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World of Art

Le Corbusier

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Le Corbusier is probably the most famous and certainly the most controversial architect of the twentieth century. His impact on the urban fabric around us and on the way we live has been gigantic because of the richness and variety of his work and his passionately expressed philosophy of architecture. Weaving through his long and prolific life are certain recurrent themeshis perennial drive toward new types of dwelling, from the early white villas to the Unite d'Habitation at Marseille; his evolving concepts of urban form, including the Plan Voisin of 1925 with its cruciform towers imposed on the city of Paris and his work at Chandigarh in India; and his belief in a new technocratic order. The distinguished critic and historian Kenneth Frampton reexamines all these facets of his artistic and philosophical worldview in the light of recent discoveries, and presents us with a Le Corbusier for the twenty-first century. 200 b/w illustrations.

224 pages, Paperback

Published June 1, 2001

About the author

Kenneth Frampton

130 books82 followers
Kenneth Frampton is a British architect, critic, historian and the Ware Professor of Architecture at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation at Columbia University, New York.

Frampton studied architecture at Guildford School of Art and the Architectural Association School of Architecture, London. Subsequently he worked in Israel, with Middlesex County Council and Douglas Stephen and Partners (1961–66), during which time he was also a visiting tutor at the Royal College of Art (1961–64), tutor at the Architectural Association (1961–63) and Technical Editor of the journal Architectural Design (AD) (1962–65).
Frampton has also taught at Princeton University (1966–71) and the Bartlett School of Architecture, London, (1980). He has been a member of the faculty at Columbia University since 1972, and that same year he became a fellow of the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies in New York -- (whose members also included Peter Eisenman, Manfredo Tafuri and Rem Koolhaas) -- and a co-founding editor of its magazine Oppositions.
Frampton is a permanent resident of the USA.
Frampton is well known for his writing on twentieth-century architecture. His books include Modern Architecture: A Critical History (1980; revised 1985, 1992 and 2007) and Studies in Tectonic Culture (1995). Frampton achieved great prominence (and influence) in architectural education with his essay "Towards a Critical Regionalism" (1983) — though the term had already been coined by Alexander Tzonis and Liliane Lefaivre. Also, Frampton's essay was included in a book The Anti-Aesthetic. Essays on Postmodern Culture, edited by Hal Foster, though Frampton is critical of postmodernism. Frampton's own position attempts to defend a version of modernism that looks to either critical regionalism or a 'momentary' understanding of the autonomy of architectural practice in terms of its own concerns with form and tectonics which cannot be reduced to economics (whilst conversely retaining a Leftist viewpoint regarding the social responsibility of architecture).
In 2002 a collection of Frampton's writings over a period of 35 years was collated and published under the title Labour, Work and Architecture.

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91 reviews2 followers
July 19, 2019
The book presents a condensed overview of the life and work of one of the most important architects of the 20th century. The book is well illustrated albeit in black and white, whereas colours play such an important role in Le Corbusiers realisations.
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