Product Description

Architectural poetry in the machine age

Born Charles-Edouard Jeanneret, Le Corbusier (1887-1965) adopted his famous pseudonym after publishing his ideas in the review L’Esprit Nouveau in 1920. The few buildings he was able to design during the 1920s, when he also spent much of his time painting and writing, brought him to the forefront of modern architecture, though it wasn’t until after World War II that his epoch-making buildings were constructed, such as the Unité d’Habitation in Marseilles and the Church of Notre Dame du Haut in Ronchamp.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #242916 in Books
• Published on: 2005-01-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 96 pages

From the Publisher
Compact overviews of the world's greatest architects TASCHEN'S Basic Architecture Series

Basic Architecture features:
• Each title contains approximately 120 images, including photographs, sketches, drawings, and floor plans
• Introductory essays explore the architect’s life and work, touching on family and background as well as collaborations with other architects
• The body presents the most important works in chronological order, with descriptions of client and/or architect wishes, construction problems (why some projects were never executed), and resolutions
• The appendix includes a list of complete or selected works, biography, bibliography and a map indicating the locations of the architect’s most famous buildings

About the Author
In 1997, the French Minister of Culture appointed Jean-Louis Cohen to create the Cité de l'architecture, a museum, research, and exhibition center in Paris’s Palais de Chaillot. His research activity has been chiefly focused on 20th-century architecture and urban planning. He has studied German and Soviet architectural cultures in particular, and interpreted extensively Le Corbusier's work and Paris planning history. Cohen is the author and curator of many architecture books and exhibitions.

Customer Reviews

High Quality Introduction to Le Corbusier
The German Publishing Company, Taschen has recently introduced a series of paperback monographs describing the lives and works of the Twentieth Century's greatest architects. On average, they are 100 pages long and they are filled with numerous detailed photographs of the great architect and his buildings. They start with a ten page introduction to the architects life and then continue to short chapters that highlite their greatest buildings.

Whether you love or hate Le Corbusier, he was one of the great figures of the Twentieth Century. His ideas have helped shape urban life all over the world. If you want to consider yourself minimally knowledgable about modern architecture, you have to know about Le Corbusier. This book is a cheap, beautifully edited introduction to one of the leading lights of modernism. Once again, Taschen Publishing hits a home run.

good photos
lots of photos can do without some of the text but the photos are worth it