Le Corbusier: The Complete Buildings
Centrosoyuz, Moscow, Russia, 1928
We couldn’t call ourselves real architecture fans without regularly mentioning the C word. Corbusier, that is.
So, happily for us, architect and photographer Cemel Emden has published a beautifully-illustrated book featuring all 57 of the architectural pioneer’s remaining buildings. Praise be.
Atelier Ozenfant, Paris France, 1922, Unité d'Habitation, Marseille, Marseille, France, 1945, Cambridge Center for the Visual Arts, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, 1961
As you’d expect, it’s the sort of thing that would sit proudly upon Umbrella HQ’s high-grade polished concrete coffee table. If it actually existed.
Taken over a six-year period, the pictures are the most comprehensive photographic archive of Le Corbusier’s work to date, taking in every one of the buildings he built between 1905-1965 – including 17 projects featured on the UNESCO list of World Heritage sites.
Villa Savoye et Loge du Jardiner, Poissy, France, 1928
College of Architecture, Chandigarh, India, 1950-65
Everything from his groundbreaking Villa Vallet in Switzerland (built 1905) to the mindblowing Unité d‘Habitation in Marseilles (1947) is recorded with exquisite interior and exterior shots. And while the forms of the buildings vary wildly, the level of quality and attention-to-detail is impeccable throughout.
“It’s the sort of thing that would sit proudly upon Umbrella HQ’s high-grade polished concrete coffee table. If it actually existed.”
Unité d'Habitation, Berlin, Germany, 1957, Palace of Assembly, Chandigarh, India, 1955, National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo, Japan, 1955
Interspersed throughout the book are texts by leading architects and scholars, whose commentaries help tell the story of Le Corbusier’s passion for the design process and the creative potential of the materials he built with – in particular, concrete. A truly indispensable guide to modernism’s greatest innovator.
Le Corbusier: The Complete Buildings by Cemel Emden, £39.99, Out now.