Le Corbusiers Hands

Download or read book Le Corbusier's Hands written by Andre Wogenscky and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2006-02-10 with total page 101 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Le Corbusier's assistant and fellow architect remembers his mentor in a series of concise and poetic reflections. Le Corbusier's Hands offers a poetic and personal portrait of Le Corbusier—a nuanced portrayal that is in contrast to the popular image of Le Corbusier the aloof modernist. The author knew Le Corbusier intimately for thirty years, first as his draftsman and main assistant, later as his colleague and personal friend. In this book, written in the mid-1980s, Wogenscky remembers his mentor in a series of revealing personal statements and evocative reflections unlike anything that exists in the vast literature on Le Corbusier. Wogenscky draws a portrait in swift, deft strokes—50 short chapters, one leading to the next, one memory of Le Corbusier opening into another. Appearing and reappearing like a leitmotif are Le Corbusier's hands—touching, taking, drawing, offering, closing, opening, grasping, releasing: "It was his hands that revealed him.... They spoke all his feelings, all the vibrations of his inner life that his face tried to conceal." Wogenscky writes about Le Corbusier's work, including the famous design of the chapel at Ronchamp, his ideas for high-density Unités d'Habitation linked to the center of a "Radiant City," and his "Modulor" system for defining proportions—which Wogenscky compares to a piano tuner's finding the exact relation between sounds. He remembers the day Picasso spent with Le Corbusier at the Marseilles building site—"All day long they outdid one another in a show of modesty," he observes in amazement. He adds, speaking for himself and the others present, "We were inside a double energy field." And Wogenscky writes about Le Corbusier more personally. "I have spent years trying to understand what went on in his mind and in his hand," he tells us. With Le Corbusier's Hands, Wogenscky gives us a unique record of an enigmatic genius.

Download or read book The Open Hand written by Russell Walden and published by Cambridge : MIT Press. This book was released on 1977 with total page 522 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The fourteen essays are by Russell Walden, Paul Turner, Patricia Sekler, Maurice Favre, Brian Taylor, Charles Jencks, Anthony Sutcliffe, Robert Fishman, Martin Purdy, John Winter, Maxwell Fry, Jane Drew, Madhu Sarin, and Stanislaus von Moos.

Download or read book Precisions on the Present State of Architecture and City Planning written by Le Corbusier and published by Park Publishing (WI). This book was released on 2015-03 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Coinciding with the 50th anniversary of his death (August 27, 2015), one of Le Corbusier's most significant books becomes available again in English. We are doing a reprint of MIT Press's first edition of 1991, which again is based on the original French version of 1930, with an introduction added by the author in 1960. While the MIT Press version had black-and-white illustrations throughout, Park Books' new edition features some of Le Corbusier's drawings in color as they were in the earlier French editions. A new essay by British scholar Tim Benton, written for this new edition, contextualizes the book within Le Corbusier's oeuvre and comments on its lasting significance. An also new appendix explains specialist terms and provides background information on persons and historic events no longer necessarily known to a younger generation of architects. The Precisions, as the book is known commonly, emerged from a spontaneous and exuberant series of 10 lectures Le Corbusier gave in Buenos Aires during the fall of 1929. As he spoke, Le Corbusier improvised drawings on large sheets of paper with crayons. While similar drawings appear in other works, here all the lectures and images appear in their original context as Le Corbusier assembled them more than 80 years ago. The texts reflect a new maturity in Le Corbusier's thinking and an extreme confidence in the development of his ideas. The drawings and lectures are unique in their eloquent and concise summary of his philosophy of architecture and urban design, stating the principles that informed his work from the 1920s on. They contain some of his most compelling aphorisms, both verbal and visual, covering technique as the basis of architecture, the human scale in design, furniture, the private house, apartments and office buildings, the city, the League of Nations competition, teaching architecture, and a splendid analysis of the transformation of his own work in houses from La Roche-Jeanneret to the Villa Savoye. [Based on MIT Press's copy for their 1991 edition]

Download or read book Journey to the East written by Le Corbusier and published by MIT Press (MA). This book was released on 1987 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shares the influential architect's account of a 1911 trip through central and eastern Europe and includes sketches he made along the way.

Download or read book Le Corbusier - Œuvre complète Volume 1: 1910-1929 written by Willy Boesiger and published by Birkhäuser. This book was released on 2015-04-24 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This exceptional Complete Works edition documents the enormous spectrum in the oeuvre of one of the most influential architects of the 20th Century. Published between 1929 and 1970, in close collaboration with Le Corbusier himself, and frequently reprinted ever since, the eight volumes comprise an exhaustive and singular survey of his work.

Download or read book Le Corbusier and the Maisons Jaoul written by Caroline Benton and published by Princeton Architectural Press. This book was released on 2009-05-08 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1955, just as the world was pigeonholing him as the high priest of modernism, Le Corbusier shocked the architecture world with – of all things – weekend houses. Built of brick, concrete, stone, and timber, the Maisons Jaoul are the antithesis of everything commonly referred to as “Corbusian.” Their surprising scale gives them a magnificent sculptural presence and the uncharacteristically raw materiality of their exteriors – oozing mortar, rough brick – gives them a deliberately crude, almost craftlike, appearance. Le Corbusier and the Maisons Jaoul is the first book-length, detailed examination of these lesser-known, yet architecturally significant houses. Built for André Jaoul and his son – and their wives – the Maisons Jaoul encompassed four years of intense design activity. Using previously unpublished sources, author Caroline Maniaque Benton thoroughly captures Le Corbusier’s extraordinary journey of discovery. Valuable insights are gleaned from conversations between clients, draughtsmen, and craftsmen; firsthand documents; and letters in Le Corbusier’s own hand.

Download or read book Modern Man written by Anthony Flint and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2014 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Journalist Flint recounts the life and times of the legendary architect Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, aka Le Corbusier, and provides illuminating details of his most iconic projects.