Le Corbusier. Ideas And Forms: Edition en langue anglaise - Softcover

"William J. R. Curtis is the best architectural historian writing in the English language, and that alone makes this book something of an event."-Chicago Tribune "This is not only the best single work on Le Corbusier - a model of scholarship, erudite yet eminently readable - it is also an invaluable analysis of the creative architectural process. It should be read and re-read by every student of architecture."-Building Design "It is as incisive narrative, informed by biography and illuminated by penetrating critical commentary, that this book excels."-Times Literary Supplement "An admirable introduction to Le Corbusier's life and work. It is also a record of personal observation and synthesis by an informed and shrewdly sensitive author which will remain valid and fresh long term"-Architectural Review "The most lucid and complete chronicle yet available of Le Corbusier's achievement. This book excels."-AIA Journal "A fantastic new edition from Phaidon."-The Daily Beast "An exceptional history and a spectacular collection of images."-Metropolis Magazine "Impressive... Any committed bibliophile should splash out on this new, seductively hefty tome... A succinct over-view of one man's determination to change the world... We are fortunate to have Curtis'; considered critique to vouchsafe Corb's rightful place in the architectural pantheon."-RIAS Quarterly

Le Corbusier (1887-1965) has been one of the dominant forces in twentieth-century architecture and a legendary pioneering figure. Many of the forms he created have become archetypes of modernism. Yet he was also a social visionary and a writer of powerful polemics whose ideas have generated intense and partisan controversy. Now available for the first time in paperback, Le Corbusier: Ideas and Forms provides a comprehensive and objective survey that exposes Le Corbusier through a more balanced perspective than ever before. Making full use of the 'Le Corbusier Archive', the author documents individual projects in detail, while linking the imaginative activities of the artist to his philosophy of life, his urban visions, his art and the cultural predicaments of his times. He analyses Le Corbusier's phenomenal powers of abstraction and synthesis, to illustrate 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. This intimate and meticulous 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 ideologies a suitable symbolic form. It shows, in turn, how this most 'modern' of architects constantly found profound inspiration in both nature and architectural tradition.