Bag 8-Lagu Cinta untuk Viola ( Chap. Lagu untuk Viola )

Dan akhirnya hari H pun tiba. Festival ini merupakan event musik terbesar yang diadakan tahun ini di kota Solo. Festival yang diselenggarakan oleh salah satu perusahaan event organizer ini diadakan di sebuah lapangan parkir sebuah pusat olahraga terkenal yang terletak di sebelah Barat kota Solo. Luas lapangan parkir tersebut mencapai 2000 m2 sehingga dapat menampung kurang lebih 3000 orang. Sebuah perusahaan rokok ternama pun turut menjadi sponsornya.
Suasana festival sangat meriah. Disekeliling lokasi festival terpasang berbagai macam spanduk dan umbul-umbul dari para sponsor. Banyak tenda-tenda didirikan sebagai tempat promosi dari produk-produk yang bertindak sebagai sponsor. Para pedagang kaki lima pun tidak mau kalah. Mereka sejak pagi hari sudah menggelar lapak-lapaknya. Beraneka macam dagangan mereka jajakan. Mulai dari makanan, minuman, pakaian dan yang terbanyak adalah atribut-atribut yang bernuansa musik seperti kaos, gelang, kalung, bandana, cincin, dan masih banyak lagi. Mereka menggelar dagangan di sepanjang lintasan jogging track yang mengelilingi pangan parkir. Harga yang mereka tawarkan sangat bervariatif. Bila berminat, harus pandai-pandai menawar supaya bisa dapat harga yang murah.

Terlihat di ujung tengah lapangan parkir, berdiri sebuah panggung megah dengan konstruksi baja space frame yang kokoh. Bentuk atap panggung berupa setengah lingkaran dengan kain terpal warna hitam sebagai penutupnya. Luas panggung tersebut kurang lebih 15m x 25m. Panggung terdiri dari 3 level. Level teratas diperuntukkan untuk seperangkat drums dan keyboards beserta aksesorisnya. Level dibawahnya terletak agak dipinggir panggung dengan posisi di sebelah kiri dan kanan. Biasanya level tersebut difungsikan untuk dua pemain gitar, baik lead guitar maupun rhythm guitar yang menempati masing-masing posisi, terserah di kiri maupun di kanan panggung. Dan yang terakhir level paling bawah difungsikan untuk menampung semua aksesoris dan perangkat sound system. Vokalis band serta pemain bass menempati level tersebut dengan posisi vokalis sedikit di depan atau bahkan sejajar dengan pemain bass. Tapi aturan itu tidak mutlak sepenuhnya. Hal itu tergantung dari teknik penguasaan panggung dari masing-masing grup band yang akan tampil. Biasanya tiap grup band mempunyai penguasaan panggung yang berbeda-beda satu sama lain. Sehingga sering terlihat antara pemain dari sebuah band saling bertukar tempat dan posisi untuk menampilkan gaya panggung masing-masing.

Sementara itu, di sebelah kiri dan kanan panggung, dengan posisi agak menjauh kira-kira 5m dari panggung, terpasang masing-masing seperangkat sound system berukuran besar, kekuatan suara yang dihasilkan mungkin hingga 100.000 watt. Disampingnya dilengkapi dengan wide screen berukuran 4m x 5m sehingga dari kejahuan para penonton bisa melihat aksi para grup band si atas panggung.
Rencananya festival akan dimulai tepat jam sepuluh pagi. Sebelumnya akan diadakan acara pembukaan yang dipimpin langsung oleh Bapak Walikota Solo sebagai tamu undangan kehormatan.
Untuk peserta festival jumlahnya cukup banyak. Hampir sekitar lima puluhan band turut berpartisipasi dalam acara besar ini. Kebanyakan merupakan band-band lokal dari kota Solo dan wilyah sekitarnya seperti Karanganyar, Sragen, Sukoharjo dan Boyolali. Tapi tak sedikit pula band yang berasal dari luar wilayah Solo seperti dari Klaten, Salatiga, Magelang bahkan dari Semarang dan Jogja pun ada. Beberapa band peserta sudah kami kenal cukup lama karena mereka se-kampus dengan kami. Seperti Es Campur dari Fakultas Sastra, ada juga Buldozer dari Fakultas Teknik Jurusan Teknik Sipil, Alibi dari Fakultas Hukum, CT Scan dari Fakultas Kedokteran, Abstain dari Fakultas Sospol, Money Laundry dari Fakultas Ekonomi serta Balada Crew dari Fakultas Seni Rupa.

Sebagai toko musik terbesar, StarMusikindo ikut andil dalam festival ini. Meskipun demikian aku tidak diikutkan dalam kepanitiaan. Dikarenakan dalam hal ini aku sebagai peserta festival. Memang ada aturan yang melarang panitia ikut serta dalam festival. Dalam kepanitiaan, Mbak Ivonne bertugas untuk mendaftar ulang band-band yang akan tampil. Dan saat ini, hari sudah melewati pukul sembilan pagi, tapi anak-anak belum kelihatan sama sekali batang hidungnya. Sedangkan deadline daftar ulang adalah jam setengah sepuluh pagi. Sebagai karyawan StarMusikindo, tentu aku tidak boleh mendaftarkan bandku sendiri. Takut nantinya timbul fitnah kalau aku ini KKN. Harus ada perwakilan dari Coffeemilk selain aku yang harus mendaftar sehingga wajar kalau aku mulai khawatir. Hampir semua band telah daftar ulang, hanya tinggal delapan band lagi termasuk Coffeemilk yang belum daftar ulang.
“Is, mana temen-temen kamu? Kok jam segini belum pada datang? Bisa-bisa nanti band kamu didiskualifikasi kalau belum sempat daftar ulang!” Mbak Ivonne bertanya kepadaku sambil tangannya masih sibuk menulis laporan.
“Nggak tau nih, Mbak.” Aku pun makin gelisah. Kemana ya mereka? Apa mereka dapat halangan dalam perjalanan kemari?

Detik-detik waktu pun terus berjalan. Arena festival sudah dipadati oleh pengunjung maupun peserta festival. Waktu pun sudah menunjukkan pukul sembilan lewat dua puluh menit. Ketika perasaanku makin tidak karuan karena gelisah, tiba-tiba Mbak Ivonne berteriak.
”Is, tuh teman-temanmu datang.”
“Yang bener, Mbak! Mana ?”
“Tuh, yang baru keluar dari mobil.”
“Wah, bener Mbak, itu mereka!” Alhamdulillah, datang juga akhirnya mereka.
Saking girangnya, tanpa sadar aku berteriak memanggil mereka sambil melambaikan tanganku. “Hey, guys! Cepetan kesini! Keburu ditutup nanti pendaftarannya. Ayo, cepetan!”
Mereka rupanya juga melihatku dan segera bergegas menuju ke arahku sambil berlarian.
“Assalamu’alaikum. Wah sorry, Is! Kita telat nih.” Topan berkata kepadaku dengan nafasnya yang masih ngos-ngosan.
“Wa’alaikum salam,” jawabku.
“Iya, Is! Sorry, tadi ban mobil gue kempes kena paku, jadi kita cari tambal ban dulu sebelum kemari,” imbuh Danny.
“Nggak papa. It’s OK. Yang penting sekarang cepetan kalian daftar dulu. Nih formulirnya! Cepetan diisi, nanti keburu terlambat. Bisa-bisa kita nggak jadi ikutan festival.”
“Sini biar aku yang ngisi formulirnya.” Manto mengambil inisiatif.
“Nih, bulpennya, To!” Aku menyodorkan bulpen kepada Manto.
Manto pun mulai sibuk mengisi formulir pendaftaran.
“Mas, kami mau daftar ulang.” Tiba-tiba ada suara yang menyapaku dari belakang. Rupanya mereka adalah band terakhir yang ingin daftar ulang juga. Aku pun segera mengarahkan mereka ke Mbak Ivonne untuk daftar ulang.
“Sebentar ya, aku tinggal sebentar! To, nanti kalau udah selesai ngisi formulirnya, kasih ke Mbak Ivonne. Jangan lupa ditandatangani ya!”
“Ok, aku ngerti kok.”

Aku berlalu meninggalkan teman-temanku. Tak lama kemudian, peserta festival yang masih belum daftar ulang mulai berdatangan satu-persatu. Sampai akhirnya sebelum batas waktunya habis, semua peserta festival telah daftar ulang semuanya.
“Is, aku ke Mas Didik dulu, mau kasih formulir-formulir ini. Sebentar lagi kan acaranya mau dimulai. Band-band yang telah terdaftar nanti akan diundi oleh panitia untuk menentukan nomer urutan tampil. Setelah tersusun, nanti daftar urutan band akan dibacakan langsung oleh MC di atas panggung supaya para peserta dapat lebih mempersiapkan diri.” Mbak Ivonne berkata kepadaku sambil merapikan berkas-berkas formulir pendaftaran.
“Baik, Mbak. Aku juga mau gabung dulu sama teman-teman buat persiapan sebelum naik panggung.”
“Good luck ya, Is! Moga-moga band kamu menang.”
“Amin, thanks Mbak.”
Mbak Ivonne pun berlalu meninggalkanku.

Aku pun segera menghampiri teman-temanku yang berdiri di sebelah barat panggung.
“OK, udah siap semuanya, guys.”
“Siap, Bos. Let’s rock n roll.” Tampak teman-temanku bersemangat mengikuti festival ini.
“Rif, kamu bawa kan barang-barang yang kupesan?”
“Beres, Is. Aku nggak lupa kok,” jawab Arif sambil menyerahkan tas ranselnya kepadaku.
Pagi-pagi tadi aku udah menghubungi Arif untuk minta tolong dibawakan kostum panggung buatku karena tadi aku buru-buru sehingga lupa bawa kostum. Kami berlima nggak terlalu glamour dalam berkostum. Cukup berbusana casual atau baju kota-kotak dipadu kaos oblong plus celana jeans sudah cukup buat kami. Tapi karena aku saat ini memakai baju seragam StarMusikindo, mau nggak mau aku harus ganti baju biar nggak ada gunjingan nantinya.
“Thanks, Rif. Aku mau ganti baju dulu.” Aku berlari mencari tempat yang agak bersembunyi untuk ganti baju.
Setelah selesai memakai baju untuk tampil di atas panggung nanti, aku segera bergabung kembali dengan teman-temanku.
“Ngomong-ngomong, mana Mas Deny dan Viola? Kok mereka belum kelihatan?” tanyaku.
“Tadi sebelum sampai sini gue sempet kontak Mas Deny, katanya sih mereka udah dalam perjalanan kesini,” jawab Danny.
“Nah tuh, mereka datang!” teriak Arif sambil menunjuk ke arah area parkir.
Mataku segera tertuju kepada kearah yang ditunjukkan Arif.

Dikejauhan, terlihat Mas Deny dan Viola keluar dari mobil. Mereka berdua berlari-lari kecil ke arah kami. Dan ketika mereka berdua dihadapan kami, kami semua terkesima. Ada sesuatu yang beda dari penampilan Viola hari ini. Dia tampak begitu cantik. Dengan memakai blus warna putih sipadu dengan celana jeans warna biru, Viola tampak lebih anggun dari biasanya. Rambutnya tergerai rapi dan dikepang kesamping. Wajahnya bersinar bagaikan bidadari yang turun dari langit dengan senyum yang mengembang selalu menyertainya.
Mas Deny dan Viola serempak menyapa kami. “Assalamu’alaikum.”
“Wa’alaikum salam.” Balas kami serempak.
“Wah, siapa gerangan bidadari ini?” komentar Topan yang membuat Viola tersipu.
“Iya, Vi. Kamu tampak berbeda hari ini. Kamu tampak lebih cantik dan anggun. Benar kan, Is?” imbuh Danny.
Aku jadi salah tingkah diminta pendapat oleh Danny seperti itu. “Ee…, benar apa kata Danny barusan, Vi. Kamu eh… cantik sekali hari ini. Kami semua hampir nggak ngenalin kamu tadi.”
“Tuh, Isma aja sampai grogi melihatnya,” ledek Topan.
“Apaan sih loe,” tukasku.
“Kalian ini, jangan terlalu berlebihan kalau memuji. Nanti aku jadi kege-eran,” kata Viola dengan wajah masih tersipu-sipu.
“Sorry semuanya, kami agak terlambat datang. Soalnya tadi nungguin Viola merias diri sampai secantik ini. Hampir tiga puluh menit dia dandan di kamarnya,” terang Mas Deny ikutan menggoda.
“Apaan sih, Mas Deny. Jadi ikut-ikutan ngeledekin. Aku jadi malu nih,” rengek Viola manja sambil memukul lengan kakaknya.
“Udah-udah, sekarang lebih baik kita menuju ke tempat para peserta yang telah disediakan di belakang panggung,” ajakku.
“Yuk, kita ke sana.” Kami semua segera bergegas menuju ke tempat para peserta.

Waktu telah menunjukkan pukul sepuluh pagi. Sebentar lagi acara festival akan segera dimulai. Lokasi festival berangsur-angsur telah dipadati oleh penonton. Mereka datang dari seluruh pelosok kota Solo dan sekitarnya. Baik tua, muda, pria, wanita bahkan anak-anak berbaur menjadi satu. Di antara mereka mungkin terdapat para supporter dari grup band yang akan tampil. Mereka telah mengenakan atributnya masing-masing. Kami sendiri tidak secara khusus mendatangkan supporter. Tapi sebelum festival kami sempat memberitahukan kepada teman-teman di kampus serta anak-anak “Mentari Buana” bahwa kami akan tampil di festival ini. Secara tak terduga, mereka malah berinisiatif sendiri membuat famlet-famlet dan brosur-brosur yang di tempel-tempel serta disebarkan di wilayah kampus dan sekitarnya guna mencari dukungan. Mirip team sukses sebuah Pilkada. Aku pun menjadi terharu melihatnya. Tak kusangka dukungan mereka akan seperti itu terhadap Coffeemilk.

Ketika kami hendak memasuki area peserta festival, dari arah belakng kami terdengar suara yang memanggil Coffeemilk. Kami pun memalingkan wajah mencari asal suara. Di belakang kami terlihat sekumpulan anak-anak muda seumuran anak SMU. Mereka terdiri dari lima orang cewek dan dua orang cowok. Mereka semua mengenakan kaus berwarna-warni. Tapi ada satu kesamaan dari kaos yang mereka pakai meskipun berbeda-beda warnanya. Logo kaos yang mereka pakai menggambarkan sebuah cangkir kopi dengan simbol asap yang mengepul di atasnya. Di cangkir tersebut terdapat sebuah kata dengan huruf latin yang tersusun melintang . Bunyi kata itu : Coffeemilk !!!
Seorang dari mereka, cewek berjilbab berkaos kuning dengan deker hitam menutupi kedua lengannya, mendekat dan bertanya kepadaku.”Permisi, Mas. Apa Mas sekalian dari Coffeemilk?”
Aku balik bertanya kepada mereka. “Kenapa kalian bisa menduga kalau kami ini dari Coffemilk?”
“Kami udah dari tadi memperhatikan Mas-Mas dan Mbak. Kemudian setelah berunding, kami memberanikan diri untuk menyapa. Dulu kami pernah nonton konsernya Coffeemilk pas ada cara launching produk di Solo Grand Mall. Tapi kami lupa-lupa ingat wajah mereka. Yang pasti mereka ada lima orang cowok yang ganteng-ganteng.”

Aku jadi teringat konser pertama kali dulu setelah kami bergabung dengan Yellowbeat. Dulu Mas Deny menerima job untuk mengisi acara launching produk di Solo Grand Mall. Kalau nggak salah semacam produk minuman suplemen. Kami mengisi acara bersama-sama dengan band-band lokal dari Solo. Kami berlima bermain dengan sangat antusias. Tapi dulu Viola belum ikutan. Dia cuma jadi semacam road manager-nya Coffeemilk membantu Mas Deny mengurusi segala keperluan Coffeemilk.
“Lho, Mas kok malah bengong? Benar nggak Mas dari Coffeemilk?” tanya si cewek satunya nggak sabaran.
“Benar, kami dari Coffeemilk. Ada yang bisa kami bantu?”
Serentak mereka bertujuh bersorak kegirangan. Melihat tingkah mereka, kami hanya tersenyum.
“Mas, kami semua ngefans berat lho sama Coffemilk. Kami mau minta tanda tangan dan foto-foto bersama. Boleh ya?” rengek mereka.
”Gimana ya, kami sedang sibuk nih mau mempersiapkan diri untuk pentas,” jawab Topan sambil berlagak sok artis.
“Ah, belagu loe,” ledek Arif keki melihat tingkah Topan. ”Boleh aja kok, nggak papa kalau mau minta tanda tangan tapi ada syaratnya.”
“Syaratnya apaan, Mas?”
“Pertama, sebutkan nama kalian masing-masing. Gimana?”
Cewek berkaos kuning itu kurasa pimpinan dari kelompok kecil ini. Dia yang sering menjadi juru bicara mereka.
“Kenalkan. Nama saya Azizah. Yang berkaos hijau namanya Khairina. Cowok-cowok yang berkaos hitam namanya Adit dan Hafidz. Terus yang pakai kaos merah namanya Wanda. Dan mereka berdua namanya Hanny dan yang berjilbab Zahra.”
“Mmh, … nama kalian bagus-bagus. Kalian satu sekolah ya? Dimana?” tanya Viola.
“Iya, Mbak. Kami semua satu sekolahan. Tepatnya di SMU Negeri 1 Solo,” jawab Khairina yang dari tadi diam.
“Bahkan kami semua satu kelas, kecuali Zahra dan Hafidz. Mereka berdua anak Biologi. Kalau kami anak Fisika,” terang Azizah.
“Wah, kalau gitu kalian adik-adik kelasku donk. Mbak dulu juga dari SMU Negeri 1 Solo dan Mbak juga anak Fisika,” kata Viola.
“Ternyata kita satu almamater ya,” balas Wanda girang.
“OK, sudah reuninya. Syarat pertama kalian lulus. Sekarang yang kedua, Mas pengin tahu, siapa yang punya ide memakai kaos seperti yang kalian pakai sekarang ini? Terus siapa yang bikin logonya dengan tulisan Coffeemilk?” tanya Arif kembali.
“Begini ceritanya, Mas. Karena kami sangat suka dengan Coffeemilk, kami sepakat untuk membentuk sebuah fans club. Tujuannya ya selain buat kumpul-kumpul antar sesama penggemar, kami bisa saling tukar menukar informasi mengenai segala sesuatu tentang Coffeemilk. Kami pun sering mengirim request ke Radio Indigo FM secara bergantian. Dulu pas ada acara interview khusus dengan Coffeemilk, saya yang pertama kali tahu, trus saya hubungi semua teman-teman untuk mendengar interview itu. Dan setelah kami pikir-pikir supaya lebih terorganisir, kami membentuk sebuah kepengurusan. Dan kami sepakat memilih Azizah sebagai Ketua. Untuk jabatan Sekretaris kami percayakan kepada Wanda. Bendahara dijabat oleh saya sendiri. Terus kami kompakan untuk membuat kaos dengan warna yang berbeda-beda. Kemudian atas usul Adit, kami menambahkan logo dikaosnya supaya nantinya dapat menjadi ciri khas dari perkumpulan ini,” terang Khairina panjang lebar.
“Jadi yang bikin logo kamu, Dit?” tanyaku.
“Iya, Mas. Alhamdullillah. Saya bisa sedikit desain grafis.”
“Bagus kok logonya. Simple tapi pas dengan artinya. Kami saja bahkan belum sempat membikin logo,” kata Manto sambil memperhatikan logo di kaos Hafidz dengan seksama.
“Kami memang belum mempunyai logo resmi. Kami belum sempat saja. Untuk itu, kalau boleh, kami ingin memakai logo yang kalian buat sebagai logo resmi Coffeemilk. Menurut Mas Deny gimana?” Aku pun meminta pendapat Mas Deny mengenai desain logo.
“Terserah kalian aja, yang penting image Coffeemilk tetap terjaga dan desainnya tidak melanggar norma-norma. Menurut Mas, karya dari anak-anak SMU 1 ini sangat bagus kok dan cocok untuk logo kalian.,” jawab Mas Deny bijak.
“Nah, manager kami sudah setuju, bagimana dengan kalian?” tanyaku balik kepada mereka.
Tanpa kami sadari, mimik wajah mereka bertujuh sudah berubah menjadi wajah yang penuh dengan keharuan dan kegembiraan.
“Yang benar, Mas? Suatu kehormatan bagi kami sekiranya Coffeemilk yang kami idolakan sudi memakai logo buatan kami. Kami sangat senang sekali. Saya mewakili teman-teman, sangat setuju atas usulan Mas. Benar kan teman-teman?” kata Azizah dengan mata berbinar.
Mereka menganggukkan kepala serempak tanda sepakat dengan Azizah.

“Nah, urusan logo beres. Sekarang jadi nggak minta tanda tangannya?” tanyaku.
Tanpa disuruh, mereka bertujuh segera mengeluarkan buku atau agenda yang tersimpan dalam tas mereka masing-masing untuk diberi tangan tangan. Tak lupa pula kaos yang saat ini mereka pakai juga dimintai tanda tangan kami. Kami melayani mereka dengan sepenuh hati. Kami sepenuhnya sadar, tanpa penggemar-penggemar yang tulus dan setia seperti mereka bertujuh, mustahil Coffeemilk akan bisa terus eksis di blantika musik tanah air nanti. Mereka inilah pondasi kami dalam mengarungi kerasnya persaingan di industri musik yang sekarang demikian ketatnya.
Setelah tanda tangan sudah didapat, acara foto-foto dimulai. Mereka telah mempersiapkan kamera untuk mengabadikan momen yang bahagia hari ini. Wajah mereka tampak cerah, secerah langit di atas kawasan festival ini, warna biru tanpa sedikitpun awan mendung menyelimuti.
“Makasih atas tanda tangan dan foto-fotonya. Kami nggak akan melupakan saat-saat yang membahagiakan hari ini. Kami doakan semoga Coffeemilk menang,” kata Azizah setelah acara tanda tangan dan foto-foto selesai.
“Amin”. Jawab kami serempak.
“Nah, kalau begitu kami pergi dulu. Kelihatannya acara akan segera dimulai. Oh ya, Zah. Kalau kalian ada perlu dengan kami, kalian bisa kontak kami ke Yellowbeat, atau kirim e-mail ke coffeemilk@yahoo.co.id. Jangan lupa kasih kami nomer contact person kalian.”
“Beres, Mas. Kami juga mau gabung dengan penonton di sana. Insya Allah kami akan selalu menghubungi Mas-Mas dan Mbak sekalian. Sampai ketemu lagi ya. Assalamu’alaikum.”
“Wa’alaikum salam.”
Akhirnya mereka semua berpamitan dengan senyum yang mengembang. Mereka segera berbaur menjadi satu dengan para penonton festival untuk memberikan dukungan kepada kami. Aku memandangi mereka satu-persatu dengan penuh kebanggaan hingga bayangan mereka hilang dari pelupuk mataku. Oh, Azizah, Khairina, Wanda, Hanny, Zahra, Adit dan Hafidz. Nama-nama yang indah. Terima kasih atas dukungannya. Allah SWT telah mengirim kalian untuk membantuku menghadapi rintangan dalam perjalananku ini.

Lamunanku tiba-tiba dikejutkan oleh riuhnya sorak-sorai penonton. Kelihatannya acara festival telah dimulai. Para MC telah membacakan urutan-urutan acara yang nanti akan dilaksanakan. Nanti setelah sambutan dari Bapak Walikota dan dari Ketua Panitia Penyelenggara, daftar urutan band yang akan tampil akan dibacakan. Aku sangat deg-degan menanti detik-detik tersebut. Kami segera mempercepat langkah supaya tiba di belakang panggung dengan segera sehingga kami dapat jelas mendengar dari sana.
“Kira-kira kita nanti di urutan berapa ya?” tanya Viola.
“Entahlah, tapi berapa pun nomernya, kita sudah siap untuk tampil,” jawab Danny mantap.
“Yap, aku juga sudah siap tempur,” Topan tampak percaya diri.
“Yang penting kalian tetap semangat. Jangan pantang mundur. Kalian harus tampil tanpa beban. Jangan mikirin menang atau kalah. Pikirlah bagaimana kalian dapat tampil dengan maksimal dan dapat memuaskan penggemar kalian yang menantikan sesuatu yang dapat kalian berikan kepada mereka,” kata Mas Deny memotivasi kami.

Tanpa waktu lama, kami telah sampai di sisi kiri panggung dari arah belakang. Terlihat para peserta festival telah menanti hasil drawing dari panitia penyelenggara dengan hati yang deg-degan. Ada band yang sudah sangat percaya diri, ada band yang tampak biasa-biasa saja bahkan ada juga band yang malah cuek ngobrol dengan sesama anggota bandnya sambil mengepulkan asap rokok dari mulutnya.
Akhirnya Bapak Walikota naik ke atas panggung untuk memberi sambutan. Tepuk tangan dan sorak-sorai penonton segera membahana ke seantero kawasan festival. Suasananya menjadi sangat meriah. Bapak Walikota memberi sambutan dengan singkat, jelas dan padat. Intinya Babak Walikota sangat mendukung kegiatan seperti ini untuk diadakan di kota Solo. Kegiatan seperti ini sangat penting bagi para generasi muda supaya mereka bisa lebih menjauhi hal-hal negatif seperti narkoba. Begitulah kira-kira sambutan yang diberikan orang nomer satu di kota Solo ini.
Setelah itu giliran Ketua Panitia Penyelenggara memberikan sambutannya. Panitia cuma ingi mengucapkan terima kasih kepada semua pihak yang telah membantu dalam pelaksanaan festival sehingga festival musik ini dapat berjalan dengan lancar.
Dan saat yang dinanti pun tiba.
MC mulai membacakan satu-persatu nama band yang akan tampil berdasarkan urutan hasil pengundian dari panitia.
“Sekarang saat yang telah dinantikan oleh kita semua. Kalian sudah siap?”
Para penonton menjawab dengan tepuk tangan dan sorak-sorai yang saling bersahutan.
“Nah, kami akan membacakan urutan band yang akan tampil dalam acara Solo Music Festival yang bertema Peduli Sesama dan Cinta Damai adalah sebagai berikut.”
“Nomer pertama adalah … Money Laundry.”
Tepuk tangan penonton kembali bergema.
Jantungku sesaat berhenti berdetak karena tururt merasakan atmosfir ketegangan yang terjadi pada saat ini.
“Nomer dua adalah … Jet Set.”
“Nomer tiga adalah … Es Campur.”
“Nomer empat adalah … Buldozer.”
Dan seterusnya … hingga MC menyebut nama kami di atas panggung.
“Nomer sepuluh, band yang telah dinantikan oleh kita semua, … Coffeemilk.”
Terdengar suara penonton mengelu-elukan nama Coffeemilk diiringi tepuk tangan yang sangat meriah. Uh, aku menghela nafas yang panjang. Hatiku seketika menjadi lega. Demikian pula dengan Topan, Arif, Manto, Danny dan Viola. Ketegangan telah sirna dari hati kami. Benar, kami mendapatkan urutan nomer sepuluh. Jadi kalau dihitung berdasarkan asumsi masing-masing band memerlukan waktu rata-rata tampil kira-kira 20 menit untuk membawakan empat buah lagu, maka kami akan tampil kurang lebih 3 jam dari sekarang. Jadi kira-kira pada pukul 1 siang nanti, Coffeemilk akan naik ke atas panggung. Masih tersisa banyak waktu bagi kami untuk mempersiapkan diri.

Kami segera mencari tempat yang enak untuk duduk sambil menunggu waktu kami tiba. Mas Deny, Viola dan aku duduk berdampingan di bangku yang tersedia pada sebuah plaza yang berada dekat di belakang panggung. Sedangkan anak-anak yang lain mencari duduk tak jauh dari tempat kami bertiga.
“O ya, menurut Mas Deny bagaimana mengenai fans club? Apakah kami memerlukannya sekarang?” tanyaku tiba-tiba.
Mas Deny terdiam sejenak. Selang beberapa detik dia berkata.”Sebenarnya kita belum begitu membutuhkan sebuah fans club. Kita ini Mas ibaratkan bagai seorang bayi masih berjalan merangkak. Bukan maksud Mas menganggap enteng masalah satu ini, tapi Mas rasa sebuah fans club merupakan sebuah jembatan untuk menghubungkan komunikasi dan apresiasi dari para penggemar dengan idolanya. Karena penggemar tersebut jumlahnya ribuan orang bahkan bisa sampai ratusan ribu orang, kalau tidak ada fans club tentu sebuah band akan sangat kerepotan mengurusi para penggemarnya satu persatu. Mas rasa Coffeemilk belum sampai ke tahap tersebut. Pelan-pelan aja. Suatu saat kalau kalian sudah berhasil, kalian pasti akan memiliki fans club sendiri. Tapi tidak ada salahnya untuk embrio, teman-teman dari SMU 1 tadi bisa kita mintai tolong untuk mengurus cikal bakal fans club dari Coffeemilk nanti.”
Tiba-tiba handphoneku berbunyi. Sebuah SMS masuk di sela obrolanku dengan Mas Deny. Kubaca nama pengirimnya yang ternyata dari Dik Ira, putrinya Mas Dody. Tumben dia SMS kepadaku. Ada apa ya?
“Dari siapa, Is?” tanya Viola kepadaku.
“Dari Dik Ira, tumben dia mencariku?” jawabku.
Karena penasaran segera kubuka SMS dari Dik Ira,

Mas Isma, Ira sdh smp di areal festival.
Tp ingin ketemu Mas dulu. Coffeemilk main jam brp?
Pss dimn? Aku dng Mas Willy n’ Dik Hary.
Tlg bls!

Rupanya Dik Ira datang melihat festival bersama kakak dan adiknya. Kelihatannya dia bingung mencariku. Segera kubalas SMSnya.

Mas ada diblkg pangg.
Sdng ddk di tmn.
Kalau mau Dik Ira kemari.
Mas tunggu!
Coffeemilk main nanti jam1!

Handphone pun kututup. Semoga Dik Ira mengerti petunjuk yang kuberikan. Band pertama telah memulai menunjukkan aksinya. Lagu Sweet Child O’Mine dari Guns N’ Roses yang merupakan lagu wajib di festival ini dibawakan dengan apik oleh Money Loundrey. Musiknya diaransemen ulang dengan ciri mereka meskipun kudengar masih ada banyak kemiripan dengan versi aslinya. Topan, Arif dan Manto tampak penasaran ingin melihat penampilan band pembuka itu. Mereka melangkah maju mendekati panggung. Sedangkan Danny dengan santai masih sibuk menghisap rokok di sudut plaza.
Tiba-tiba Mas Deny beranjak dari duduknya. “O ya, Vi. Mas permisi dulu. Mas tadi udah janjian untuk bertemu dengan teman lama. Katanya dia datang dari Jakarta khusus untuk melihat festival ini juga. Mas mau mencari dia dulu. Siapa tahu dia sudah menunggu. Mas tinggal dulu. Is, titip Viola ya.”
“Jangan khawatir, Mas. Viola akan kujaga sebaik-baiknya.”
“Aku percaya hal itu. Assalamu’alaikum.”
“Wa’alaikum salam.”

Sekarang tinggal aku berduaan dengan Viola di taman ini. Kelihatannya Danny sudah bergabung dengan anak-anak yang lain untuk melihat para peserta festival unjuk kebolehan. Kutatap wajah Viola dengan penuh perasaan. Dan dia pun menatapku dengan mata yang sendu. Mata kami saling bertemu. Kurasakan sesuatu bergejolak di dalam tubuhku. Mengalir bersama aliran darahku. Oh, betapa indahnya ciptaan-Mu yang ada di hadapanku ini ya Allah. Sungguh agung kuasa-Mu hingga Kau perlihatkan kepadaku wajah seorang bidadari. Wajah yang bersinar terang, seakan hendak menerangi seluruh isi bumi ini dengan cahaya yang menyejukkan hati.
“Is, kok kamu memandangku seperti itu. Ada yang salah denganku?”
“Tak ada yang salah padamu, Vi. Bagiku kau terlalu sempurna.”
“Bisa aja kamu. Is, kamu tahu nggak? Saat-saat seperti inilah yang selalu kurindukan setiap hari. Kamu ingat kenangan terindah yang kita lakukan bersama di Jogja? Hari-hari itu merupakan hari-hari yang terindah dalam hidupku. Aku ingin selalu mengulanginya setiap hari. Aku selalu berdoa kepada Sang Maha Mendengar supaya aku bisa selalu mencurahkan seluruh perasaanku bersama dengan orang-orang yang kukasihi dan kucintai tanpa sedetik pun waktu yang terlewati. Karena mungkin aku nggak akan bisa selamanya menikmati keindahan dan kenikmatan itu.”
Tiba-tiba wajah Viola berubah menjadi sedih. Senyumnya yang selalu menghiasi wajahnya perlahan-lahan memudar. Matanya yang bening menjadi sembab. Airmatanya terlihat mulai mengalir membasahi pipinya yang halus.
“Vi, kamu menangis? Ada suatu masalah yang membebani hatimu? Kalau boleh kutahu, mungkin aku bisa membantu meringankan bebanmu.”
“Tidak ada apa-apa, Is. Aku hanya kembali teringat dengan ayah dan bundaku. Semoga mereka di sana selalu merindukanku seperti aku di sini yang selalu merindukan mereka.”
“Insya Allah, Vi. Meskipun mereka telah menghadap kepada Sang Tunggal, orang tuamu akan selalu ada di dalam hatimu. Kemana pun kamu akan melangkahkan kaki, mereka akan selalu menemanimu, menjagamu dan menyanyangimu dengan setulus hati.”
“Makasih ya, Is. Kamu memang selalu ada untukku.”
“Sama-sama, Vi.”
Dengan diiringi lantunan syair-syair cinta yang mengharukan suasana, hati kami pun bertemu.


“Ehm, … Assalamu’alaikum, maaf kalau mengganggu.” Tiba-tiba terdengar suara yang menyadarkan kami dari lamunan.
“Wa’alaikum salam, oh Dik Ira,” jawabku segera.
Viola kembali duduk seperti semula.
“Sorry, Mas Isma, Mbak Viola, kalau kedatangan Ira mengganggu.”
“Nggak papa kok, Dik. Kami hanya sedang melepaskan ketegangan aja sebelum nanti naik ke pentas.”
“Mas Topan dan yang lainnya pada kemana, Mas?”
“Tuh, mereka di sana. Sedang asyik melihat penampilan band yang sedang unjuk kebolehan di atas panggung.”
Dik Ira segera memalingkan pandangan ke arah yang kumaksud.
“Lho, kok sendirian, Dik? Katanya kemari sama Willy dan Dik Hary? Kemana mereka?” tanya Viola.
“Oh, Mas Willy dan Dik Hary tadi Ira tinggalin di antara para penonton, Mbak. Mereka tadi tampak asyik menikmati penampilan dari band pembuka sehingga pas Ira ajak kemari, mereka nggak mau. Nanti aja nyusul, katanya.”
“Ngomong-ngomong Dik Ira ada perlu apa dengan Mas, tumben, nggak biasanya?”
“Gini, Mas. Ira sebenarnya pengin minta tolong sama Mas. Ceritanya Ira disekolah kan ikut kegiatan madding sekolah. Kebetulan untuk materi minggu depan, Ira dapat jatah meliput festival ini. Sebenarnya Ira waktu itu keberatan karena Ira merasa belum mampu. Tapi karena didesak terus menerus oleh teman-teman Ira, terpaksa Ira menerima tugas itu. Itupun dikarenakan Ira ingat kalau Mas Isma dan Mas Topan akan ikutan festival ini. Jadi nanti Ira minta tolong sama Mas Isma atau Mas Topan untuk bisa memberi materi yang Ira perlukan guna penyusunan madding minggu depan. Bisa kan, Mas?”
“Insya Allah, nanti Mas usahakan.”
“Hebat lho Dik Ira ini. Meliput sebuah event apalagi yang berskala besar seperti festival ini tentu bukan pekerjaan gampang lho. Tapi Mbak percaya kok sama Dik Ira. Pasti Dik Ira Insya Allah bisa menyelesaikan tugas dengan baik. Apalagi Mas Isma sudah mau membantu.”
“Amin. Makasih, Mbak. Semoga amanat ini dapat Ira kerjakan dengan sebaik-baiknya. Kalau begitu Ira pamit dulu ya. Ira mau mengambil gambar-gambar guna melengkapi materi madding nanti sekalian ikut menikmati musik tentunya. O ya, Mas. Coffeemilk jam satu siang kan mainnya?”
“Insya Allah, Dik.”
“Nanti Ira akan kasih tahu Mas Willy dan Dik Hary. Juga Mas-Mas di Mentari Buana. Mereka rnecananya mau rombongan kemari lho. Mungkin mereka sekarang sudah tiba disini bergabung dengan para penonton di sana untuk memberi dukungan buat Coffeemilk. Moga-moga Coffeemilk menang.”
“Makasih Dik, atas dukungannya. Salam buat anak-anak kalau Dik Ira ketemu di sana.”
“Ira pergi dulu ya Mas Isma. Mari, Mbak Viola. Assalamu’alaikum.”
“Wa’alaikum salam,” jawab kami berdua serempak.
Dan Dik Ira segera berlalu dari hadapan kami.
Detik-detik sang waktu terus berjalan. Mentari pun bersinar dengan teriknya. Kucuran keringat membasahi tubuh kami. Tapi lain halnya dengan para penonton. Kulihat mereka tidak mempedulikan hal itu. Mereka terus terhanyut oleh irama-irama yang dimainkan para peserta festival dengan penuh semangat. Mereka ikut bergoyang, berjingkrak, mengangguk-anggukkan kepala, melompat, dan turut bernyanyi bersama ketika sang vokalis mengacungkan microphone ke arah mereka.
Penantian ini membuat perasaan kami menjadi kembali tidak tenang. Kami sudah tidak sabar untuk segera naik ke panggung dan memperlihatkan kemampuan kami dengan sepenuh hati. Kulirik arloji di pergelangan tanganku. Waktu sudah menunjukkan pukul setengah satu. Sebentar lagi waktu kami akan tiba. Peserta nomer sembilan masih menunjukkan aksinya di atas panggung. Kami semua sudah berkumpul kembali di belakang panggung. Keadaan kami saat ini ibarat sekelompok pasukan yang sudah siap tempur ke medan perang dan kami akan berjuang secara habis-habisan. Mas Deny terus-menerus memberikan motivasi dan semangat sehingga kami cukup merasa lebih percaya diri.
“Yang perlu kalian ingat, kalian di sini selain untuk menunjukkan kemampuan yang terbaik, kekompakan di atas panggung harus dijaga dengan baik. Teknik blocking panggung harus kalian pahami dengan benar. Jelajahi semua sisi panggung secara merata. Hal tersebut sangat berguna untuk menunjang penampilan kalian supaya lebih bervariatif dan tidak menjemukan. Kita sekarang sedang berlaga di sebuah acara festival besar, bukan lagi di acara launching produk seperti kemarin di mall. Sangat beda penerapannya disini. Dulu di mall, kalian hanya bisa “diam ditempat” karena memang tempatnya yang terbatas. Sekarang dengan panggung yang seluas ini, kalian bisa leluasa bergerak tanpa harus melupakan harmoni musik yang kalian bawa,” terang Mas Deny memberi pengarahan. “Kalian sudah mengerti maksudnya?”
“Kami mengerti, Mas.” Jawab kami serempak.
“OK, sekarang kalian telah siap. Jaga kekompakkan kalian masing-masing. Is, pimpin teman-temanmu nanti setelah di atas panggung. Kamu memang punya kemampuan untuk itu.”
“Insya Allah, Mas.”
“Nah, itu lagu terakhir sebentar lagi akan selesai. Is, sekarang kendali kamu yang ambil alih. Mas akan selalu mendukung di belakang kalian. Mas doakan semoga kalian sukses.”
“Amin.”
“Ok, teman-teman. Seperti yang Mas Deny bilang. Kita harus bisa mengeluarkan kemampuan yang terbaik. Jangan kecewakan para penggemar kita seperti Azizah dan teman-temannya. Juga jangan kecewakan teman-teman kita di kampus maupun di kost-kostan yang sudah mendukung kita dengan tulus dan sepenuh hati. Demi Coffeemilk yang mereka cintai. Pan, kamu sudah siap?”
“Gue siap, Boss.”
“Kalau kamu, To?”
“Aku siap.”
“Kamu juga sudah siap, Rif?”
“Let’s get rock.”
“Dan, bagaimana dengan kamu?”
“Gue udah nggak sabar segera beraksi.”
“Terakhir kamu, Vi. Kamu juga sudah siap menemani kami berjuang?”
“Hatiku selalu untuk Coffeemilk .Aku selalu siap.”
“Baik, it’s time to show. Mari kita berdoa terlebih dahulu kepada Allah SWT. Semoga kita diberi kekuatan dalam perjuangan ini.”
Kami segera bermunajat kepada Sang Maha Pencipta dengan menengadahkan kedua tangan kami ke atas dengan penuh hikmat. Sejenak suasana menjadi hening. Aku pun mulai mempimpin memanjatkan doa kepada Sang Maha Pencipta.

Setelah beberapa menit, penampilan band kesembilan telah selesai. Mereka telah turun dari panggung besar ini dengan wajah kelelahan dan badan basah kuyup oleh keringat. Namun terlihat senyum kepuasan di wajah-wajah mereka. Mereka telah menampilkan kemampuan terbaiknya.
Ketika mereka berpapasan dengan kami, tak lupa kami memberikan selamat kepada mereka dan mereka tak lupa membalasnya dengan ucapan semoga kami sukses di atas panggung. Kami semua berjabat tangan dengan erat. Sungguh sebuah persahabatan yang sangat indah. Tidak ada rasa ingin saling mengalahkan dan saling menyaingi satu sama lain. Semuanya menunjukkan rasa persaudaraan dan perdamaian di antara sesama peserta festival.. Kami semua adalah teman-teman seperjuangan di festival ini.
Tak lama kemudian, terdengar MC telah memanggil kami untuk segera naik ke atas panggung.
“Para indie lover sekalian, yang telah kita nantikan akan segera naik ke panggung ini. Siapa mereka?”
“Coffeemilk !!!” Jawab para penonton serempak.
“Siapaaa?”
“Coffeemilk, Coffeemilk, Coffeemilk !!!”
Para penonton mulai memanggil dan mengelu-elukan kami.
“Baiklah, hadirin sekalian. Sekarang kita sambut … COFFEEMILK !!!”

Sebuah panggilan untuk kami yang terdengar laksana suara tabuhan genderang perang yang menggema ke seluruh penjuru medan pertempuran sebagai tanda dimulainya perjuangan.
“Sekarang saatnya, teman-teman. Kita berikan mereka yang terbaik.” Aku segera naik ke atas panggung memimpin teman-temanku yang segera menyusul satu persatu berurutan di belakangku.
Suara tepuk tangan dan siulan yang saling sahut-menyahut dari para penonton festival menyambut kami. Mereka terus-menerus meneriakkan nama kami tanpa kenal lelah. Sebuah pemandangan yang membuat hatiku sedikit haru. Belum pernah kami menerima sambutan yang sebesar ini. Ya Allah, semoga kami bisa memberikan yang terbaik bagi mereka.
Kami segera menuju ke posisi kami masing-masing. Aku menempati sisi kanan panggung. Sedangkan Manto berada di sisi kiri panggung. Arif sudah duduk di belakang seperangkat drum di belakang panggung. Sepasang stick pemukul telah siap ditangannya yang telah ia kenakan sepasang sarung tangan. Viola menempati posisi di samping Arif. Dia berdiri di belakang dua buah keyboards yang dipasang menyudut. Viola kemudian tersenyum kepadaku sambil mengacungkan ibu jarinya tanda dia sudah siap untuk beraksi. Manto dan Danny terlihat telah memanggul alat musiknya masing-masing. Manto berdiri di seberangku dengan memakai gitar jenis Fender warna merah marun. Danny berdiri agak di depan Arif. Dan Topan tampak sudah bersiap dibelakang microphone. Sesaat kemudian dia mulai menyapa penonton.
“Assalamu’ alaikum. Selamat siang semuanya. Kami harap kalian masih bisa bertahan dalam cuaca yang panas ini. Kalian masih sanggup?”
“Sanggup !!!” Teriak penonton bersama-sama.
“Bagus, kami dari Coffeemilk siap untuk menghibur para indie lovers sekalian.”
Aku segera mengenakan gitar les paul yang telah disiapkan oleh panitia. Gitar berwarna cokelat tua yang menjadi idamanku selama ini telah berada dalam genggamanku. Kuperhatikan setiap lekuk gitar ini dengan penuh perasaan. Kubelai dengan lembut dawai-dawainya yang tampak berkilauan memantulkan sinar mentari siang yang terik.
“Ayo, teman. Kita segera beraksi,” bisikku dalam hati seolah gitar dalam genggamanku ini dapat mendengarnya.
Aku pun berjalan menuju ke bagian depan panggung yang agak menjorok ke arah penonton. Para penonton pun histeris melambai-lambaikan tangannya kepadaku. Jarak penonton dengan batas panggung hanya berkisar satu meter saja dengan diberi pagar pengaman yang dijaga oleh para panitia.

Kuputarkan pandangan menyapu semua penonton yang berada di sekelilingku. Kubalas lambaian mereka dengan antusias. Kemudian mataku melihat wajah-wajah yang telah kukenal berada di antara mereka. Di depanku kira-kira jaraknya lima meter, kulihat Azizah dan teman-temannya berteriak histeris sambil sibuk memotret diriku dengan kamera handphonenya. Terlihat pula anak-anak Mentari Buana tak jauh dari posisi kelompok Azizah. Kulihat ada Kang Deden, Fajar, Uda Kamal, Mas Unang dan Hasan hadir di antara penonton. Dan ternyata Dik Ira, Willy dan Dik Hary juga telah berada di antara mereka. Hah … itu kan si bule David. Dia datang juga dengan anak-anak Mentari Buana. Dia tersenyum pada sambil mengacungkan ibu jarinya. Aku pun segera membalas perhatian mereka semua dengan senyuman dan lambaian tanganku yang tulus.
“Terima kasih semuanya, semoga kalian selalu bisa membawa semangat yang bergelora ini untuk berbuat yang lebih baik. Dan jangan lupa pesan dari kami, stay away from drugs, stay way from free sex, and finally, let’s make the new world with loves and peace. Semoga kalian selalu diberi rakhmat dariNya.”
Aku pun segera memainkan jemariku di atas dawai gitar. Jari-jari tanganku mulai menari dengan gerakan yang agak cepat dan berirama. Sebuah melodi mulai terdengar melantun membahana, keluar dari seperangkat sound system raksasa di samping panggung. Para penonton segera terbius oleh lantunan nada yang melengking tinggi menembus angkasa. Melodi pembuka lagu Sweet Child O’ Mine telah kumainkan dengan sempurna. Dan akhirnya kami berenam telah berpadu dalam hentakan-hentakan nada yang memancing penonton untuk berjingkrak-jingkrak mengikuti irama.
Suara Topan bergema ke seluruh kawasan festival, menyanyikan bait demi bait syair yang telah terangkai dengan suara lantang layaknya seorang Axl Rose. Dentuman bass dari Danny terus-menerus mencabik-cabik pendengaran seiring dengan gebukan-gebukan yang bertenaga dari Arif di belakangnya. Aku dan Manto pun saling sahut-menyahut memainkan melodi yang menyayat hati dan melengking tinggi. Kulihat Viola memainkan jemarinya yang lembut di atas tuts-tuts dengan lemah gemulai. Rangkaian nada yang dihasilkan menambah suasana dalam musik yang kami bawakan.
Penonton mulai memanas. Mereka mulai berlompatan mengikuti irama musik yang kami mainkan. Tak jarang mereka pun ikutan bernyanyi dengan suara yang tak kalah lantangnya.

She's got a smile that it seems to me
Reminds me of childhood memories
Where evrything
Was as fresh as the bright blue sky
Now and then when I see her face
She takes me away to that special place
And if I stared too long
I'd probably break down and cry
Oooo, … sweet child o’mine
Oooo, … sweet love of mine
( petikan lagu “Sweet Child O’Mine” dari Guns N’Roses, album Appetite For Destruction )

Setelah hampir lima menit, lagu wajib dari festival ini sudah selesai kami bawakan dengan cukup memuaskan. Suara tepuk tangan penonton tak henti-hentinya berkumandang. Mereka masih ingin mendengar dan melihat kami membawakan sebuah lagu. Dan tak menunggu lama, kami segera memainkan lagu kedua, dan kemudian kami lanjutkan secara medley ke lagu ketiga. Tentu lagi yang kami mainkan adalah lagu dari band favorit kami, Padi. Lagu Hitam dan Begitu Indah kami bawakan dengan sempurna tanpa jeda sedikitpun.

Stamina kami telah terkuras habis. Keringat membasahi tubuh kami yang lelah. Kemampuan terbaik sudah kami keluarkan demi memuaskan penonton. Sekarang tiba saatnya kami bawakan lagu pamungkas. Kalau ketiga lagu sebelumnya merupakan lagu dari band-band idola kami, lagu terakhir ini merupakan lagu ciptaan kami sendiri.
Kembali aku dan Topan berkomunikasi dengan penonton.
“Sekarang kami akan menyanyikan lagu yang terakhir. Lagu ini adalah ciptaan kami sendiri. Dan tentunya, Isma lah yang menulis liriknya. Benar begitu kan, Is?”
“Benar, Pan. Para indie lovers sekalian, liriknya memang saya sendiri yang menciptakan. Namun dalam penggarapan lagu ini, kami kerjakan secara bersama-sama. Lagu ini sudah lama berkumandang di radio-radio yang ada di kota Solo. Mungkin kalian sudah tahu judul lagunya apa?”
“Yang Terindah.” Jawab para penonton dengan penuh semangat.
“Betul, seratus buat kalian. Judul lagunya adalah Yang Terindah. Lagu ini saya buat khusus bagi mereka yang ingin mengungkap perasaan yang paling dalam dari lubuk hati mereka kepada seseorang yang paling mereka cintai. Perasaan itu bisa ditujukan kepada Sang Maha Pencipta, kepada semua ciptaan-NYa, kepada orang tua, saudara, teman, dan juga kepada kekasih sang tambatan hati.”
“Baiklah, indie lover. Inilah persembahan dari kami, Yang Terindah.”
Alunan suara piano terdengar merdu membuka lagu. Dengan mata yang terpejam, Viola memainkan jemarinya dengan penuh penghayatan. Wajahnya terlihat sangat cantik tertimpa cahaya mentari.
Dan alunan syair-syair cinta pun berkumandang.

Kini telah kutahu
Apa yang menjadi milikku
Walau semua belumlah pasti
Tapi kuyakin nanti
Semuanya akan menjadi nyata

Sejalan laju putaran waktu
Seiring terbitnya mentari
Mencari akan arti hidup
Bersanding dengan belahan hati

Pastikan kumiliki
Semua yang ada padamu
Sgalanya dalam dirimu
Yang terindah darimu

Jangan pernah kau ragu
Akan ketulusan hatiku
Yang tak dapat terbagi
Hanya satu untukmu … (petikan puisi dari karya penulis sendiri)

Sambil kupetik gitarku, aku berjalan mendekati Viola yang terus memainkan jemari di atas tuts. Melihat aku berjalan mendekat, dia tersenyum dengan manisnya.
Aku pun berbisik padanya. “Vi, kupersembahankan lagu ini untukmu seorang, duhai belahan jiwaku. Kau lah yang terindah dalam hidupku. Cintaku selain kepada Allah semata, juga kuberikan hanya untukmu.”
Mendengar hal itu, Viola seketika terharu. Kedua bola matanya yang bening terlihat berkaca-kaca. Butiran air mata mulai berjatuhan membasahi pipinya.
“Terima kasih, Is. Aku juga sayang kamu, wahai malaikatku.”
Syair-syair cinta terus mengalun, meresap ke dalam lubuk hati kami berdua. Hembusannya bagaikan sebuah oase yang menyirami hati kami yang dahaga akan kasih dan cinta.
Lagu terus bergulir. Lantunannya membius ribuan penonton. Mereka turut terhanyut dalam syair-syair yang dibawakan Topan dengan penuh perasaan. Kedua tangan mereka mengacung ke atas, bergoyang ke kanan dan ke kiri tanpa dikomando. Mereka turut bernyanyi dengan penuh penghayatan.

Dan ketika lagu Yang terindah telah selesai kami bawakan, suara gemuruh tepuk tangan kembali terdengar di seluruh kawasan festival. Penampilan kami kurasa cukup memuaskan mereka. Mereka kembali mengelu-elukan kami. Setelah melepaskan alat musik masing-masing, kami berenam segera berdiri sejajar di depan panggung. Kami akan memberikan penghormatan untuk para penggemar kami yang telah mendukung kami dengan tulus.
Namun sebelum kami hendak membungkukkan badan, terdengar suara benda jatuh yang tak jauh dari tempat kami berdiri.
“Bruuuk !!!”
Dan ketika kami sadari, terlihat Viola telah terbaring tak sadarkan diri di bawah panggung dengan dahi bersimbah darah. Viola telah terjatuh dari atas panggung dengan ketinggian 1 meter dan dahinya terlebih dulu menghantam seperangkat speaker. Aku terpana melihat pemandangan yang mengerikan itu. Aku terpaku tanpa bisa bergerak sedikit pun. Awan mendung seketika menyelimuti hatiku. Lidahku terasa kelu sehingga aku tak mampu berkata apa-apa. Sebuah suara jeritan dari penonton akhirnya menyadarkanku. Segera aku melompat turun dari panggung dengan air mata yang telah berlinang membasahi pipiku. Teman-temanku juga melakukan hal serupa. Para panitia segera membentuk pagar betis mengelilingi lokasi Viola jatuh karena para penonton terlihat mulai berdesakan ingin melihat apa yang telah terjadi. Segera kerengkuh tubuh yang tak berdaya dengan darah yang terus menyucur di dahinya. Kugoncang-goncangkan tubuhnya. Viola tetap tak bergerak. Wajahnya yang cantik telah bersimbah darah. Senyumnya yang menawan telah hilang dari bibirnya yang tampak pucat. Kurasakan dinginnya tubuh Viola di pelukanku. Seketika aku berteriak dengan lantang.
“VIOLA !!!”
Bersambung ...

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe ( Greatest Architect Series )

Biography

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, along with Walter Gropius and Le Corbusier, is widely regarded as one of the pioneering masters of modern architecture. Mies, like many of his post World War I contemporaries, sought to establish a new architectural style that could represent modern times just as Classical and Gothic did for their own eras. He created an influential 20th century architectural style, stated with extreme clarity and simplicity. His mature buildings made use of modern materials such as industrial steel and plate glass to define interior spaces. He strived towards an architecture with a minimal framework of structural order balanced against the implied freedom of free-flowing open space. He called his buildings "skin and bones" architecture. He sought a rational approach that would guide the creative process of architectural design, and is known for his use of the aphorisms "less is more" and Gustave Flaubert's "God is in the details".

Early career

Mies worked in his father's stone-carving shop and at several local design firms before he moved to Berlin joining the office of interior designer Bruno Paul. He began his architectural career as an apprentice at the studio of Peter Behrens from 1908 to 1912, where he was exposed to the current design theories and to progressive German culture, working alongside Walter Gropius and Le Corbusier. Mies served as construction manager of the Embassy of the German Empire in Saint Petersburg under Behrens.[2] His talent was quickly recognized and he soon began independent commissions, despite his lack of a formal college-level education. A physically imposing, deliberative, and reticent man, Ludwig Mies renamed himself as part of his rapid transformation from a tradesman's son to an architect working with Berlin's cultural elite, adding the more aristocratic surname "van der Rohe". He began his independent professional career designing upper class homes in traditional Germanic domestic styles. He admired the broad proportions, regularity of rhythmic elements, attention to the relationship of the manmade to nature, and compositions using simple cubic volumes of the early 19th century Prussian Neo-Classical architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel, while dismissing the eclectic and cluttered classical so common at the turn of the century.

[edit] Traditionalism to Modernism
Villa Tugendhat built in 1930 in Brno, in today's Czech Republic, for Fritz Tugendhat.

After World War I, Mies began, while still designing traditional custom homes, a parallel experimental effort in international style, joining his avant-garde peers in the long-running search for a new style for a new industrial democracy. The weak points of traditional styles had been under attack by progressive theorists since the mid-nineteenth century, primarily for attaching historical ornament unrelated to a modern structure's underlying construction. Their mounting criticism of the historical styles gained substantial cultural credibility after the disaster of World War I, widely seen as a failure of the old order of imperial leadership of Europe. The classical revival styles were particularly reviled by many as the architectural symbol of a now-discredited aristocratic system.

Boldly abandoning ornament altogether, Mies made a dramatic debut with his stunning competition proposal for the faceted all-glass Friedrichstraße skyscraper in 1921, followed by a curved version in 1922. He continued with a series of pioneering projects, culminating in his two European masterworks: the temporary German Pavilion for the Barcelona exposition (often called the Barcelona Pavilion) in 1929 (a reconstruction is now built on the original site) and the elegant Villa Tugendhat in Brno, Czech Republic, completed in 1930.

While continuing his traditional design practice Mies began to develop visionary projects that, though mostly unbuilt, rocketed him to fame as a progressive architect. He worked with the progressive design magazine G which started in July 1923. He developed prominence as architectural director of the Werkbund, organizing the influential Weissenhof prototype modernist housing exhibition. He was also one of the founders of the architectural association Der Ring. He joined the avant-garde Bauhaus design school as their director of architecture, adopting and developing their functionalist application of simple geometric forms in the design of useful objects.

Like many other avant garde architects of the day, Mies based his own architectural theories and principles on his own personal re-combinations of ideas developed by many other thinkers and designers who had attacked the flaws of the traditional design styles, defined new criteria, and created alternative design solutions.

Mies' modernist thinking was influenced by the aesthetic credos of Russian Constructivism with their ideology of "efficient" sculptural constructions using modern industrial materials. Mies found appeal in the use of simple rectilinear and planar forms, clean lines, pure use of color, and the extension of space around and beyond interiors expounded by the Dutch De Stijl group. In particular, the layering of functions in space and the clear articulation of parts as expressed by Gerrit Rietveld appealed to Mies.

Like other architects in Europe, Mies was enthralled with the free-flowing inter-connected rooms which encompass their outdoor surroundings as demonstrated by the open floor plans of the American Prairie Style work of Frank Lloyd Wright.

The theories of Adolf Loos found resonance with Mies, particularly the ideas of eradication of ornament and the casting off of the superficial, the use of unadorned but rich materials, the nobility of anonymity, and an admiration for the unfettered pragmatism of American engineering structures and machines.

Significance and meaning

Mies adopted an ambitious lifelong mission to create not only a new architectural style, but also a solid intellectual foundation for a new architectural language that could be used to represent the new era of technology and production. He saw a need for an architecture expressive of and in harmony with his epoch, just as Gothic architecture was for an era of spiritualism. He applied a disciplined design process using rational thought to achieve his spiritual goals. He adopted the idea that architecture communicated the meaning and significance of the culture in which it exists. The self-educated Mies painstakingly studied the great philosophers and thinkers of the past and of the day to enhance his own understanding of the character and essential qualities of the times he lived in. More than perhaps any other practising pioneer of modernism, Mies used philosophy as a basis for his work. Mies' architecture was created at a high level of abstraction, and his own descriptions of his work leaves much room for interpretation. Yet his buildings also seem very direct and simple when viewed in person.

Emigration to the United States

Opportunities for commissions dwindled with the worldwide depression after 1929. In the early 1930s, Mies served briefly as the last Director of the faltering Bauhaus, at the request of his friend and competitor Walter Gropius. After 1933, Nazi political pressure soon forced Mies to close the government-financed school, a victim of its previous association with socialism, communism, and other progressive ideologies. He built very little in these years (one built commission was Philip Johnson's New York apartment); his style was rejected by the Nazis as not "German" in character. Frustrated and unhappy, he left his homeland reluctantly in 1937 as he saw his opportunity for any future building commissions vanish, accepting a residential commission in Wyoming and then an offer to head an architectural school in Chicago. When the refugee from the heavy-handed and constricting order of the Nazi government arrived in the United States after 30 years of practice in Germany, his reputation as a pioneer of modern architecture was already established by American promoters of the international style.

Career in the United States
IBM Plaza, Chicago, Illinois

Mies settled in Chicago, Illinois where he was appointed as head of the architecture school at Chicago's Armour Institute of Technology (later renamed Illinois Institute of Technology - IIT). One of the benefits of taking this position was that he would be commissioned to design the new buildings and master plan for the campus. All his buildings still stand there, including Alumni Hall, the Chapel, and his masterpiece the S.R. Crown Hall, built as the home of IIT's School of Architecture. Crown Hall is widely regarded as Mies' finest work, the definition of Miesian architecture, although some regard the building as "completely inefficient". In 1944, he became an American citizen, completing his severance from his native Germany. His 30 years as an American architect reflect a more structural, pure approach towards achieving his goal of a new architecture for the 20th Century. He focused his efforts on the idea of enclosing open and adaptable "universal" spaces with clearly arranged structural frameworks, featuring pre-manufactured steel shapes infilled with large sheets of glass. His early projects at the IIT campus and for developer Herb Greenwald opened the eyes of Americans to a style that seemed a natural progression of the almost forgotten 19th century Chicago School style. His architecture, with origins in the German Bauhaus and western European International Style became an accepted mode of building for American cultural and educational institutions, developers, public agencies, and large corporations.

The American Period
860–880 Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, Illinois.

His significant projects in the U.S. include the residential towers of 860-880 Lake Shore Dr, Commonwealth Plaza-330-340 W Diversey Pkwy, the Farnsworth House, Crown Hall and other structures at IIT, all in and around Chicago, and the Seagram Building in New York. These iconic works became the prototypes for his other projects.

Between 1946 and 1951, Mies van der Rohe designed and built the Farnsworth House, a weekend retreat outside Chicago for an independent professional woman, Dr. Edith Farnsworth. Here, Mies explored the relationship between ourselves, our shelter, and nature. This small masterpiece showed the world that cold exposed industrial steel and glass were materials capable of creating architecture of great emotional impact. The glass pavilion is raised six feet above a floodplain next to the Fox River, surrounded by forest and rural prairies. The highly crafted pristine white structural frame and all-glass walls define a simple rectilinear interior space, letting nature and light envelop the interior space. A wood-panelled fireplace (also housing mechanical equipment, kitchen, and toilets) is positioned within the open space to suggest living, dining and sleeping spaces without using walls. No partitions touch the surrounding all-glass enclosure. Without solid exterior walls, full-height draperies on a perimeter track allow freedom to provide full or partial privacy when and where desired. The house has been described as sublime, a temple hovering between heaven and earth, a poem, a work of art. The Farnsworth House and its 60-acre (240,000 m2) wooded site was purchased at auction for US$7.5 million by preservation groups in 2004 and is now operated by the Landmarks Preservation Council of Illinois as a public museum. The influential building spawned hundreds of modernist glass houses, most notably the Glass House by Philip Johnson, located near New York City and also owned by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The iconic Farnsworth House is considered among Mies's greatest works. The house is an embodiment of Mies' mature vision of modern architecture for the new technological age: a single large space with a minimal "skin and bones" framework provides a steel and glass enclosure with a clearly understandable order, with interior space loosely defined by independent partitions within the overall room, free-flowing to suggest freedom of use. His ideas are stated with clarity and simplicity, using materials that are allowed to express their own individual character.

Mies then designed a series of four middle-income high-rise apartment buildings for developer Herb Greenwald (and his successor firms after his untimely death in a plane crash), the 860/880 and 900-910 Lake Shore Drive towers on Chicago's Lakefront. These towers, with façades of steel and glass, were radical departures from the typical residential brick apartment buildings of the time. Interestingly, Mies found their unit sizes too small for himself, choosing instead to continue living in a spacious traditional luxury apartment a few blocks away. The towers were simple rectangular boxes with a non-hierarchical wall enclosure, raised on stilts above a glass enclosed lobby. The lobby is set back from the perimeter columns which were exposed around the perimeter of the building above, creating a modern arcade not unlike those of the Greek temples. This configuration created a feeling of light, openness, and freedom of movement at the ground level that became the prototype for countless new towers designed both by Mies's office and his followers. Some historians argue that this new approach is an expression of the American spirit and the boundless open space of the frontier, which German culture so admired.

Once Mies had established his basic design concept for the general form and details of his tower buildings, he applied those solutions (with evolving refinements) to his later high-rise building projects. The architecture of his towers appears to be similar, but each project represents new ideas about the formation of highly sophisticated urban space at ground level. He delighted in the composition of multiple towers arranged in a seemingly casual non-hierarchical relation to each other. He created, just as he did in his interiors, free flowing spaces and flat surfaces that represented the idea of an oasis of uncluttered clarity and calm within the chaos of the city. Nature was included by leaving openings in the pavement, through which plants seem to grow unfettered by urbanization, just as they would in their pre-settlement environment.

In 1958, Mies van der Rohe designed what is often regarded as the pinnacle of the modernist high-rise architecture, the Seagram Building in New York City. Mies was chosen by the daughter of the client, Phyllis Bronfman Lambert, who has become a noted architectural figure and patron in her own right. The Seagram Building has become an icon of the growing power of that defining institution of the 20th century, the corporation. In a bold and innovative move, the architect chose to set the tower back from the property line to create a forecourt plaza and fountain on Park Avenue. Although now acclaimed and widely influential as an urban design feature, Mies had to convince Bronfman's bankers that a taller tower with significant "wasted" open space at ground level was a viable idea. Mies' design included a bronze curtain wall with external H-shaped mullions that were exaggerated in depth beyond what is structurally necessary, touching off criticism by his detractors that Mies had committed Adolf Loos's "crime of ornamentation". Philip Johnson had a role in interior materials selections and the plaza, and he designed the sumptuous Four Seasons Restaurant which has endured un-remodeled to today. The Seagram Building is said to be an early example of the innovative "fast-track" construction process, where design and construction are done concurrently. Using the Seagram as a prototype, Mies' office designed a number of modern high-rise office towers, notably the Chicago Federal Center, which includes the Dirksen and Kluczynski Federal Buildings and Post Office (1959) and the IBM Plaza in Chicago, the Westmount Square in Montreal and the Toronto-Dominion Centre in 1967. Each project applies the prototype rectangular form on stilts and enclosure walls system but each creates a unique set of exterior spaces that are an essential aspect of his creative energies.

For the TD Centre he designed the font used on all the signage including the concourse area. The signage was still used in 2007, although is slowly being replaced as retailers update their store façades as leases turn over.
TD Centre towers frame CN Tower in Toronto.

During 1951-1952, Mies' designed the steel, glass and brick McCormick House, located in Elmhurst, Illinois (15 miles west of the Chicago Loop), for real-estate developer Robert Hall McCormick, Jr. A one story adaptation of the exterior curtain wall of his famous 860-880 Lake Shore Drive towers, it served as a prototype for an unbuilt series of speculative houses to be constructed in Melrose Park, Illinois. The house has been moved, but it exists today as a part of the public Elmhurst Art Museum.

Mies's last work was the Neue Nationalgalerie art museum, the New National Gallery, in Berlin. Considered one of the most perfect statements of his architectural approach, the upper pavilion is a precise composition of monumental steel columns and a cantilevered (overhanging) roof plane with a glass enclosure. The simple square box is a powerful expression of his ideas about flexible interior space, defined by transparent walls and supported by an external structural frame. The pavilion is a relatively small portion of the overall building, serving as a symbolic architectural entry point and monumental gallery for larger scale art. A large podium building below the pavilion accommodates most of the buildings actual built area in more functional spaces for galleries, support and utilitarian rooms.

The campus of Whitney Young High School and the adjacent Chicago Police Academy are two examples of the influence van der Rohe had on Chicago architecture.

Furniture

Mies designed modern furniture pieces using new industrial technologies that have become popular classics, such as the Barcelona chair and table, the Brno chair, and the Tugendhat chair. His furniture is known for fine craftsmanship, a mix of traditional luxurious fabrics like leather combined with modern chrome frames, and a distinct separation of the supporting structure and the supported surfaces, often employing cantilevers to enhance the feeling of lightness created by delicate structural frames. During this period, he collaborated closely with interior designer and companion Lilly Reich.

Mies as Educator

Mies played a significant role as an educator, believing his architectural language could be learned, then applied to design any type of modern building. He worked personally and intensively on prototype solutions, and then allowed his students, both in school and his office, to develop derivative solutions for specific projects under his guidance. Some of Mies' curriculum is still put in practice in the first and second year programs at IIT, for example the excruciating drafting of bricks in second year. But when none was able to match the genius and poetic quality of his own work, he agonized about where his educational method had gone wrong.

Mies placed great importance on education of architects who could carry on his design principles. He devoted a great deal of time and effort leading the architecture program at IIT. Mies served on the initial Advisory Board of the Graham Foundation in Chicago. His own practice was based on intensive personal involvement in design efforts to create prototype solutions for building types (860 Lake Shore Dr, the Farnsworth, Seagram, S.R. Crown Hall, The New National Gallery), then allowing his studio designers to develop derivative buildings under his supervision. Mies's grandson Dirk Lohan and two partners led the firm after he died in 1969. Lohan, who had collaborated with Mies on the New National Gallery, continued with existing projects but soon led the firm on his own independent path. Other disciples continued his teachings for a few years, notably Gene Summers, David Haid, Myron Goldsmith, Jacques Brownson, Helmut Jahn, and other architects at the firms of C.F. Murphy and Skidmore Owings & Merrill.

But while Mies' work had enormous influence and critical recognition, his approach failed to sustain a creative force as a style after his death and was eclipsed by the new wave of Post Modernism by the 1980s. He had hoped his architecture would serve as a universal model that could be easily imitated, but the aesthetic power of his best buildings proved impossible to match, instead resulting mostly in drab and uninspired structures. The failure of his followers to meet his high standard may have contributed to demise of Modernism and the rise of new competing design theories, notably Postmodernism.

Death
Mies van der Rohe's grave marker in Graceland Cemetery

Over the last twenty years of his life, Mies developed and built his vision of a monumental "skin and bones" architecture that reflected his goal to provide the individual a place to fulfil himself in the modern era. Mies sought to create free and open spaces, enclosed within a structural order with minimal presence. Mies van der Rohe died in 1969, and was buried near Chicago's other famous architects in Chicago's Graceland Cemetery. His grave is marked by a simple black slab of granite and a large Honey locust tree.[1]

Archives

The Ludwig Mies van der Rohe Archive, an administratively independent section of the Museum of Modern Art's Department of Architecture and Design, was established in 1968 by the Museum's trustees. It was founded in response to the architect's desire to bequeath his entire work to the Museum. The Archive consists of about nineteen thousand drawings and prints, one thousand of which are by the designer and architect Lilly Reich (1885-1947), Mies van der Rohe's close collaborator from 1927 to 1937; of written documents (primarily, the business correspondence) covering nearly the entire career of the architect; of photographs of buildings, models, and furniture; and of audiotapes, books, and periodicals.

Archival materials are also held by the Ryerson & Burnham Libraries at the Art Institute of Chicago. The Ludwig Mies van der Rohe Collection, 1929-1969 (bulk 1948-1960) includes correspondence, articles, and materials related to his association with the Illinois Institute of Technology. The Ludwig Mies van der Rohe/Metropolitan Structures Collection, 1961-1969, includes scrapbooks and photographs documenting Chicago projects.

Notable works
A memorial in Germany designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, built by Wilhelm Pieck, and inaugurated on 13 June 1926, later destroyed by the Nazis

Canada

* Toronto-Dominion Centre - Office Tower Complex, Toronto
* Westmount Square - Office & Residential Tower Complex, Westmount
* Nuns' Island - 3 Residential Towers & Esso Service Station (Closed), Nuns' Island , Montreal (c.1969)

Czech Republic

* Tugendhat House - Residential Home, Brno

Germany

* Riehl House - Residential Home, Potsdam (1907)
* Peris House - Residential Home, Zehlendorf (1911)
* Werner House - Residential Home, Zehlendorf (1913)
* Urbig House - Residential Home, Potsdam (1917)
* Kempner House - Residential Home, Charlottenburg (1922)
* Eichstaedt House - Residential Home, Wannsee (1922)
* Feldmann House - Residential Home, Wilmersdorf (1922)
* Mosler House - Residential Home, Babelsberg (1926)
* Weissenhof Estate - Housing Exhibition coordinated by Mies and with a contribution by him, Stuttgart (1927)
* Haus Lange/Haus Ester - Residential Home and an art museum, Krefeld
* New National Gallery - Modern Art Museum, Berlin
* Auf dem Hügel - Essen

Mexico

* Bacardi Office Building - Office Building, Mexico City

Spain

* Barcelona Pavilion - World's Fair Pavilion, Barcelona

United States

* The Promontory Apartments - Residential Apartment Complex, Chicago
* Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library - District of Columbia Public Library, Washington, DC
* Richard King Mellon Hall of Science - Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, PA (1968)
* IBM Plaza - Office Tower, Chicago
* Lake Shore Drive Apartments - Residential Apartment Towers, Chicago
* Seagram Building - Office Tower, New York City
* Crown Hall - College of Architecture, and other buildings, at the Illinois Institute of Technology
* School of Social Services Administration, University of Chicago (1965)
* Farnsworth House - Residential Home, Plano, Illinois
* Chicago Federal Center
o Dirksen Federal Building - Office Tower, Chicago
o Kluczynski Federal Building - Office Tower, Chicago
o United States Post Office Loop Station - General Post Office, Chicago
* One Illinois Center - Office Tower, Chicago
* One Charles Center - Office Tower, Baltimore, Maryland
* Highfield House Condominium | 4000 North Charles - Condominium Apartments, Baltimore, Maryland
* Colonnade and Pavilion Apartments - Residential Apartment Complex, Newark, New Jersey
* Lafayette Park - Residential Apartment Complex, Detroit, Michigan (1963).[3]
* Commonwealth Promenade Apartments - Residential Apartment Complex, Chicago (1956)
* Caroline Weiss Law Building, Cullinan Hall (1958) and Brown Pavilion (1974) additions, Museum of Fine Art, Houston
* American Life Building - Louisville, Kentucky (1973; completed after Mies's death by Bruno Conterato)

References

1. ^ a b "Mies van der Rohe Dies at 83; Leader of Modern Architecture". The New York Times. 19 August 1969. http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/0327.html. Retrieved on 21 July 2007. "Mies van der Rohe, one of the great figures of 20th-century architecture, died in Wesley Memorial Hospital here late last night. He was 83 years old."
2. ^ "German Embassy Building". Encyclopaedia of Saint Petersburg. http://www.encspb.ru/en/article.php?kod=2804004653. Retrieved on 2008-08-11.
3. ^ Vitullo-Martin, Julio, with photo by Mike Russell (December 22, 2008).The Biggest Mies Collection: His Lafayette Park residential development thrives in Detroit.The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved on April 21, 2007.

Le Corbusier ( Greatest Architect Series )

Biography

He was born as Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris in La Chaux-de-Fonds, a small town in Neuchâtel canton in north-western Switzerland, in the Jura mountains, which is just five kilometres across the border from France. He attended a kindergarten that used Fröbelian methods.

Le Corbusier was attracted to the visual arts and studied at the La-Chaux-de-Fonds Art School under Charles L'Eplattenier, who had studied in Budapest and Paris. His architecture teacher in the Art School was the architect René Chapallaz, who had a large influence on Le Corbusier's earliest houses.

In his early years he would frequently escape the somewhat provincial atmosphere of his hometown by travelling around Europe. About 1907, he travelled to Paris, where he found work in the office of Auguste Perret, the French pioneer of reinforced concrete. Between October 1910 and March 1911, he worked near Berlin for the renowned architect Peter Behrens, where he might have met Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Walter Gropius. He became fluent in German. Both of these experiences proved influential in his later career.

Later in 1911, he journeyed to the Balkans and visited Greece and Turkey, filling sketchbooks with renderings of what he saw, including many famous sketches of the Parthenon, whose forms he would later praise in his work Vers une architecture (1923).

Early career: the villas, 1914-1930

Le Corbusier taught at his old school in La-Chaux-de-Fonds during World War I, not returning to Paris until the war was over. During these four years in Switzerland, he worked on theoretical architectural studies using modern techniques.[1] Among these was his project for the "Dom-ino" House (1914-1915). This model proposed an open floor plan consisting of concrete slabs supported by a minimal number of thin, reinforced concrete columns around the edges, with a stairway providing access to each level on one side of the floor plan.

This design became the foundation for most of his architecture for the next ten years. Soon he would begin his own architectural practice with his cousin, Pierre Jeanneret (1896-1967), a partnership that would last until 1940.

In 1918, Le Corbusier met the disillusioned Cubist painter, Amédée Ozenfant, in whom he recognised a kindred spirit. Ozenfant encouraged him to paint, and the two began a period of collaboration. Rejecting Cubism as irrational and "romantic," the pair jointly published their manifesto, Après le Cubisme and established a new artistic movement, Purism. Ozenfant and Jeanneret established the Purist journal L'Esprit Nouveau. He was good friends with the Cubist artist Fernand Léger.

Pseudonym Adopted, 1920

In the first issue of the journal, in 1920, Charles-Edouard Jeanneret adopted Le Corbusier, an altered form of his maternal grandfather's name, "Lecorbésier", as a pseudonym, reflecting his belief that anyone could reinvent oneself. Some architectural historians claim that this pseudonym translates as "the crow-like one."[2] Adopting a single name to identify oneself was in vogue by artists in many fields during that era, especially among those in Paris.

Between 1918 and 1922, Le Corbusier built nothing, concentrating his efforts on Purist theory and painting. In 1922, Le Corbusier and Jeanneret opened a studio in Paris at 35 rue de Sèvres.[1]

His theoretical studies soon advanced into several different single-family house models. Among these was the Maison "Citrohan", a pun on the name of the French Citroën automaker, for the modern industrial methods and materials Le Corbusier advocated using for the house. Here, Le Corbusier proposed a three-floor structure, with a double-height living room, bedrooms on the second floor, and a kitchen on the third floor. The roof would be occupied by a sun terrace. On the exterior Le Corbusier installed a stairway to provide second-floor access from ground level. Here, as in other projects from this period, he also designed the façades to include large expanses of uninterrupted banks of windows. The house used a rectangular plan, with exterior walls that were not filled by windows, left as white, stuccoed spaces. Le Corbusier and Jeanneret left the interior aesthetically spare, with any movable furniture made of tubular metal frames. Light fixtures usually comprised single, bare bulbs. Interior walls also were left white. Between 1922 and 1927, Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret designed many of these private houses for clients around Paris. In Boulogne-sur-Seine and the 16th arrondissement of Paris, Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret designed and built the Villa Lipschitz, Maison Cook (see William Edwards Cook), Maison Planeix, and the Maison La Roche/Albert Jeanneret, which now houses the Fondation Le Corbusier.


Forays into urbanism
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For a number of years French officials had been unsuccessful in dealing with the squalor of the growing Parisian slums, and Le Corbusier sought efficient ways to house large numbers of people in response to the urban housing crisis. He believed that his new, modern architectural forms would provide a new organisational solution that would raise the quality of life of the lower classes. His Immeubles Villas (1922) was such a project that called for large blocks of cell-like individual apartments stacked one on top of the other, with plans that included a living room, bedrooms, and kitchen, as well as a garden terrace.

Not merely content with designs for a few housing blocks, soon Le Corbusier moved into studies for entire cities. In 1922, he also presented his scheme for a "Contemporary City" for three million inhabitants (Ville Contemporaine). The centrepiece of this plan was the group of sixty-storey, cruciform skyscrapers, steel-framed office buildings encased in huge curtain walls of glass. These skyscrapers were set within large, rectangular park-like green spaces. At the very middle was a huge transportation centre, that on different levels included depots for buses and trains, as well as highway intersections, and at the top, an airport. He had the fanciful notion that commercial airliners would land between the huge skyscrapers. Le Corbusier segregated pedestrian circulation paths from the roadways and glorified the use of the automobile as a means of transportation. As one moved out from the central skyscrapers, smaller low-storey, zigzag apartment blocks set far back from the street amid green space, housed the inhabitants. Le Corbusier hoped that politically-minded industrialists in France would lead the way with their efficient Taylorist and Fordist strategies adopted from American industrial models to reorganise society.

In this new industrial spirit, Le Corbusier contributed to a new journal called L'Esprit Nouveau that advocated the use of modern industrial techniques and strategies to transform society into a more efficient environment with a higher standard of living on all socioeconomic levels. He forcefully argued that this transformation was necessary to avoid the spectre of revolution, that would otherwise shake society. His dictum "Architecture or Revolution", developed in his articles in this journal, became his rallying cry for the book Vers une architecture (Toward an Architecture, previously mistranslated into English as Towards a New Architecture), which comprised selected articles he contributed to L'Esprit Nouveau between 1920 and 1923.

Theoretical urban schemes continued to occupy Le Corbusier. He exhibited his Plan Voisin, sponsored by another famous automobile manufacturer, in 1925. In it, he proposed to bulldoze most of central Paris, north of the Seine, and replace it with his sixty-story cruciform towers from the Contemporary City, placed in an orthogonal street grid and park-like green space. His scheme was met with only criticism and scorn from French politicians and industrialists, although they were favourable to the ideas of Taylorism and Fordism underlying Le Corbusier designs. Nonetheless, it did provoke discussion concerning how to deal with the cramped, dirty conditions that enveloped much of the city.

In the 1930s, Le Corbusier expanded and reformulated his ideas on urbanism, eventually publishing them in La Ville radieuse (The Radiant City) of 1935. Perhaps the most significant difference between the Contemporary City and the Radiant City is that the latter abandons the class-based stratification of the former; housing is now assigned according to family size, not economic position.[3] La Ville radieuse also marks Le Corbusier's increasing dissatisfaction with capitalism and his turn to the right-wing syndicalism of Hubert Lagardelle. During the Vichy regime, Le Corbusier received a position on a planning committee and made designs for Algiers and other cities. The central government ultimately rejected his plans, and after 1942 Le Corbusier withdrew from political activity.[4]

After World War II, Le Corbusier attempted to realize his urban planning schemes on a small scale by constructing a series of "unités" (the housing block unit of the Radiant City) around France. The most famous of these was the Unité d'Habitation of Marseilles (1946-1952). In the 1950s, a unique opportunity to translate the Radiant City on a grand scale presented itself in the construction of Chandigarh, the new capital for the Indian states of Punjab and Haryana. Le Corbusier was brought on to develop the plan of Albert Mayer.

Death

Against his doctor's orders, on August 27, 1965, Le Corbusier went for a swim in the Mediterranean Sea at Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, France. His body was found by bathers and he was pronounced dead at 11 a.m. It was assumed that he suffered a heart attack, at the age of seventy-seven. His death rites took place at the courtyard of the Louvre Palace on September 1, 1965 under the direction of writer and thinker André Malraux, who was at the time France's Minister of Culture.

Le Corbusier's death had a strong impact on the cultural and political world. Homages were paid worldwide and even some of Le Corbusier's worst artistic enemies, such as the painter Salvador Dalí, recognised his importance (Dalí sent a floral tribute). Then-President of the United States Lyndon B. Johnson said: "His influence was universal and his works are invested with a permanent quality possessed by those of very few artists in our history". The Soviet Union added, "Modern architecture has lost its greatest master". Japanese TV channels decided to broadcast, simultaneously to the ceremony, his Museum in Tokyo, in what was at the time a unique media homage.

Visitors may find his grave site in the cemetery above Roquebrune-Cap-Martin in between Menton and Monaco in southern France.

The Fondation Le Corbusier (or FLC) functions as his official Estate.[5]. The U.S. copyright representative for the Fondation Le Corbusier is the Artists Rights Society[6].

Ideas

Five points of architecture

It was Le Corbusier's Villa Savoye (1929-1931) that most succinctly summed up his five points of architecture that he had elucidated in the journal L'Esprit Nouveau and his book Vers une architecture, which he had been developing throughout the 1920s. First, Le Corbusier lifted the bulk of the structure off the ground, supporting it by pilotis – reinforced concrete stilts. These pilotis, in providing the structural support for the house, allowed him to elucidate his next two points: a free façade, meaning non-supporting walls that could be designed as the architect wished, and an open floor plan, meaning that the floor space was free to be configured into rooms without concern for supporting walls. The second floor of the Villa Savoye includes long strips of ribbon windows that allow unencumbered views of the large surrounding yard, and which constitute the fourth point of his system. The fifth point was the Roof garden to compensate the green area consumed by the building and replacing it on the roof. A ramp rising from the ground level to the third floor roof terrace, allows for an architectural promenade through the structure. The white tubular railing recalls the industrial "ocean-liner" aesthetic that Le Corbusier much admired. As if to put an exclamation point on Le Corbusier's homage to modern industry, the driveway around the ground floor, with its semicircular path, measures the exact turning radius of a 1927 Citroën automobile.


The Modulor

Main article: Modulor

Cover of Modulor and Modulor 2

Le Corbusier explicitly used the golden ratio in his Modulor system for the scale of architectural proportion. He saw this system as a continuation of the long tradition of Vitruvius, Leonardo da Vinci's "Vitruvian Man", the work of Leon Battista Alberti, and others who used the proportions of the human body to improve the appearance and function of architecture. In addition to the golden ratio, Le Corbusier based the system on human measurements, Fibonacci numbers, and the double unit.

He took Leonardo's suggestion of the golden ratio in human proportions to an extreme: he sectioned his model human body's height at the navel with the two sections in golden ratio, then subdivided those sections in golden ratio at the knees and throat; he used these golden ratio proportions in the Modulor system.

Le Corbusier's 1927 Villa Stein in Garches exemplified the Modulor system's application. The villa's rectangular ground plan, elevation, and inner structure closely approximate golden rectangles.[7]

Le Corbusier placed systems of harmony and proportion at the centre of his design philosophy, and his faith in the mathematical order of the universe was closely bound to the golden section and the Fibonacci series, which he described as "[...] rhythms apparent to the eye and clear in their relations with one another. And these rhythms are at the very root of human activities. They resound in Man by an organic inevitability, the same fine inevitability which causes the tracing out of the Golden Section by children, old men, savages, and the learned."[8]

Furniture

Corbusier said: "Chairs are architecture, sofas are bourgeois."

Le Corbusier began experimenting with furniture design in 1928 after inviting the architect, Charlotte Perriand, to join his studio. His cousin, Pierre Jeanneret, also collaborated on many of the designs. Before the arrival of Perriand, Le Corbusier relied on ready-made furniture to furnish his projects, such as the simple pieces manufactured by Thonet, the company that manufactured his designs in the 1930s.

In 1928, Le Corbusier and Perriand began to put the expectations for furniture Le Corbusier outlined in his 1925 book L'Art Décoratif d'aujourd'hui into practice. In the book he defined three different furniture types: type-needs, type-furniture, and human-limb objects. He defined human-limb objects as: "Extensions of our limbs and adapted to human functions that are. Type-needs, type-functions, therefore type-objects and type-furniture. The human-limb object is a docile servant. A good servant is discreet and self-effacing in order to leave his master free. Certainly, works of art are tools, beautiful tools. And long live the good taste manifested by choice, subtlety, proportion, and harmony".

The first results of the collaboration were three chrome-plated tubular steel chairs designed for two of his projects, The Maison la Roche in Paris and a pavilion for Barbara and Henry Church. The line of furniture was expanded for Le Corbusier's 1929 Salon d'Automne installation, Equipment for the Home.

In the year 1964, while Le Corbusier was still alive, Cassina S.p.A. of Milan acquired the exclusive worldwide rights to manufacture his furniture designs. Today many copies exist, but Cassina is still the only manufacturer authorised by the Fondation Le Corbusier.

Politics

Le Corbusier moved increasingly to the far right of French politics in the 1930s. He associated with Georges Valois and Hubert Lagardelle and briefly edited the syndicalist journal Prélude. In 1934, he lectured on architecture in Rome by invitation of Benito Mussolini. He sought out a position in urban planning in the Vichy regime and received an appointment on a committee studying urbanism. He drew up plans for the redesign of Algiers in which he criticised the perceived differences in living standards between Europeans and Africans in the city, describing a situation in which "the 'civilised' live like rats in holes" yet "the 'barbarians' live in solitude, in well-being."[9] These and plans for the redesign of other cities were ultimately ignored. After this defeat, Le Corbusier largely eschewed politics.

Although the politics of Lagardelle and Valois included elements of fascism, anti-semitism, and ultra-nationalism, Le Corbusier's own affiliation with these movements remains uncertain. In La Ville radieuse, he conceives an essentially apolitical society, in which the bureaucracy of economic administration effectively replaces the state.[10]

Le Corbusier was heavily indebted to the thought of the nineteenth-century French utopians Saint-Simon and Charles Fourier. There is a noteworthy resemblance between the concept of the unité and Fourier's phalanstery.[11] From Fourier, Le Corbusier adopted at least in part his notion of administrative, rather than political, government.

Criticisms

Since his death, Le Corbusier's contribution has been hotly contested, as the architecture values and its accompanying aspects within modern architecture vary, both between different schools of thought and among practising architects.[12] At the level of building, his later works expressed a complex understanding of modernity's impact, yet his urban designs have drawn scorn from critics.

Technological historian and architecture critic Lewis Mumford wrote in Yesterday's City of Tomorrow,

the extravagant heights of Le Corbusier's skyscrapers had no reason for existence apart from the fact that they had become technological possibilities; the open spaces in his central areas had no reason for existence either, since on the scale he imagined there was no motive during the business day for pedestrian circulation in the office quarter. By mating utilitarian and financial image of the skyscraper city to the romantic image of the organic environment, Le Corbusier had, in fact, produced a sterile hybrid.

James Howard Kunstler, a member of the New Urbanism movement, has criticised Le Corbusier's approach to urban planning as destructive and wasteful:

Le Corbusier [was] ... the leading architectural hoodoo-meister of Early High Modernism, whose 1925 Plan Voisin for Paris proposed to knock down the entire Marais district on the Right Bank and replace it with rows of identical towers set between freeways. Luckily for Paris, the city officials laughed at him every time he came back with the scheme over the next forty years – and Corb was nothing if not a relentless self-promoter. Ironically and tragically, though, the Plan Voisin model was later adopted gleefully by post-World War Two American planners, and resulted in such urban monstrosities as the infamous Cabrini Green housing projects of Chicago and scores of things similar to it around the country. [13]

The public housing projects influenced by his ideas are seen by some as having had the effect of isolating poor communities in monolithic high-rises and breaking the social ties integral to a community's development. One of his most influential detractors has been Jane Jacobs, who delivered a scathing critique of Le Corbusier's urban design theories in her seminal work The Death and Life of Great American Cities.

Influence
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Le Corbusier was at his most influential in the sphere of urban planning, and was a founding member of the Congrès International d'Architecture Moderne (CIAM).

One of the first to realise how the automobile would change human agglomerations, Le Corbusier described the city of the future as consisting of large apartment buildings isolated in a park-like setting on pilotis. Le Corbusier's theories were adopted by the builders of public housing in Western Europe and the United States. For the design of the buildings themselves, Le Corbusier criticised any effort at ornamentation. The large spartan structures, in cities, but not of cities, have been widely criticised for being boring and unfriendly to pedestrians.

Throughout the years, many architects worked for Le Corbusier in his studio, and a number of them became notable in their own right, including painter-architect Nadir Afonso, who absorbed Le Corbusier's ideas into his own aesthetics theory. Lúcio Costa's city plan of Brasília and the industrial city of Zlín planned by František Lydie Gahura in the Czech Republic are notable plans based on his ideas, while the architect himself produced the plan for Chandigarh in India. Le Corbusier's thinking also had profound effects on the philosophy of city planning and architecture in the Soviet Union, particularly in the Constructivist era.

Le Corbusier was heavily influenced by the problems he saw in the industrial city of the turn of the century. He thought that industrial housing techniques led to crowding, dirtiness, and a lack of a moral landscape. He was a leader of the modernist movement to create better living conditions and a better society through housing concepts. Ebenezer Howard's Garden Cities of Tomorrow heavily influenced Le Corbusier and his contemporaries.

Le Corbusier also harmonized and lent credence to the idea of space as a set of destinations which mankind moved between, more or less continuously. He was therefore able to give credence and credibility to the automobile (as a transporter); and most importantly to freeways in urban spaces. His philosophies were useful to urban real estate development interests in the American Post World War II period because they justified and lent architectural and intellectual support to the desire to destroy traditional urban space for high density high profit urban concentration; both commercial and residential. Le Corbusier’s ideas also sanctioned the further destruction of traditional urban spaces for the freeways that connected this new urbanism to the low density; low cost (and highly profitable), suburban and rural locales; which were free to be developed as middle class single family (dormitory) housing.

Notably missing from this scheme of movement were connectivity between the isolated urban villages created for the lower middle and working classes and the other destination points in the Le Corbusier plan; the suburban and rural areas, and the urban commercial centers. This was because as designed, the freeways traveled over, at, or beneath the grade levels of the urban working and lower middle class living spaces, such as the Cabrini Green housing project. Such projects and their areas, having no freeway exit ramps, and being cut-off by the freeways rights-of-way, became isolated from jobs and the services that came to be concentrated at Le Corbusier’s nodal transportation end points. And as jobs increasingly moved to the suburban end points of the freeways; urban village dwellers found themselves without convenient freeway access points in their communities; and without public mass transit connectivity that could economically reach suburban job centers.

Very late in the Post War period suburban job centers found this to be such a critical problem (labor shortages) that they on their own, began sponsoring urban to suburban shuttle bus services, between the urban villages and the suburban job centers, to fill the working class and lower-middle class jobs which had gone wanting; and which did not normally pay the wages that car ownership required.

The gradually increasing costs of transportation (of which fuel in only one element), and the decline in middle and upper class taste for the suburban and rural lifestyle has resulted in the repudiation of Le Corbusier’s ideas. Urban centers are now the most desirable real estate areas. Condominium living is being rediscovered as the preferred form of living in urban spaces from Nashville, TN and Columbus, IN to South Miami Beach, FL and Atlanta, GA. Most central business districts of cities now hum with residential activity after working hours, or are on the way to doing so.

Le Corbusier deliberately created a myth about himself and was revered in his lifetime, and after death, by a generation of followers who believed Le Corbusier was a prophet who could do no wrong. But in the 1950s the first doubts began to appear, notably in some essays by his greatest admirers such as James Stirling and Colin Rowe, who denounced as catastrophic his ideas on the city. Later critics revealed his technical incompetence as an architect, such as Brian Brace Taylor, whose book Armée du Salut went into great detail about Le Corbusier's Machiavellian activities to create this commission for himself, his many ill-judged design decisions about the building's technologies, and the sometimes absurd solutions he then proposed.

Major buildings and projects
The Open Hand Monument is one of numerous projects in Chandigarh, India designed by Le Corbusier

* 1905 - Villa Fallet, La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland
* 1912 - Villa Jeanneret-Perret, La Chaux-de-Fonds [1]
* 1916 - Villa Schwob, La Chaux-de-Fonds
* 1923 - Villa La Roche/Villa Jeanneret, Paris
* 1924 - Pavillon de L'Esprit Nouveau, Paris (destroyed)
* 1924 - Quartiers Modernes Frugès, Pessac, France
* 1925 - Villa Jeanneret, Paris
* 1926 - Villa Cook, Boulogne-sur-Seine, France

* 1927 - Villas at Weissenhof Estate, Stuttgart, Germany
* 1928 - Villa Savoye, Poissy-sur-Seine, France View on the map
* 1929 - Armée du Salut, Cité de Refuge, Paris
* 1930 - Pavillon Suisse, Cité Universitaire, Paris
* 1930 - Maison Errazuriz, Chile
* 1931 - Palace of the Soviets, Moscow, USSR (project)
* 1931 - Immeuble Clarté, Geneva, Switzerland View on the map
* 1933 - Tsentrosoyuz, Moscow, USSR
* 1936 - Palace of Ministry of National Education and Public Health, Rio de Janeiro (As a consultant to Lucio Costa, Oscar Niemeyer and others)
* 1938 - The "Cartesian" sky-scraper (project)

* 1945 - Usine Claude et Duval, Saint-Dié-des-Vosges, France
* 1947-1952 - Unité d'Habitation, Marseille, France View on the map
* 1948 - Curutchet House, La Plata, Argentina
* 1949-1952 - United Nations headquarters, New York City (Consultant)
* 1950-1954 - Chapelle Notre Dame du Haut, Ronchamp, France View on the map
* 1951 - Cabanon de vacances, Roquebrune-Cap-Martin
* 1951 - Maisons Jaoul, Neuilly-sur-Seine, France
* 1951 - Mill Owners' Association Building, villa Sarabhai and villa Schodan, Ahmedabad, India
* 1952 - Unité d'Habitation of Nantes-Rezé, Nantes, France View on the map
* 1952-1959 - Buildings in Chandigarh, India
o 1952 - Palace of Justice (Chandigarh)
o 1952 - Museum and Gallery of Art (Chandigarh)
o 1953 - Secretariat Building (Chandigarh)
o 1953 - Governor's Palace (Chandigarh)
o 1955 - Palace of Assembly (Chandigarh)
o 1959 - Government College of Arts(GCA) and the Chandigarh College of Architecture(CCA)(Chandigarh)
* 1956 - Museum at Ahmedabad, Ahmedabad, India
* 1956 - Saddam Hussein Gymnasium, Baghdad, Iraq
* 1957 - Unité d'Habitation of Briey en Forêt, France

National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo, Japan

* 1957 - National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo
* 1957 - Maison du Brésil, Cité Universitaire, Paris
* 1957-1960 - Sainte Marie de La Tourette, near Lyon, France (with Iannis Xenakis)
* 1957 - Unité d'Habitation of Berlin-Charlottenburg, Flatowallee 16, Berlin View on the map
* 1957 - Unité d'Habitation of Meaux, France
* 1958 - Philips Pavilion, Brussels, Belgium (with Iannis Xenakis) (destroyed) at the 1958 World Expositon
* 1961 - Center for Electronic Calculus, Olivetti, Milan, Italy
* 1961 - Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States
* 1964 -1969 Firminy-Vert
o 1964 : Unité d'Habitation of Firminy, France
o 1966 : Stadium Firminy-Vert
o 1965 : Maison de la culture de Firminy-Vert
o 1969 : Church of Saint-Pierre, Firminy, France (Built posthumously and completed under José Oubrerie's guidance in 2006)
* 1967 - Heidi Weber House, Zurich

Major written works

* 1918 - Après le cubisme (After Cubism), with Amédée Ozenfant
* 1923 - Vers une architecture (Towards a New Architecture)
* 1925 - Urbanisme (Urbanism)
* 1925 - La Peinture moderne (Modern Painting), with Amédée Ozenfant
* 1925 - L'Art décoratif d'aujourd'hui (The Decorative Arts of Today)
* 1931 - Premier clavier de couleurs (First Color Keyboard)
* 1935 - Aircraft
* 1935 - La Ville radieuse (The Radiant City)
* 1942 - Charte d'Athènes (Athens Charter)
* 1943 - Entretien avec les étudiants des écoles d'architecture (A Conversation with Architecture Students)
* 1948 - Le Modulor (The Modulor)
* 1953 - Le Poeme de l'Angle Droit (The Poem of the Right Angle)
* 1955 - Le Modulor 2 (The Modulor 2)
* 1959 - Deuxième clavier de couleurs (Second Colour Keyboard)
* 1966 - Le Voyage d'Orient (The Voyage to the East)

Quotations
Sister project Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Le Corbusier

* "You employ stone, wood, and concrete, and with these materials you build houses and palaces: that is construction. Ingenuity is at work. But suddenly you touch my heart, you do me good. I am happy and I say: "This is beautiful. That is Architecture. Art enters in..." (Vers une architecture, 1923)
* "Architecture is the masterly, correct, and magnificent play of form in light."
* "Space and light and order. Those are the things that men need just as much as they need bread or a place to sleep."
* "The house is a machine for living in." (Vers une architecture, 1923)
* "It is a question of building which is at the root of the social unrest of today: architecture or revolution." (Vers une architecture, 1923)
* "Modern life demands, and is waiting for, a new kind of plan, both for the house and the city." (Vers une architecture, 1923)
* "The 'Styles' are a lie." (Vers une architecture, 1923)

Memorials

Le Corbusier's portrait was featured on the Swiss ten francs banknote, pictured with his distinctive eyeglasses. There is Le Corbusier square in Paris, near the site of his atelier on the Sèvres street, a Le Corbusier Boulevard in Laval, Quebec, Canada and a Le Corbusier square exists in his hometown of La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland. There is a Le Corbusier street in the partido of Malvinas Argentinas, Province of Buenos Aires, Argentina.

References

1. ^ a b c Choay, Françoise, le corbusier (1960), pp. 10-11. George Braziller, Inc. ISBN 0-8076-0104-7.
2. ^ Gans, Deborah, The Le Corbusier Guide (2006), p. 31. Princeton Architectural Press. ISBN 1-56898-539-8.
3. ^ Robert Fishman, Urban Utopias in the Twentieth Century: Ebenezer Howard, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Le Corbusier (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1982), 231.
4. ^ Fishman, 244-246
5. ^ http://www.fondationlecorbusier.asso.fr/fondationlc_us.htm | Fondation Le Corbusier's English Version Website
6. ^ http://arsny.com/requested.html | Most frequently requested artists list of the Artists Rights Society
7. ^ Le Corbusier, The Modulor, p. 35, as cited in Padovan, Richard, Proportion: Science, Philosophy, Architecture (1999), p. 320. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 0-419-22780-6: "Both the paintings and the architectural designs make use of the golden section".
8. ^ Ibid. The Modulor pp.25, as cited in Padovan's Proportion: Science, Philosophy, Architecture pp.316
9. ^ Celik, Zeynep, Urban Forms and Colonial Confrontations: Algiers under French Rule, University of California Press, 1997, p. 4.
10. ^ Fishman, 228
11. ^ Peter Serenyi, “Le Corbusier, Fourier, and the Monastery of Ema.” The Art Bulletin 49, no. 4 (1967): 282.
12. ^ Holm, Ivar (2006). Ideas and Beliefs in Architecture and Industrial design: How attitudes, orentations, and underlying assumptions shape the build environment. Oslo School of Architecture and Design. ISBN 8254701741.
13. ^ Kunstler on Cities of the Future