Le Corbusier

I got to Le Corbusier through his letters. It took me a long time to get him. When I began the book it was like facing a vault wall in a Swiss bank. It was as if there was every effort to keep the man from being known. But it was only when I discovered that he had written very intense letters to a friend when he was young and to his mother when he was older that I got to him. I also talked with as many people as I could find who knew him first-hand. Particularly helpful to me was his doctor, who still lives in Paris and who taught me a lot.I hope that my readers would include anybody who loves looking at things. Because the book is about color and form, and taking color and form in direction that no one in the world ever imagined before. I hope the book would appeal to music lovers.

Because Le Corbusier used to quote Nietzsche’s saying that architecture is fervent music, he grew up in a musical background, and many of the qualities of the spaces he made are musical. I hope the book would appeal to people who like love stories. Le Corbusier had a great and lusty affair with Josephine Baker. He had an interesting string of mistresses at the same time he had a profound attachment to his wife.

I hope that some of my readers will include people who like really neurotic behavior. And I do think the word “neurotic” is an understatement for a man who when he was sixty-two years old drew a picture of himself in the nude, showing an Indian bath and water dripping off of his penis, and he sent this picture to his ninety-two year old mother. I’d consider that fairly neurotic behavior. I hope the book would interest people who care about how the world reacted to Vichy and the government in France during the Second World War, because Le Corbusier certainly did try to work with the collaborationists. So it should appeal to a range of readers.