Le Corbusier
In the world of architecture there is one person who has mattered in the last hundred years and his name is Le Corbusier. Above all others, we have Corbusier to thank for the Modern movement. It's no surprise, then, that as students we hear his name a lot. Just when you think you've done something original you find out that Corbusier did it and probably almost a hundred years ago.
Lucky for me that he is also one of the best documented architects to have ever built. The cornerstone of his documented life is the much revered Oeuvre Complète: eight volumes of Corbusiers work outlined in painstaking detail by the architect himself. Some two thousand pages filled with sketches, drawings, photographs, and writings about the many buildings he designed. How nice it is to read this kind of pure optimism:
Differences of style, the trivialities of passing fashion, which are only illusions or mascarades, do not concern me. No, what appeals to me is the magnificent phenomenon of architecture -- I mean the intellectual quality inherent in its organization -- which, for the creative mind, constitutes a system capable of expressing, not a mere reflection of one's personal predelictions, but a microcosmic synthesis of contemporary history.
The man who sold it to me consoled my sticker shock by saying, "he may make you angry, but Corb will never let you down." And it's a good thing the book came packed in a cardboard box with peanuts, because at this price I won't be eating for months.
Mapping
Have you seen the flash map on the front of my site? If you would like to have your own map such a thing is now possible. I present to you, dear reader, IndyJunior.
--Posted 03/23/03 07:32PM