Wednesday 18 February 2009

Big Le Corbusier retrospective London

A major Le Corbusier retrospective starts Friday 19th Feb in London at the Barbican. It's an important exhibition which covers Le Corbusier's whole career- architecture, design, philosophy - and his influence on others. There's a tie in with the Xenakis Total Immersion Day on 7th March.

The exhibition, which runs to 24th May includes, according to the Barbican blurb, the "monumental mural painting, Femme et coquillage IV (1948) from his own office at Rues de Sèvres, Paris; a reconstruction of his Plan Voisin for Paris (1925); a complete original kitchen by Le Corbusier and Charlotte Perriand from his famous Unité d’habitation, Marseille (1947-50); original models of Ronchamp (1950-55), Unité d’habitation (1945-52), Parliament Building Chandigarh (1951-64) amongst others; and the film version of Le Corbusier and Edgard Varèse’s Poème Electronique (1958)." This later is a must for anyone interested in 20th century music, as it led to IRCAM and so much more. Lots of Picassos, Legers etc too.

Later I'll write about Le C, Xenakis, Varèse , the Philips Pavilion and Poème Electronique so watch this space - this blog can be bookmarked and subscribed to. In the meantime, here's a link to the article in the Times about the retrospective. There aren't any Le Corbusier buildings in England, so holding the show at the Barbican is as close as it gets. Pity that even after 25 years, I loathe the Barbican's demented anti-human, anti-intuitive architecture, with its appalling feng shui, as much as I love the clean tangents of Le Corbusier's work seen from photos. The photo above, Notre Dame du Haut in Ronchamp is by Guigui Yoshito.

Times article :

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/visual_arts/architecture_and_design/article5725116.ece

No comments: