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Le Corbusier and the Tragic View of Architecture

Le Corbusier and the Tragic View of Architecture by Charles Jencks (Allen Lane / Penguin Books Ltd, 1973)  is a critical monograph of Le Corbusier’s career and contradictory personality.

17,00 

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Le Corbusier and the Tragic View of Architecture by Charles Jencks (1939–2019) discusses the life and legacy of Le Corbusier (1887–1965), the most influential and highly esteemed protagonist of a modern language of architecture. The book is a critical monograph of Le Corbusier’s career and contradictory personality.

For Jencks, Le Corbusier presented a tragic view of architecture because of his Nietzschean worldview where juxtaposed the hero’s suffering with the delight of the audience. According to Jencks, Le Corbusier continually cut himself away from his friends, colleagues and society in order to create a new synthesis in his architecture. The book is richly illustrated with architectural photos of Le Corbusier’s works together with other archive images and drawings.

Somehow the idealistic action of the tragic hero cheats his defeat of its ultimate pain. Le Corbusier continually tried to realise his goal of ‘harmony’ for an industrial civilisation, but was repulsed so often that his incessant efforts appear to be literally mad, insane, pragmatically futile. What was the meaning of an idealism which would only fail again? Perhaps symbolic. Perhaps Le Corbusier, like the tragic hero, saw the conflict between his ideals and society as being of equal importance as the attainment of the ideals.
— Charles Jencks, Le Corbusier and the Tragic View of Architecture , p. 182.

Our copy in stock is in good condition. The dust jacket is a bit faded, and has signs of use and shelf wear. The pages are tidy except for a couple of markings here and there. The binding is fine. Please note that the product photos are from our earlier copy.

Weight 708 g
Dimensions 22,2 × 19,5 × 2,5 cm
Author(s)

Charles Jencks

Publisher

Allen Lane, Penguin Books

Publishing year

1973

Language

Images

 sketches, architectural drawings, b&w photos

Binding

Hardcover

Condition

Number of pages

198

ISBN

0 71390441 0