Le Corbusier: A Life

Category: Books,Biographies & Memoirs,Historical

Le Corbusier: A Life Details

From Booklist *Starred Review* Universally recognized for his radical theories and daring buildings, the architect, urban designer, utopist, and painter who called himself Le Corbusier has nonetheless remained an enigma. Now Weber, an exceptional arts biographer, delivers the first comprehensive biography of Charles-Édouard Jeanneret. Born in 1887 to Swiss Calvinists, he escaped his Alpine watchmaking hometown at 19 and embarked on a life of work, travel, and controversy. Anchored in Paris, he ran a brick factory, obsessed over sex, started a magazine, and became a self-taught architect on a mission to improve the world. Cascading detail makes this a towering work. What makes it compelling is the masterful use Weber makes of his unprecedented access to the architect’s wildly expressive letters. Liberally quoted throughout, these rants, pleas, and manifestos chart Le Corbusier’s knotty relationship with his parents; marriage to lonely, alcoholic Yvonne; and shipboard romance with Josephine Baker. Weber sees Le Corbusier, who was blind in one eye and unconscionably opportunistic, as straddling the line between “genius and insanity” during the epic struggles to bring his revolutionary ideas to fruition. Both megalomaniacal and brilliant, Le Corbusier emerges from Weber’s mesmerizing pages in all his complexity. --Donna Seaman Read more Review “Weber’s admiring biography brings Le Corbusier to life, unraveling many obscure aspects of a man who was famously secretive and, though he wrote some 50 books, divulged very little of himself. . .[Weber] allows Le Corbusier to emerge as a fascinating if flawed human being.”—Witold Rybczynski, The New York Times Book Review “Both megalomaniacal and brilliant, Le Corbusier emerges from Weber’s mesmerizing pages in all his complexity.”—Booklist, starred “Full of provocative insights and welcome surprises.”—The New York Times “The deeply felt tribute to Le Corbusier’s work is enriched by Weber’s engrossing, entertaining portrait of his complex personality.”—Kirkus Reviews, starred Read more See all Editorial Reviews

Reviews

Le Corbusier, A Life, is a most comprehensive biography of the renowned architect. From his birth in 1887 to his demise in 1965, Mr. Weber covers his life in a personal way, from correspondence with his mother, brother, paramours, and clients. The reader may need to skim the chapters of the architect's earlier life, should he or she get bogged down in Le Corbusier's self-obsessed navel-starring days of his youth, and the book is over 700 pages long.As an architect, I found the author's coverage of his built projects especially interesting, and at this point the book, for me, had new energy. Mr. Weber gives the background and history behind the structure, the travails of dealing with clients, and a mentally illustrative description of their physical form. More illustrations, and their placement closer to the text to which they relate, would have clarified the work more visually. Also noteworthy is the author's description of Le Corbusier's life in France during World War II. Obsessed with the need to build structures and organize cities, he worked with the provisional German government in Vichy, a fact he veiled in later in his life.Le Corbusier's person comes alive, good and bad, through the author's discovery of his private life and actions. From needing his mother's approval, though she favored his older brother, to worshipping his wife Yvonne while pursuing other women, Mr. Weber paints a picture of the complex man and genius who was Le Corbusier.

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