Customer Reviews

Le Corbusier: The Poetics of Machine and Metaphor (Universe Architecture Series)

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A rather slight but very appealling work on Le Corbusier. Tzonis has distilled the rich and varied work of this master of Modern Architecture into a beautifully organized book. He covers Corbu's life from his humble origins in the Swiss Alps to the international influence his ideas would have on architecture. There are many illustrations of his buildings and evocative sketches from Corbu's journals, but this is less a study than it is an evocation of Le Corbusier.

Yet, Tzonis questions some of Corbu's positions especially in regard to his relationships with Stalin and Mussolini, making it seem that Le Corbusier was less an idealist and more a totalitarian when it came to his urbanistic visions. When Le Corbusier proposed the Plan Voisin for Paris, he paid homage to King Louis XIV, noting that only a despot could have carried out such grand visions.

Tzonis also discusses the important role Corbu's early travels had in shaping his views, particularly his "Journey to the East." It is here that he found many of the forms which he would reduce to a "kit of parts" that he employed over and over again in his later work, finding new meanings and many rich combinations.