Le Corbusier: An Atlas of Modern Landscapes

Received a couple of days ago and had a chance to thumb through the 1-1/2" book so far.I went to see the show about a month ago. The study models, large sketches and 8 mm movies were helpful to understand the architect's design process. For some reason, the full size mock-ups of interior spaces weren't as effective. The book/catalog is priced quite low. It's about same as the admission fees for two of us at MOMA if we didn't go on the Free Night. I wish the pictures of the sketches were larger in the book. The book is very comprehensive. The number of Maps, sketches, paintings, photos, and essays are overwhelming but it would be a good reference when trying to find out more about a particular building or a certain period of his life. I am very happy with the book.

Great addition to a personal design library.Excellent chronological collection of Corbu's work.Great complement to the many theoretical books on Corbusier' work.High quality publication.

If you were at MOMA for the exhibition, and particularly if you, like me, couldn't make it, you need this fix. We who grew up in the 20th Century were taught to worship certain master architects, seminal artists, and form givers. Corbu was one of those gods. The graphic documentation is essential information, you may scan the text to refresh your early education, or you may read and think deeply about architecture and the meaning of life, at your leisure.PS: This looks really impressive on the coffee table. Your non-architect friends will be impressed.

This book has lots of nice pictures to flip though. My wife has it as a coffee table book for bored people, like me sometimes, to just flip through and it does a good job of that.

Issued in conjunction with a major exhibition at New York's Museum of Modern Art, this volume is handsomely produced, with many new photographs. However, the aspiration of the authors to create a kind of ultimate reference work on this seminal architect falls short of the mark. For one thing there is only a summary bibliography at the end. Yet one of the strengths of current Corbu scholarship is the profusion of monographs on individual buildings. For the most part these revealing publications are not even acknowledged.In keeping with the "atlas" designation the books does succeed in showing the geographical dispersal of the architect's work, which is not just limited, as many assume, to France, Switzerland, and India.Yet the other task of the volume, to establish the bonding of the architect with the natural environment, turns out to be unsuccessful. The dust jacket sports a view of the iconic Villa Savoye in its present park-like setting. Immediately, though, the eye is drawn to the presence of the pilotis, Corbu's characteristic slender posts which serve to elevate the living quarters of the house from the ground. Unlike his great rival Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier had no wish to embed his structures in the bosom of nature, but to enable them to break free of it. Healthy living, he held, requires us to separate ourselves from the dank, insalubrious earth. Instead we must revel in the freedom of light and air, exulting in "les heures claires," as the villa was called. For the architect nature and culture were opposed, and he came down decisively on the side of the latter.To put the matter bluntly and directly, the subtext of this elaborate volume is an effort to ally Le Corbusier with today's ecological movement. The marriage fails.

This book does phenomenal justice to a great architect.

Gorgeous photography! Very comprehensive and inspiring! Excellent book!!!