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Le Corbusier

a life

By Weber, Nicholas Fox

Publishers Summary:
"In this first biography of the man, Nicholas Fox Weber writes about Le Corbusier the precise, mathematical, practical-minded artist whose idealism - vibrant, poetic, imaginative; discipline; and sensualism were reflected in his iconic designs and pioneering theories of architecture and urban planning." "We see how Le Corbusier, who appreciated governments only for the possibility of obtaining architectural commissions, was drawn to the new Soviet Union and extolled the merits of communism (he never joined the party); and in 1928, as the possible architect of a major new building, went to Moscow, where he was hailed by Trotsky and was received at the Kremlin. Le Corbusier praised the ideas of Mussolini and worked for two years under the Vichy government, hoping to oversee new construction and urbanism throughout France. Le Corbusier believed that Hitler and Vichy rule would bring about "a marvelous transformation of society," then renounced the doomed regime and went to work for Charles de Gaulle and his provisional government." "Weber writes about Le Corbusier's fraught relationships with women (he remained celibate until the age of twenty-four and then often went to prostitutes); about his twenty-seven-year-long marriage to a woman who had no interest in architecture and forbade it being discussed at the dinner table; about his numerous love affairs during his marriage, including his shipboard romance with the twenty-three-year-old Josephine Baket, already a legend in Paris, whom he saw as a "pure and guileless soul." She saw him as "irresistibly funny." "What a shame you're an architect!" she wrote. "You'd have made such a good partner!""--BOOK JACKET.

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ISBN

978-0-37541-043-7

Publisher

New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2008.