The page with the parthenon and the motorcar - is it the most famous page in any architecture book anywhere? A hundred years later it’s power to shock is all used up it’s been so throughily absorbed into the mainstream.

It analyses Greek architecture in paticular and clearly Le Corbusier wants to make a clear link with early simpler forms of classisism linking to it’s use of primary forms. Although represented as a break from past styles.A polemical manifesto and a great sales pitch. Using images to shock and persuade as much as words. The book is an exceptional object in itself.Towards an Architecture is a manifesto and a highly polemical book for his Architectural program. Key ThoughtsĬar and Parthenon together possibly the most famous page in any Architecture Book. Throughout the twenties and thirties much of his Architecture will look like something straight from this book, after WWII not so much. So the book signals the start of the Architect Le Corbusier and brings together his thoughts and analysis he had made over the years before and acted as a kind of launch for his version of modernism. He founded his Architectural practice with his cousin Pierre Jeanneret in 1922 and the book published with articles culled from the magazine. Some of the articles in the magazine were then brought together into the book Towards an Architecture. IntroductionĬharles-Édouard Jeanneret moved to Paris in 1917 and with the painter Amédée Ozenfant and poet Paul Dermée in 1918 he founded L’Esprit Nouveau a magazine that ran until 1922 they both decided to use nom de plume’s and Jeanneret renamed himself Le Corbusier. It’s a tour de force in rhetoric, theory and furturism. It’s translated title ‘Towards a New Architecture’ went on to become one of the most influential Architectural written works since then.Ī rhetorical cornerstone of the modernist movement it’s used both to support or attack modernism depending on which side of the style wars people sit. The Book Towards an Architecture was published in 1923, written by the Swiss Architect Charles-Édouard Jeanneret who had christened himself Le Corbusier. A short review and a set of notes from the book. A foundational text which followers and detractors must both read as the territory that Architecture is fought over is shaped partially by this book. One of Architectures most famous books which heralded the start of modernism and modern architecture as we know it today. Towards A New Architecture Buy on Amazon.

Towards a new architecture