Le Corbusier Sketchbooks, Vol. 2, 1950-1954 [Hardcover]

Architectural History Foundation (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0262120909 | ISBN-13: 978-0262120906 | Publication Date: December 3, 1981 | Edition: First Edition

"These notebooks are the most private of Le Corbusier's work, the most spontaneous, perhaps the most significant, encompassing all the others ;the work of an entire lifetime." ;André Wogenscky, President, Fondation Le CorbusierThis second volume in the series of four Le Corbusier Sketchbooks contains notes and sketches Le Corbusier made in the 1950s, a particularly rich period for him. During that time he received the commission for Chandigarh -- a mandate to create an entirely new capital to house the government of the recently created state of Punjab. The next year, he began working on projects for two villas and the Millowners' Building at Ahmedabad. All ten original notebooks record Le Corbusier's reaction to this exotic and complex culture, his interest in its vernacular architecture, and his preoccupation with environmental control through architectural design. They demonstrate how he converted new experiences into unique and very personal designs. They also record his bitter disappointment at being excluded from work on the United Nations building in New York.These sketchbooks also document the years when Le Corbusier transformed his strict, glass-and-metal International Style into aggressively sculptural forms. Here are the initial drawings for this changing sensibility: the Unité d'habitation at Marseille (1947-1952), and the revolutionary pilgrimage chapel at Ronchamp (1950-1954).

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The publication of Le Corbusier's sketchbooks is, perhaps, the most important documentation to date of anything to do with the Modern Movement."
- Philip Johnson



"A unique record of the mental processes of the most influential architect of the twentieth century."
- Vincent Scully



"Overwhelming-both as an outstanding scholarly achievement and as a visually and intellectually stimulating compendium of thoughts and notations of Le Corbusier."
- Richard Meier



"In the sketchbooks, Le Corbusier's drawings run the gamut from the coldly analytical to the warmly romantic.... [They] not only provide clues as to what he was about as an architect and as a painter, they also reveal and comment on a more gentle, receptive side of his personality - a side that he generally sought to hide under the guise of Le Corbusier, the architect."
- David Gebhard, The New York Times Magazine --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 550 pages
• Publisher: The MIT Press; First Edition edition (December 3, 1981)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0262120909
• ISBN-13: 978-0262120906
• Product Dimensions: 11 x 10.5 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.9 pounds
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,826,038 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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