Le Corbusier

Architectural poetry in the machine age


"Architecture is the masterly, correct and magnificent play of volumes brought together in light."
- Le Corbusier

Born Charles-Edouard Jeanneret, Le Corbusier (1887-1965) adopted his famous pseudonym after publishing his ideas in the review L`Esprit 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 wasn`t until after World War II that his epoch-making buildings were constructed, such as the Unité d`Habitation in Marseilles and the Church of Notre Dame du Haut in Ronchamp.

About the Series:
Every book in TASCHEN's Basic Architecture Series features:
  • approximately 120 images, including photographs, sketches, drawings, and floor plans
  • introductory essays exploring the architect's life and work, touching on family and background as well as collaborations with other architects
  • the most important works presented in chronological order, with descriptions of client and/or architect wishes as well as construction problems and resolutions
  • an appendix including a list of complete or selected works, biography, bibliography, and a map indicating the locations of the architect's most famous buildings


The author:
In 1997, the French Minister of Culture appointed Jean-Louis Cohen to create the Cité de l'architecture—a museum, research, and exhibition center in Paris's Palais de Chaillot. Cohen's research has focused principally on 20th-century architecture and urban planning, and his studies on German and Soviet architectural cultures. The author and curator of numerous books and exhibitions on architecture, he is an internationally acknowledged authority on Le Corbusier's work.

Le Corbusier

Le Corbusier

Jean-Louis Cohen
Softcover, flaps, 7.3 x 9.1 in., 96 pages, $ 9.99
ISBN 978-3-8228-3535-7
Edition: English
Availability: In Stock
  • Reviews
"Von A wie Ando bis W wie Frank Lloyd Wright ergibt die Reihe eine illustre Ehrengalerie berühmter Architekten und ihrer wichtigsten Werke. Namhafte Autoren beschreiben erfrischend lebendig und pointiert Leben, Entwicklungslinien und die berühmtesten Arbeiten der von ihnen präsentierten Architekten. Informationen zu Auftraggebern, Voraussetzungen und Schwierigkeiten bei der Realisierung von Häusern fehlen ebenso wenig wie eine chronologische Liste der Arbeiten, die Künstlerbiographie und eine Karte mit den Standorten der besten und bekanntesten Bauwerke des Architekten. Die einzelnen Bauten sind reich bebildert, die Bilder in teils seitengroßen Formaten ein Genuss." Gat.st, Graz, Austria