will.

Le Corbusier was the name used by Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris, and he was an architect whose work I find remarkable and continually fascinating.

A key element of his work was that he saw buildings as a ‘machine for living‘. Une maison est une machine-à-habiter.

What I didn’t know about him, until today, was that he was effectively a naturist in his latter years.

There’s a new retrospective of him -The measures of Man– at the Pompidou Centre in Paris (until August 3rd).

Whatever else he did, that ‘a house is a machine for living in’ arguably defines him and is mirrored remarkably well in Second Life. Stripped of certain RL necessities, we can certainly live in SL without kitchens or lavatories and, more often than not, due to us being the entertainment ourselves within SL, television. Of course, you can buy all of these items in SL, but people have often removed them from their SL  lives and cut back to ‘the essentials’.

The only thing Le Corbusier ever designed and built for himself was his Cabanon des Vacances, (Holiday cabin), measuring just 3.6 x 3.6 metres.

You can see just how much could be packed in by viewing this link.

Towards the end of his life it seems that Le Corbusier had determined that clothes weren’t essential either if the weather was appropriate. The weather is always appropriate in SL, so when you tire of the shopping mall experience, maybe it’s time to consider some SL naturism. And if the sun shows itself, perhaps some RL naturism too. Beneficial to health, both mental and physical, a boost to your immune system and levels of vitamin D. There are no downsides. If you’re one of those people who’ve never tried it in RL, and are curious about it, why not dip a toe in the water in SL to get a small taste of what it’s all about. There are some wonderful sims around where you can going off those ill-fitting mesh clothes and join in the fun.

Ella