The Bread Units

The Bread Units - A Day in the Life of Le Corbusier

The LeCorbusier Bread Workshop is about bread, friends, the modulor and human proportions.

The idea is that people make bread units to replace centimeters and use it to measure other people. Each participant will choose a part of their body to use as a measuring unit, make a bread that has the length/shape and then use this unit to measure other people.

The idea is a combination of the concept of the Le Corbusier’s Modulor and the ‘copain’ idea. Copain is the French word for ‘friend’ and means ‘with bread’ (co: with; pain: bread, so a friend is someone you share your bread with). This is the starting point for the ‘bread workshops’, which are using bread as a tool for communication (and graphic design in a broad sense)

1. Choose one of your body parts as a ‘body unit’.
2. Use the dough to make it to scale and bake it.
3. Transfer your ‘body unit’ to the paper meter and use it to measure someone else.
4. Write the results on the card, and enjoy the bread!

A printed card will then be used to explain the equation. As an example, if i decide to use my ear as a measurement unit, i will bake a bread in the shape of the ear and then use it to measure someone else arm. The card will then say: Lea’s arm is 8 1/2 Alex ears. Or, Alex arm measures 10 Lea’s noses… etc.

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Alexandre Bettler - freelance graphic / object / social design

www.aalex.info