Monday, May 27, 2013

Who says we cannot dance about architecture?

 Trying to come to grips with Le Corbusier--an on again/off again endeavor of mine for decades--a presence forever looming, like the Chapelle Notre Dame du Haut in Ronchamp, one of my favorite buildings, yet forever unattainable-- but also like so many of his other buildings (realized and not) that leave me cold--the cavalier trajectory of his urban vistas--how I so appreciate what he wrote and what he painted, the lightness of line and all that emphatic certitude, while so mistrusting the outcomes of his architecture--admiration mixed with wariness.
 Regardless, what most intrigues are his polymathic means to singular goals-- starting with his self-declared alias (a mask that lays bare?), and the oft-remarked fact that, when he gained French citizenship, he entered "homme de lettres" as his occupation on his identity card/passport.  


A belletrist then, a self-declared citizen of the Republic of Letters...to encompass all else, or at least to order the others: the architect, the painter, the designer, the one who sketches.



Two months before he died, in his final interview, Le Corbusier said: “...not being able to build certain things, I could draw them; but not being able to explain them entirely in drawing, especially when it came to urbanism, I had to explain them, so I wrote.”



So maybe we can actually dance about architecture...


No comments: