Dimensions
215 x 280 x 20mm
Part of the Le Corbusier series
Le Corbusier (1887-1965) has been one of the dominant forces in twentieth-century architecture, and many of the forms he created have become archetypes of modernism. But he was also a social visionary and a writer of polemics, whose ideas have generated intense and partisan controversy. 'Le Corbusier: Ideas and Forms' provides a comprehensive and unbiased survey that puts Le Corbusier in a more balanced perspective.
Making full use of the Le Corbusier archive, the author documents individual projects in detail, whilst linking the imaginative activities of the artist in his philosophy of life, to his urban visions, to his art and to the cultural predicaments of his times. He analyses Le Corbusier's phenomenal powers of abstraction and synthesis, showing how he created a potent architectural vocabulary based on a limited range of types and elements, and how he used it to generate architectural forms of compelling force. Close study of all Le Corbusier's major buildings, from first sketches to final achievement, reveals the artist's struggle to reconcile the ideal and the practical and to give institutions and idealogies a suitable symbolic form. It also reveals how this most "modern" of architects constantly found inspiration in nature and in architectural tradition.
Includes colour and black-and-white illustrations.
