LE CORBUSIER OEUVRE COMPLETE 1946-1952
Le Corbusier, Willy Boesiger
Le Corbusier, Willy Boesiger: LE CORBUSIER OEUVRE COMPLETE 1946-1952. Zurich: Editions Girsberger, 1953. First edition. Text in French, with articles only in German and English. Oblong quarto. Tan cloth embossed and stamped in brown. 248 pp. 700 color and black and white photographs, sketches, drawings, and floor plans. American distributor (Wittenborn) rubber stamp above colophon. Mild sun shadowing to the edges: a near fine copy of the first edition. 11 x 9 hardcover book with 248 pages over 700 b/w and color photographs, sketches, drawings, and floor plans.The fifth volume in the Le Corbusier "Oeuvre Complète" series, recording his designs for the Trouinade, the United Nations, the CIAM Grid, Ronchamp, some of his major buildings at Chandigarh, the Modular, Marseilles, lithographs, paintings, sculpture, sketches and much more. A nice first edition from one of the great architectural publishing ventures of the 20th century.
No disrespect to Birkhauser, but the contemporary reprints of this series cannot hold a candle to the sharp image engraving or the crisp feel of the type on the glossy pages. The stamped cloth covers also help make examining these volumes a very tactile experience.
Born Charles-Edouard Jeanneret, Le Corbusier (1887-1965) adopted his famous pseudonym after publishing his ideas in the review L¹Esprit 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 wasn¹t until after World War II that his epoch-making buildings were constructed, such as the Unité d¹Habitation in Marseilles and the Church of Notre Dame du Haut in Ronchamp.
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