LE CORBUSIER: AN ATLAS OF MODERN LANDSCAPES SPANS THE ENTIRE
RANGE OF LE CORBUSIER’S ARTISTIC OUTPUT AT MUSEUM OF MODERN ART
June 15, 2013 - September 23, 2013
LE CORBUSIER:
AN ATLAS OF MODERN LANDSCAPES SPANS THE ENTIRE
RANGE OF LE
CORBUSIER’S ARTISTIC OUTPUT AT MUSEUM OF MODERN ART
June
15, 2013 - September 23, 2013
Corbusier: An
Atlas of Modern Landscapes, the largest exhibition ever produced in New
York of the protean and influential oeuvre of Le Corbusier (Charles-Édouard
Jeanneret, French, b. Switzerland, 1887–1965), encompasses his work as an
architect, interior designer, artist, city planner, writer, and photographer,
and is on view from June 15 through September 23, 2013. This major exhibition
draws on MoMA’s own collection, and extensively on exclusive loans from the
Paris-based Le Corbusier Foundation. Following a path from his youth in the
Swiss Jura mountains to his death on the shores of the French Riviera, the exhibition
focuses on four types of landscapes, observed or conceived at different scales,
and documented in all the genres. Le Corbusier pursued during six decades: the
landscape of found objects; the domestic landscape; the architectural landscape
of the modern city; and the vast territories he planned. MoMA is the only U.S.
venue for the exhibition, which will travel to Fundació " la Caixa "
in Barcelona (January 28–May 11, 2014), and to Fundació " la Caixa "
in Madrid ( June 11–October 13, 2014 ). It is organized by guest curator
Jean-Louis Cohen, Sheldon H. Solow Professor in the
History of Architecture, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, with
Barry Bergdoll, The Philip Johnson Chief Curator of Architecture
and Design at MoMA.
Le Corbusier:
An Atlas of Modern Landscapes reveals the ways in which Le Corbusier
observed
and imagined landscapes throughout his career, using all the artistic mediums
and techniques at his disposal, from early watercolors of Italy, Greece, and
Turkey, to sketches of India, and from photographs of his formative journeys to
architectural models of his large-scale projects. Bringing together around 320
objects, all of these dimensions of Le Corbusier’s artistic process, including
major paintings and four reconstructed interiors, are presented in MoMA’s first
comprehensive exhibition of his work. Le Corbusier: An Atlas of Modern Landscapes is
divided into five sections, and begins with one of four room-sized interiors
built especially for the exhibition. Featuring original furniture, the
interiors vividly present Le Corbusier’s concepts for domestic landscapes, and
the notion of houses operating as machines to view landscapes. The first
interior on view is the Cabanon of Le Corbusier from Roquebrune-Cap-Martin
(1951–52), installed in the area outside the Tisch galleries. A cabin built on
the coast of the gulf of Monte Carlo as a summer haven for Le Corbusier
himself, the Cabanon’s interior dimensions are based on those of the Modulor, a
system of harmonic proportions Le Corbusier had created in the 1940s. The
Cabanaon features rustic elements—bark-covered exterior planks and furniture—crafted
by the carpenter Charles Barberis.
FROM THE JURA
MOUNTAINS TO THE WIDE WORLD
The first
section within the galleries is devoted to Le Corbusier’s early life, in his
hometown of La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland. Under the direction of his teacher,
Charles L’Eplattenier, Le Corbusier learned to draw, exploring the landscape of
the Jura mountains, before focusing on architecture and completing his first
house at the age of 20. Over the next five years Le Corbusier discovered the
horizons of Europe. In 1907 he made an initial study trip to Italy, followed by
a visit to Vienna. In 1908–09 he worked in the Paris studio of the Perret brothers,
pioneers in the use of reinforced concrete. He then travelled to Germany in
order to study urbanism, working in
Berlin in the
studio of Peter Behrens, and in 1911 journeyed to Greece and Istanbul via the
Balkans. These travels around Europe are represented in the exhibition with an
extraordinary selection of watercolors and pencil drawings. Sketchbooks, both
large and small, reveal through hundreds of drawings the time spent observing
landscapes of cities and the countryside.
Upon returning to La Chaux-de-Fonds in 1912, Le Corbusier
began teaching architecture and interior design. He also built several houses
in which he drew upon the experiences of his travels, such as the Villa
Jeanneret-Perret, also known as the Maison Blanche, which he designed for his
parents. Blueprints from his time in La Chaux-de-Fonds and a room-sized
interior of the Maison Blanche (1912) with the original furniture are both on
view. Based on a collection of shapes observed during his journeys, the house
was a break from the regional style of the area and Le Corbusier’s first work
as an independent architect.
THE CONQUEST OF PARIS
The second section focuses on Le Corbusier’s time in
Paris, whose sites and monuments he drew tirelessly. In addition to his
prolific writing at this time, Le Corbusier painted assiduously, arranging on
the canvas objects of daily life as if they were forming landscapes. Among
these are La Cheminée (1918), his first painting, Still Life
(1920), Guitare verticale – premiere version (1920), and Nature morte du
Pavillon de l’Esprit nouveau (1924).
In 1922 he opened an architecture studio with his
cousin Pierre Jeanneret (1896–1967). They would work together until 1940, as he
conducted two sets of projects in parallel. On the one hand, he developed
theoretical schemes, such as the “Citrohan” house (1920), the “immeublevillas”
(villa apartments), the “Ville contemporaine” (Contemporary City) (1922), and
the “Plan Voisin” for Paris (1925), each of which is represented in the
exhibition through drawings. On the other, Le Corbusier built villas for the elite
of the French capital, in which he experimented with his provocative ideas for
a new architecture made possible by reinforced concrete. These are
represented in the exhibition through models and
drawings. The third room-sized interior on view is from one such villa, the
Pavilion for the Villa Church in Ville d’Avray (1927–29), a project for an
American couple, Henry and Barbara Church. Working with a pre-existing
neoclassical structure, Le Corbusier transformed it into a music pavilion with
a library in which a rectangular window delimited the view of the surrounding
garden as if it were a painting. Surrounded by a largeframe, the window
provided the backdrop for an interior landscape where furniture designed in
1928 by Charlotte Perriand, Le Corbusier, and Pierre
Jeanneret was used in a domestic setting for the first time.
RESPONDING TO LANSCAPE FROM AFRICA TO THE AMERICAS
The third section focuses on the late 1920s, when Le
Corbusier abandoned the prismatic forms he used in his houses of that decade
and developed an architecture that was more attentive to landscape, echoing
transformations in his painting style, which is represented here by a number of
canvases. He greatly expanded the geographic range of his endeavors while
continuing to work on his projects for Paris.
His first European success came in 1928 during a
triumphant visit to Moscow, where he received the commission for a ministry
building, the Centrosoyuz, completed in 1936 (though he was defeated in the
competition for the Palace of the Soviets in 1932, the original model of
which—from MoMA’s own collection—is on view). Le Corbusier’s accomplishments
reverberated around the globe due to the success of his books, which in turn
increased the impact of his buildings. His encounters with new landscapes
transformed his way of thinking. In 1929 his successful lecture tour of South
America led him to develop plans for Rio de Janeiro, Montevideo, and São Paulo.
However, the enthusiastic welcome of local elites did not guarantee the success
of his projects. Le Corbusier sought in vain for 12 years to carry out his
provocative plan for Algiers, shown in the exhibition through numerous
drawings, sketches, and an original 1945 model of the skyscraper he designed
for Algiers. Among the diverse techniques used by Le Corbusier to persuade the
public of the truth of his analyses and projects, lectures played a prominent
role. It was in front of the audience that he developed directly, drawing on
long sheets of paper, his main ideas and proposals; some of these monumental
drawings are on view in the section.
You may visit my blog to see Moma's past exhibitions
news Japanese Contellation, Conception of Space,and Le Corbusier: Atlas
of Modern Landscapes to click below links.
http://mymagicalattic.blogspot.com.tr/2016/04/a-japanese-constellation-toyo-ito-sanaa.html
http://mymagicalattic.blogspot.com.tr/2014/09/conception-of-space-at-museum-of-modern.html
http://mymagicalattic.blogspot.com.tr/2013/08/cut-n-paste-from-architectural.html
A
PHILIPS PAVILION BRUSSELS 1958
PHILIPS PAVILION BRUSSELS 1958
URBAN PLAN FOR RIO DE JANEIRO 1929
PLANS FOR ALGIERS AND BARCELONA AND 'VERTICAL GARDEN CITY'
1927
CHAPELLE NOTRE – DAME DU HAUT, RONCHAMP 1950 – 1955
CHAPELLE
NOTRE-DAME DU HAUT RONCHAMP 1950-1955
Top to bottom:
Elevation of the East Facade (Inverted), Elevation of the
Southwest Facade
Corner, and Transverse North-South Section with Campanile.
Pencil, Colored
Pencil, and Pastel on Vellum.
Dimensions:
58.4 x 55.2 cm
Fondation Le
Corbusier, Paris.
© 2013 Artists
Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris / FLC
FROM
INTERNATIONAL TO TERRITORY: THE PROJECT OF AN ATLAS BY BARRY BERGDOLL
Le Corbusier
was introduced to New York audiences in Modern Architecture: International
Exhibition, the inaugural architecture exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art,
in 1932. In this exhibition he was identified as a leading proponent of the
International Style; indeed, he would soon be one of the rare architects to
have built on three continents before the advent of commercial intercontinental
jet service. By 1932 he had already designed or built projects in France,
Switzerland, Germany, the Soviet Union, and Tunisia, and his influence had been
in the ascendant in South America since his 1929 trip to Argentina, Uruguay,
and Brazil. This influence only deepened with his role in designing the
Ministry of Education and Health in Rio de Janeiro (1936) and with the
construction of the house for Dr. Curutchet in La Plata, Argentina (1949–54).
The conquest of two more continents followed. In 1952, with the vast project at
Chandigarh, he began a new and profound engagement with a landscape unlike any
he had experienced to date, and he was subsequently able to draw on his
decades-long studies of exhibition space in designs for the National Museum of
Western Art in Tokyo (1954–59). And in 1962, thirty years after Le Corbusier’s
introduction to American audiences at MoMA, he saw the opening of his first and
only building in North America, the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts at
Harvard University. Only Australia and Antarctica were never on the itineraries
of this globe-traversing architect, although the former has not been beyond the
reach of his influence.1
Yet already
in 1932, in The International Style, the popular book published at the same
time as MoMA’s exhibition, there were unmistakable hints that his buildings did
not always conform fully to Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson’s
definition of the new style, nor to its suggestion of a universalist
architectural aesthetic, unvaried by site or locale. If the Villas Stein–de
Monzie (1926–28) and Savoye (1928–31) seemed near-perfect embodiments of
Hitchcock and Johnson’s three points of the International Style, as well as of
Le Corbusier’s Five Points, the load-bearing rough masonry walls of the Villa
de Mandrot (1929–31) at Le Pradet were clearly earthbound, related to the
Mediterranean vernacular of nearby farm buildings on the southern coast of
France. And the roof terrace of the apart[1]ment
for Charles de Beistegui (1929–31), off the Champs-Élysées, was a confirmation
of Le Corbusier’s claim that “the outside is always an inside,” as well as an
evocative composi[1]tion of built and
planted forms set in a very calculated and unexpected relationship with mon[1]uments on the
horizon, including the Arc de Triomphe at the head of Paris’s grandest axis.
Neither at ground nor sky level did Le Corbusier create an architecture
divorced from its ndscape, even if his practice and views had moved quite far
from the mnemonic abstrac[1]tions of nature and
the integrated site plans of his early adherence to the style sapin (fir tree
style) of his native La Chaux-de-Fonds.2
To organize a
new generation of research, analysis, and interpretation of Le Corbusier’s
practice using the metaphor and, in part, the form of an atlas, as we have done
here, is not, however, to return to the notion of an international practice,
either in the sense of the International Style—pitted polemically as it was
against the growing attractions of region[1]alism
in the arts in Depression-era America—or in the sense of the last twenty years
of globalizing practices, in particular of so-called starchitects, whose
signature branded forms are intended to be recognized no matter where they are
set down. Rather it is to acknowl[1]edge a profound
relationship between practice and place in Le Corbusier’s life and work, one
that entails nothing less than his concept of vision, of the way he looked at
the world on journeys first by traditional means, across the Balkans to Greece
and Turkey, and then in the airplanes that for him were as much an extension of
his retina as a means of convey[1]ance. Airplanes were
an integral part of the way he conceived of his buildings as instruments for
crafting both optical and bodily relationships to landscapes; the notion of the
landscape encompassed everything from the physical occupation of an interior to
the projected occupa[1]tion of an exterior
framed by any number of devices, from the fenêtre en longueur (ribbon window)
to cuts through walls or hedges that frame a larger exterior, a distant view,
or dis[1]tant horizon into
something easily apprehended by the eye and the mind.
And while
these techniques remain integral to a set of compositional strategies that Le
Corbusier developed over decades, they were not invariable in his adaptation of
them to specific places and specific cultures. What is revealed in this
atlas—which is as much a sur[1]vey of the last
twenty years of revisionist thinking, by scholars who have devoted themselves
to retracing the contours of Le Corbusier’s practice in different venues—is the
extent to which Le Corbusier’s travels and artistic practice were not to be
dissociated. From the time of his voyage d’Orient in 1911 to his discovery of
the landscapes and cultures of Chandigarh and Ahmedabad, which are vastly
different one from another and would be the venues for a substantial portion of
his post–World War II built production, Le Corbusier was engaged not with the
ways in which things are similar around the world but rather with the ways in
which they are distinct, with layers of culture that resonate even in worlds in
mutation from the forces of modernization. Having abandoned the “pack donkey’s
way,” by rejecting the nostalgia clinging to the city-design philosophy of
Camillo Sitte that had so infatuated him as an young architect, Le Corbusier
would find his greatest opportunity for building in the Punjab, where the
donkey was one of the prime instruments of construction. His view of the
landscape and of architecture’s place in it could not but be affected.
This atlas
confirms, then, a major realignment currently underway in the study of the
masters of modern architecture, both in the interwar and postwar years, one in
which place, cultural specificity, and attention to landscape have displaced
the idea of modern universals. Already by 1952 Hitchcock felt some misgiving
about the polemical oversimplification of the International Style, and he
admitted that the concept could not accommodate the shifts in Le Corbusier’s
subsequent evolution; a few years after the Museum hosted a summit, in 1948, on
the issue of what was happening to modern architecture, he wrote in a
reflection on the twentieth anniversary of the 1932 show, “No one has done more
than Le Corbusier ever since to extend and loosen the sanctions of the
International Style.”3 But even here Hitchcock remained within the logic of the
taxonomic definition of style inherited from nine[1]teenth-century
architectural history, which would remain his intellectual frame for his entire
career, and within the logic of the architectural object as a largely
autonomous work of spa[1]tial art. Indeed,
what is striking about the floor plans provided for every building reproduced
in The International Style, which in countless editions has served several
generations of twentieth-century readers and architecture students, is not only
that all are redrawn and sim[1]plified for greater
clarity but also that they are systematically isolated from their sites.
A decade ago,
to explore a substantial revision of our understanding of the work of Ludwig
Mies van der Rohe, another of the great so-called form-givers of modern archi[1]tecture, Terence
Riley and I organized Mies in Berlin, an exhibition at The Museum of Modern
Art, which contextualized the work of his Berlin years, from 1905 to 1933, in
its German setting.4 This meant not simply considering the architect in the
cultural milieu of the German capital at its great moment of intellectual and
artistic experimentation. It also entailed situating his designs, both realized
and proposed, in the specific urban and suburban landscapes for which they were
created, beginning with the earliest neo-Biedermeier villas in Babelsberg,
where both Mies and Le Corbusier worked in Peter Behrens’s studio. Also in 2001
Sarah Williams Goldhagen published the first major monographic study of Louis
I. Kahn to break with the formalist reading of his work and understand the
stakes of place and culture in a practice that spanned from Philadelphia to
Bangladesh. Goldhagen identified Kahn’s “situated modernism,” thereby making
clear that to speak of even the most formally rigorous projects of
twentieth-century modernist architecture in relationship to landscape was not
simply to speak of the formal relationships between buildings and gardens,
although these had often been overlooked in the consideration of modern
architecture as paradig[1]matic and
transportable rather than culturally contingent.5 Le Corbusier had passed
through the very culture of the architectonic garden that was to have such a
profound influence, in the same year, on the young Mies’s early residential
designs in Wilhelmine Berlin. And like Le Corbusier, Mies had a lifelong interest
in cultivating a relationship between abstraction and place that could make
buildings into frames for a different kind of modern awareness or even
consciousness.6 Both house and garden in the remarkable Villa Favre-Jacot
(1912–13) in Le Locle, Switzerland, are a direct working-out of this culture,
absorbed in Behrens’s office and in traveling through Germany and Austria. But
he went beyond the tight interweaving of nterior and exterior rooms to an
understanding of the building as a type of viewing device for the landscape
beyond it, a means, therefore, of making the landscape into an object of
contemplation in ways quite distinct from the picturesque tradition he had
absorbed in his student days under Charles L’Eplattenier, in La Chaux-de-Fonds.
These techniques,
echoed as well in Le Corbusier’s use of photography and film, soon merged with
those most modern forms of capturing the landscape, both static and moving, of
recording the changing haptic and optic relationships between viewer and
viewed.7 The experi[1]ence and cultural
meaning of landscape was in many ways as central to Le Corbusier’s vision of
design and his conception of architecture and cities as it was to architects
more commonly associated with the organic, such as Alvar Aalto or Frank Lloyd
Wright. As landscape histo[1]rian Caroline
Constant has noted, in a compendium of two decades of essays that attempt to
reweave the historiographically frayed entwining of modern architecture and
landscape, “Indeed, the notion of genius loci was crucial even to an iconoclast
such as Le Corbusier. . . . Unlike his approach to architecture and urbanism,
which evolved as his radical a priori theo[1]retical
assumptions were tested through his built work, Le Corbusier’s approach to
landscape evolved a posteriori from practice. Thus, despite the militant tone
of his utopian urban pro[1]nouncements, Le
Corbusier carefully calibrated his building designs to their specific
locales.”8
hat this
atlas contains, then, is both a tour of Le Corbusier’s international activi[1]ties and an
accounting of the diverse and sometimes contradictory relationships he
developed with places, from his native alpine birthplace to his refuge on the
Mediterranean coast, a voyage that took him from mountains to sea, from a
snowbound climate to one of year-round vegetation. But this was not solely a
European journey, for it was in Chandigarh more than anywhere else (other than
perhaps the pilgrimage church at Ronchamp) that Le Corbusier developed, in the
final decade and a half of his practice, a more profound notion of the archi[1]tect as one whose
work encompasses the relationship of people to physical environment. The aim of
this “atlas of modern landscapes” is to revisit some of the most influential
works of twentieth-century architecture and expand our understanding of them,
by both embedding them in specific geographies and relating them to the common
horizons that were central to Le Corbusier’s experience of the world and the
frames of experience he sought to embody.
1. “Le Corbusier and
Australia: Reaction and Reception in the Antipodes,” a esearch project, is
currently under[1]way at the University
of Queensland. See www.uq.edu.au/atch/ le-corbusier-and-australia.
2. See Helen Bieri Thomson,
ed., Le Style sapin: Une Expérience Art Nouveau à La Chaux-de-Fonds (Paris:
Somogy, 2006).
3. Henry-Russell Hitchcock,
“The International Style Twenty Years After,” Architectural Record 110, no. 2
(August 1951): 89–98. Reprinted in Hitchcock and Philip Johnson, The
International Style, rev. ed. (1932; New York: W. W. Norton, 1995), p. 250.
4. Terence Riley and Barry
Bergdoll, eds., Mies in Berlin (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2001).
5. Sarah Williams Goldhagen,
Louis Kahn’s Situated Moderism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001).
6. See also Christophe
Girot, ed., Mies als Gärtner (Zurich: gta Verlag, 2011).
7. Beatriz Colomina, Privacy
and Publicity: Modern Architecture as Mass Media (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press,
1994).
8. Caroline Constant, The
Modern Architectural Landscape (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,
2012), p. 20.
A
POLYHEME 1955
Black ink, Newspaper and Collage on Paper
Dimensions : H : 0,635 m x L : 0,48 m
Fondation Le Corbusier Paris
CAPITOL COMPLEX
CHANDIGARH 1951 - 1965
Ink and Pencil on Vellum.
Dimensions: 89 x 152 cm
Fondation Le Corbusier, Paris
© 2013 Artists Rights Society (ARS),
New York / ADAGP, Paris / FLC
BONJOUR CALDER 1958
Wool Tapestry
Dimensions : H : 2,20 m x L : 2,98 m
Fondation Le Corbusier Paris
ETUDE QUATRE MAINS 1955
Oil on Canvas
Dimensions : H : 038 m x L : 0,46 m
Fondation Le Corbusier Paris
PALACE OF THE
LEAGUE OF NATIONS –GENEVA 1927
Axonometric
View From the West.
Gelatin Print
on Paper With Ink, Airbrush and Collage Additions.
Dimensions:
135.5 x 147 cm
Institut fur
Geschichte und Theorie der Architektur, ETH Zurich
NATURE MORTE (
STILL LIFE ) 1920
Oil on Canvas.
Dimensions: 80.9 x 99.7 cm
The Museum of Modern Art, New
York.Van Gogh Purchase Fund, 1937.
© 2013 Artists Rights Society (ARS),
New York / ADAGP, Paris / FLC
MUSEUM OF MODERN ART NEW YORK
MUSEUM OF MODERN ART NEW YORK
Founded in 1929 as
an educational institution, The Museum of Modern Art is dedicated to being the
foremost museum of modern art in the world.
Through the leadership of its Trustees and staff, The Museum of
Modern Art manifests this commitment by establishing, preserving, and
documenting a collection of the highest order that reflects the vitality,
complexity and unfolding patterns of modern and contemporary art; by presenting
exhibitions and educational programs of unparalleled significance; by
sustaining a library, archives, and conservation laboratory that are recognized
as international centers of research; and by supporting scholarship and
publications of preeminent intellectual merit.
Central to The Museum of Modern Art’s mission is the encouragement
of an ever-deeper understanding and enjoyment of modern and contemporary art by
the diverse local, national, and international audiences that it serves. You
may read more about MoMA’s entire information to click below link.
http://press.moma.org/about/
DR. GLENN D. LOWRY DIRECTOR OF MUSEUM OF MODERN ART NEW YORK
DR. GLENN D. LOWRY DIRECTOR OF MUSEUM OF MODERN ART NEW YORK
MUSEUM OF MODERN ART NEW YORK
LA MAIN OUVERTE 1954
Watercolour and Paper Mounted on Paper
Dimensions : H : 0,21 m x L : 0,27 m
Fondation Le Corbusier Paris
LES DES SONT JETES 1960
Wool Tapestry
Dimensions : H : 2,18 m x L : 3,55 m
Fondation Le Corbusier Paris
PLAN FOR BUENOS
AIRES 1929
Profile View
From the Rio de la Plata.
Pastel on
paper.30 11/16 x 44 7/8” (78 x 114 cm).
Fondation Le
Corbusier, Paris.
© 2013 Artists
Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris/FLC
TROIS FEMMES SUR FOND BLANC 1950
Wool Tapestry
Dimensions : H : 2,20 m x L : 3,00 m
Signed and dated at middle bottom Le Corbusier 50
Fondation Le Corbusier Paris
PEINTURE MURALE, 35 RUE DE SEVRES A PARIS 1948
Oil on Plywood
Dimensions : H : 3,82 m x L : 3,50 m
Fondation Le Corbusier Paris
MUSIC PAVILION
FOR VILLA CHURCH – VILLE D’AVRAY 1927 - 1929
General
Axonometric View of the Pavilion in the Site, 1927
Ink, Pencil and
Colored Pencil on Tracing Paper
Dimensions: 92
x 44 cm
Fondation Le
Corbusier, Paris.
© 2013 Artists
Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris/FLC
ASSEMBLY
CHANDIGARH 1961 - 1964
Model of the
Roof Structure, 1964.
Plaster and
Painted Wood
Dimensions: 81
x 114.5 x 115.5 cm
The Museum of
Modern Art.Gift of Barbara Jakobson and the
Architecture
& Design Purchase Fund, 2010.
© 2013 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP,
Paris/FLC
UNITED’HABITATION MARSEILLE 1946 – 1952
UNITE
D’HABITATION MARSEILLE 1946 - 1952
View of the
Model of the Roof Terrace, Mounted on a
Background of
the Provence Landscape.
Silver Gelatin
Print Mounted on Paper
Dimensions: 10
x 18 cm
Fondation Le Corbusier,
Paris
© 2013 Artists
Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris / FLC
LE CORBUSIER AT HIS PARIS STUDIO 1954
PHOTOGRAPH BY ERNST SCHEIDEGGER
VOISIN PLAN FOR
PARIS 1925
Axonometric
View With the Saint-Denis and Saint-Martin Gates
Ink, Pencil,
and Colored Pencil on Paper
Dimensions: 74
x 102 cm
Fondation Le
Corbusier, Paris.
© 2013 Artists
Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris / FLC
NATIONAL MUSEUM OF WESTERN ART TOKYO
VILLA SAVOYE POISSY 1928 – 1931
VILLA SAVOYE,
POISSY 1928 - 1931
Patio -
Photograph 2012.
The Museum of
Modern Art, New York.
Gift of Elise
Jaffe + Jeffrey Brown.
Photo © 2013
Richard Pare
VILLA SAVOYE
POISSY 1928 – 1931
Photograph 2012
The Museum of
Modern Art, New York.
Gift of Elise
Jaffe + Jeffrey Brown.
Photo © 2013
Richard Pare
VILLA JEANNERET
– PERRET, LA CHAUX DE FONDS 1912
Photograph.
2012.
© 2013 Artists
Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris/FLC
Photo © Richard
Pare
CHANDIGARH: A NEW URBAN LANDSCAPE FOR INDIA
After 1945 Le Corbusier would face new frustrations when the headquarters of the United Nations in New York were built by Wallace K. Harrison, based on sketches by Le Corbusier and Oscar Niemeyer. But he finally managed to design an entire city, the only one in his career, as the result of a commission from the Indian government. Le Corbusier developed the plan for Chandigarh, the new capital of the Indian state of Punjab, a project that enabled him to implement, over a vast territory, ideas developed 30 years earlier in relation to ancient Rome. Numerous drawings, sketches, and models of Chandigarh are on view. The flights he took twice a year between Europe and India provided the opportunity for him to practice “the view of the airplane,” as he termed it. The sketches on view retain the countless traces of his observations of continents, islands, and mountains. If the architecture of the 1920s was strongly related to his paintings, that of the 1950s echoed his sculptures, from works in wood produced by the Breton cabinet-maker Joseph Savina to sand-casts he developed in Long Island with Costantino Nivola. Le Corbusier also continued his
work as an author, publishing numerous books. With the Modulor, a system of harmonic proportions unveiled in New York in 1947, and on behalf of the "Synthesis of the Arts," he aimed to become the central figure of a modern architecture that was almost universally accepted by that time.
TOWARD THE MEDITERRANEAN, OR THE ETERNAL RETURN
During the last 15 years of his life, Le Corbusier appeared to achieve many of the objectives he had been pursuing for decades. He finally realized a building in the United States, the Carpenter Center at Harvard University, as well as five large residential units, including his building in Marseille. This project for a “unité d'habitation” (“housing unit”), or a “vertical garden city,” was developed in 1945 and commissioned for the rehousing of people left homeless by the war. In Marseille, for the 337 double-height apartments assembled on a reinforced concrete frame, Le
Corbusier used the proportions of the Modulor to design the elements of the building. The roughness of the surfaces and the traces of wooden formwork that resulted from the lack of sufficient skilled labor led him to assert the beauty of “rough” concrete. The interiors resulted from a collective effort. The built-in kitchen cupboards, designed by Charlotte Perriand, and the steel stairways, designed by Jean Prouvé, are complemented by elegant shelves. The loggias became an intermediary space between the interiors and the Provencal landscape. The building is represented in the exhibition through models, photos, drawings, and the final room-sized interior.
Toward the end of his career the question of landscape remained central to Le Corbusier's work, and he strove to respond to geography whether in the east of France, at Ronchamp, or in the region of Lyon at La Tourette. The hospital that he designed in Venice beginning in 1962 transposed the reflections he had made during the 1930s, and is represented through drawings, models, and plans.
You may visit MoMA’s Architectural department exhibitions news of Conceptions of Space and Cut 'n' Paste From Architectural Assemblage to Collage City both curated by Pedro Gadanho to click below links.
LE CORBUSIER
1887 – 1965
( French, Born Switzerland )
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