Synopses & Reviews
In
Le Corbusier's Formative Years we learn what made Le Corbusier the person, and the designer that he was. Using twenty years of research, H. Allen Brooks has unearthed an incredible wealth of documents that show every facet of the formative years of this influential architect.
"There is much in this fine volume for anyone interested not just in architecture, but in the roots of human creativity and in the origins of the most powerful artistic current of our century. . . . This book is a life's work of scholarship. It has been well spent."and#8212;Toronto Globe and Mail
Synopsis
Brooks, during twenty years of painstaking research, has unearthed an incredible wealth of letters, diaries, family records, school reports, and unpublished sketches and drawings that document, beginning from birth, every facet of the formative years of this century's most influential architect and urbanist.
Synopsis
H. Allen Brooks, during twenty years of painstaking research, has unearthed an extraordinary wealth of letters, diaries, family records, school reports, and unpublished sketches and drawings that document, beginning from birth, every facet of the formative years of the twentieth-century's most influential architect and urbanist. For the first time we learn what made Le Corbusier the person, and the designer, that he was. Le Corbusier's Formative Years examines, drawing on precise data, every aspect of Le Corbusier's education from preschool through his training as a designer of ornamental watch cases and his early studies in decoration and architectural design. As a young man he traveled extensively, studying in Paris and Berlin before returning home to La Chaux-de-Fonds to teach and practice architecture, interior decoration, and furniture design. Finally, in 1917, he moved to Paris, where, after several unsuccessful years as an entrepreneur, he turned his talents to writing, painting, architecture, and urban design.
Table of Contents
Preface
Color Plates
I. La Chaux-de-Fonds, 1887-1907
1. Childhood and Early Schooling, 1887-1907
2. L'Ecole d'Art and Earliest Designs, 1902-1907
II. Travels and Apprenticeships, 1907-1911
3. Travels in Northern Italy, 1907
4. Vienna and Two Villa Designs, Winter 1907-1908
5. Paris: Auguste Perret and the Search for an Ideal, 1908-1909
6. Swiss Interlude: Jeanneret's Sojourn at Home
7. Germany and Jeanneret's Awakening: Peter Behrens and the Deutscher Werkbund, 1910-1911
8. Voyage d'Orient, 1911
III. Early Professional Career, 1912-1916
9. The Villas Jeanneret-Perret and Favre-Jacot and Jeanneret's Role as Teacher, 1912-1914
10. Dom-ino, La Scala, the Villa Schwob, and Furniture Design, 1914-1916
IV. Postscript
The Transitional Years: Jeanneret's Move to Paris, 1917-1920
Jeanneret's Publications, 1910-1919
Index