Tag Archives: Plan Voisin

See how form follows fiasco

I’ve just started rereading the late Peter Blake’s slender 1960 hagiography of French architect Le Corbusier, born Charles-Édouard Jeanneret in Switzerland. A far better book on Corbu, as he is known by his many deluded admirers, is Le Corbusier: The … Continue reading

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Is Wuhan China’s Chicago?

Wuhan, the Chinese city where the Wuhan virus originated, is sometimes called “The Chicago of China” for its size (pop. 11.8 million), its central location, its setting on the Yangtze River and its historic buildings and its modern architecture. Here … Continue reading

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More on ‘Making Dystopia’

A book whose vile subjects have grown used to shucking off well-framed attacks for decades, and yet whose stranglehold on establishment thinking has loosened in recent years, is naturally offended by what could be their coup de grâce. So it … Continue reading

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Corbusier’s nasty drivel

Anthony Daniels wrote in 2015 a masterful defenestration of modern architecture’s chief founder, “The Cult of Le Corbusier,” for Quadrant, an Australian magazine. I offer this one quote, along with my assurance that the essay in its entirety will comfort … Continue reading

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Le era (er, error) de Corbu

Here is what Alistair Horne has to say about Le Corbusier in his book Seven Ages of Paris. It is on page 330. In my opinion, he lets the guy off too lightly. … [A]fter 1919 most new building shifted … Continue reading

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Wherefore art thou, Corbuseo?

Correspondent Malcolm Millais, author of Exploding the Myths of Modern Architecture (2009) has sent me a 29-minute BBC clip of a radio show, “Great Lives,” starring the modernist Sir David Chipperfield rattling on about Le Corbusier, one of, no, perhaps … Continue reading

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