Bergery’s close access to Pétain had impressed Le Corbusier from his earliest days in Vichy. A former radical, socialist, and left-wing dissident, Bergery had shifted course by supporting the Munich accord of 1938—the agreement whereby Chamberlain and Daladier granted Hitler all he wanted in Czechoslovakia. Previously, Le Corbusier had railed against that agreement; now he was more than happy to have one of its supporters as an ally. In July 1940, just before Pétain was granted his fullest power, Bergery had published a profascist declaration calling “for collaboration with Germany, and the organization of a new authoritarian order in France.”8 He actively supported a German-style youth movement.
Another of Le Corbusier’s fellows on the committee was his acquaintance of three years’ standing, Alexis Carrel. In November 1941, Carrel had, under Pétain’s authority, created the Foundation for the Study of Human Problems, an organization comprising mainly medical specialists whose purpose was to “study the most appropriate measures to safeguard, improve and develop the French population.” Carrel espoused the idea of “reconstructing mankind” as part of Vichy’s campaign for “national renewal.” This meant that boys were to be brought up as part of a “virile elite,” while women were to assume their domestic roles as wives and mothers to serve men and the home. That development would reestablish the “‘natural’ sexual order” essential to the eradication of current French decadence.9
In 1936, Carrel had written, in the preface to the German edition of Man, the Unknown, “In Germany, the government has taken energetic measures against the increase of minorities, criminals, and the insane. The ideal situation would be that each individual of this kind be eliminated once he has shown himself to be dangerous.”10 This was consistent with Carrel’s recommendation, initially made in that widely disseminated book, for the “creation of euthanasia establishments provided with appropriate gas.” The doctor continued to advocate that concept as an essential element of the Foundation for the Study of Human Problems.
Le Corbusier’s idea of destroying the most decrepit parts of cities echoed Carrel’s concept of extermination. There was, to be sure, a fundamental difference between buildings and people, but each believed in total razing, a cleansing of what they considered decadent or useless. Le Corbusier owned Carrel’s seminal book and annotated his copy copiously.
From Queen’s Hotel in Vichy, Le Corbusier was in close touch with Carrel, who maintained his residence in Paris at 20 rue de la Baume, in the eighth arrondissement. In February 1942, Carrel sent Le Corbusier a letter to thank him for having sent On the Four Roads, his book of the previous year that addresses the issue of how the human race moves—in relation to the four elements of earth, air, iron, and water. Carrel congratulated him on the energies he had consecrated to the issues of urbanism and architecture, and voiced his belief that he and Le Corbusier were thinking in a similar vein. He wrote the architect, “Among its diverse activities the French Foundation for the Study of Human Problems proposes to clarify certain rules for habitation, and I attach, as you know, a very great importance to the influence of milieu on human beings. The present time poses numerous problems, and we must study them thoroughly before administering indispensable remedies.”11
Having recently met with Carrel in Paris, Le Corbusier had written to say how pleased he was that Carrel had promised the committee he was trying to form “the collaboration of your Research Institute and your personal sympathy.”12 When Pétain made the committee official ten days later, Le Corbusier was thrilled to have the maniacal doctor among the members.
AT THE END of March, Le Corbusier proudly described the mandate of the new committee to his mother, “From Paris our mission will spread to other cities and the French countryside and to the empire.” Accordingly, he was about to return to Algiers, where, in spite of his previous skepticism concerning its political stability, he would meet with the governor general in the course of a monthlong visit. He was realistic about his potential effectiveness, writing that in Algiers he would wage “the first serious battle of modern urbanism, and I believe I shall be defeated. All the same, acting as leader for a month, one may hope to advance.”13
Every day in Vichy, at 12:30 p.m., Maréchal Pétain left the Hotel du Parc, the nerve center of his operation, and went for his daily promenade. Underlings who were sufficiently in favor would join him. Strolling past closed movie theatres, they would bend their leader’s ears with their ideas. Le Corbusier now knew that some of those proposals to Pétain were in support of his and Alexis Carrel’s ideas for the improvement of the French population and for the new cities in which these healthier, more robust people would live and work.
3
Le Corbusier was on a manic high. He proudly told his mother that, beyond this new appointment, he was remaining an advisor to Ugine Electrochemical, which he termed “one of the finest French industries.”14 He gave Marie the pivotal information that the head of the company was an intimate friend of Pétain’s; everything was going forward.
In Paris, he would reopen the office on the rue de Sèvres; it would become an architectural mecca. He looked forward to hiring many individuals trained under the auspices of the Propagande de la Jeunesse, headed by Georges Pelorson. Pelorson, an eager proponent of “the New French State,” had organized volunteer teams of youths in the occupied zone into “a single youth movement swearing total obedience to the Maréchal.”15 By the time he embarked for Algeria, Le Corbusier thought of Vichy with a new appreciation, for the people there who had helped him and shared his goals: “farewells filled with a comforting friendship, and a confidence in the future.”16
The Committee for the Study of Habitation and the Urbanism of Paris represented a whole new life for Le Corbusier. He felt that it would be the means to achieve the aims of L’Esprit Nouveau and to sponsor a publication similar to it. He was fulfilling, at last, the vision he had read in his horoscope of 1937. Beyond that, it was a beautiful spring, rich with sunlight. In his euphoria, Le Corbusier instructed his mother, “Try to allow the coming summer to crown your beautiful life with peace and quiet—it is a life which inspires your son with such admiration and filial love.”17
At this same moment, French Jews were being deported in increased numbers to concentration camps. On every front, the Allied troops were imperiled. But for Le Corbusier, it was a rare period of hope for humankind. Adding to his joy was the realization that, again, his mother was brimming with pride and approval. She wrote him, “We were delighted by your good news, which sounds so promising. What happiness to know that you are occupied so intelligently, so willing to be useful to your adopted country with all your generous nature and all your talents.”
She was apprehensive, however, about his returning to Algiers: “You’re about to leave for Algiers when the sea is filled with engines of destruction and disaster can come so quickly. May God protect you, my dear boy, and may you return from this dangerous voyage intact and content in these uncertain times…. [B]e careful, don’t take unnecessary risks, don’t venture too far into the famous Casbah, once is enough!!” His mother also had marital advice: “And then you’ll doubtless take Yvonne back to Paris with you, and that will be the end of her isolation in Vézelay, and so much more normal for both of you.”18 Marie Jeanneret had no doubt, however, that at last her gallivanting son’s risky life and the impositions he made on his wife were for a worthy purpose.
4
After flying to Algiers on April 1, Le Corbusier immediately began to work with the governor general and other officials to create a committee along the same lines as his Parisian one. Three days later, he received a letter at his hotel, the Aletti, that made him so proud that he wrote, in the margin, the precise hour of its arrival, 10:00 p.m. It had come by special post, and it was on the official letterhead of “Le Maréchal Pétain chef de l’Etat.” Pétain’s personal secretary had written to say that the Maréchal had received On the Four Roads and wanted his thanks conveyed to Le Corbusier. The note credited the book with
addressing issues essential to the existence of the country and focusing on positive solutions to the reconstruction of cities and the transformation of urban life. Pétain also wanted it known that he supported Le Corbusier’s creation of the new committee in Algiers and hoped that the architect’s urbanism would advance there.
Not all the attention Le Corbusier received was as pleasing. Struggling to avoid what he termed the “malignant eyes” of local journalists, he employed a strategy that he proudly explained to his mother: “I cut short their indiscretion by declaring I would not say a word.” The issue at hand was rumblings of major turmoil in Vichy. Le Corbusier wrote his mother, “Patiently I weave my web, eternally I wait. These are hard times in Vichy. The government will be changed. And then?”19
He answered the question himself. “The news from Vichy seems to be bearing, as far as I’m concerned, the seeds of destruction. Everything may be swept away. So much the worse! I’ll go back to painting.”20 Not that he believed what he was saying. If one side of Le Corbusier imagined that he might return full-time to making pictures in solitude, the other still believed that he would work within Pétain’s inner circle to reconstruct France.
5
François de Pierrefeu, who continually tried to advance Le Corbusier’s cause in Vichy, wrote the architect:
Received your letter just when Baudry [Jean Baudry, the man responsible for architects and urbanists in Vichy] was showing me your report of the 14th to the civil cabinet…. As for your questions:
Everything is still extremely fluid, no one can make any prognostications concerning the role of the civil cabinet in tomorrow’s organization. This cabinet was discrowned the first day of the crisis by the necessary resignation of du Moulin [Henri du Moulin, director of the civil cabinet of Pétain from July 19, 1940, to April 13, 1942]. Lavagne [André Lavagne, head of Pétain’s civil cabinet] and the other collaborators remain at their posts, at least temporarily, at the request of du Moulin, after having offered their resignations. According to circumstances unforeseeable today, they will remain or surrender their portfolios. Lavagne, overwhelmed by the task of succeeding his chief, is and remains invisible, but Baudry keeps him informed of what concerns us, and he is disposed to spend the time remaining to him launching the Paris committee once he knows who the ministers will be (Interior, Education).21
De Pierrefeu provided details on who was talking to whom and what might happen. Le Corbusier marked one passage in particular: “Baudry has had occasion, during a lunch, to inform the head of state about his studies concerning the Paris committee. The Maréchal was extremely interested in this initiative of his cabinet and greatly encouraged Baudry to bring it to a successful conclusion.”22
De Pierrefeu was a perfect aide-de-camp. He advised, “You should therefore remain in Algiers as long as it seems strictly indispensable for your success in creating the Algiers committee or in correcting the overall plan. But if things turn out badly, take a plane and come back.”23 He pointed out that Le Corbusier would profit from the time in North Africa to gain some weight.
Le Corbusier’s mother had already used the related verb, but the letter from de Pierrefeu was the first to use the noun “collaborateurs.”
DE PIERREFEU wrote again at the end of the month. He had spared Le Corbusier a day-by-day account of the “constant fluctuations of our affairs in Vichy” but wanted to assure him “that the new government has determined to preserve all possible continuity with the old one, at least with regard to administrative rather than political affairs such as ours. On the other hand, it must be acknowledged that the solid footing represented by the old civil cabinet for this matter, which it had thoroughly studied, has been replaced by a new arrangement of which we know nothing and in which certain interests, like those of the former committees of reconstruction or urbanism, may eventually press certain claims or manifest certain fears; this is all the more likely because our committee, according to the texts prepared, would have a jurisdiction extending initially to Paris but in principle to all of France…. If our texts pass, you will be immediately supported by your membership on the future committee and by its jurisdiction which, as I have told you, will extend from Paris to the entire country…. Till soon again, my dear old friend; telegraph the date of your return and make provisions for your health—life in Paris will not pass without a struggle and without difficulties until our work produces a favorable resonance in people’s minds.”24
6
When Le Corbusier returned to Vichy on May 22, there had been so many changes within the power structure that he felt as if all his work had been to no avail. He wrote his mother, “During my absence the splendid results I had obtained entirely evaporated during the changes of government. We must begin again, new persons having intervened in the circuit. Whatever happens, the struggle is henceforth in Paris. Here in Vichy it will be to no avail. Moreover Paris appeals to me; the two visits I have made there have shown me what splendid intensity Paris has, what a magical place it is. So now you understand the situation.”25
The architect remained in Vichy for one more month. As he had with the League of Nations, he continued to grasp at straws long after it would have been better to resign himself to defeat. Then, on June 12, the Municipal Council unanimously rejected his Algiers master plan, the seventh one he had developed. They declared that his concepts would destroy the entire city. For twelve years, Le Corbusier had tried to orchestrate a metropolis that melded Muslim and European cultures in a way he considered “the manifestation of the spirit of an epoch.” Now, he declared with resignation, “Some inventors have ideas and receive a kick in the behind.”26
On July 1, finally convinced there was no hope for any of the other projects he had tried to achieve with the Vichy regime, Le Corbusier left the spa town for good.
7
That summer, Le Corbusier and Yvonne returned to Vézelay. A twenty-year-old architecture student at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Roger Aujame, was staying there as well. He quickly noticed that the most famous architect of the era was in the small inn, but he did not want to disturb him.27
One morning when Aujame was strolling around the village with his friend Pierre Guegin, he encountered Le Corbusier walking Pinceau. The architect was unmistakable—dressed completely in white from his cap to his espadrilles, with his shirt, pants, and belt all perfectly matched. Against all that white, Le Corbusier’s salt-and-pepper hair was a perfect foil to the dog’s black coat.
When Guegin, who knew Le Corbusier, said that Aujame was a student at the Beaux-Arts, Le Corbusier exclaimed, “Huh. You’re one of them!” Welcoming the chance to convert a member of the opposition, the architect invited Aujame for coffee at Jean Badovici’s house.
At 2:00 p.m., the student nervously rang the bell. When he walked into the living room, he recognized most of the people present from their photos in magazines or newspapers. Besides Le Corbusier, Guegin, and Badovici, the poet Paul Eluard, Eduard’s wife Nusch, Christian Zervos, and Zervos’s wife were also there. Le Corbusier launched into a half-hour-long lecture on architecture, using a copy of his Complete Work to show illustrations. He noticed that Aujame was a good audience and invited the student to join him for a walk around Vézelay.
On the steep, narrow streets of that Burgundian hilltop village, Le Corbusier pointed out the vernacular architecture. For Aujame, whose training to date had been to draw classical columns, it was a revelation. Le Corbusier got him to see the merits of anonymous, allegedly styleless, generic stone houses.
The walks became regular events. On one or two occasions, they ventured into the countryside and went down a long flight of wooden steps to a river. The moment he reached the riverbank, Le Corbusier stripped and dove in. Aujame followed suit and began to do the backstroke. Le Corbusier was fascinated. Having never seen or tried the stroke before, he quickly learned it.
It was the start of a warm working friendship. The young architects Le Corbusier considered responsive gave him joy and hope, and A
ujame, whom he hired the next year, was one of his favorites. Many such acolytes would eventually join the crew at 35 rue de Sèvres. Like Charlotte Perriand, they felt they were exposed on a daily basis to true genius and unequaled creativity. It required forbearance to work with someone who was at times excruciatingly difficult, but they knew he was giving the world something it had never had before.
BY OCTOBER, Le Corbusier was back at 24 rue Nungesser-et-Coli. It was a very different Paris from the one he had left. The French flag had been banned and replaced by large black swastikas set against white backgrounds. These Nazi flags were flying throughout the parks and along the streets, and on official buildings and hotels, even atop the ultimate symbol of Paris, the Eiffel Tower. The motto that dominated the French capital was “Deutschland siegt auf allen fronten [Germany wins on all fronts].”
Shortly after arriving, Le Corbusier received a letter from de Pierrefeu in Vichy making clear that Pétain’s new “chef de cabinet” was opposed to his committee. “This is extremely regrettable from your point of view, which is that of a man regarded as a master by a whole generation of professionals and who sought solely to give his country his experience and his teachings and the doctrinal influence that would ensue,” his great champion wrote.28
De Pierrefeu reported, however, that Le Corbusier had a key supporter in Robert Lallemant, a cabinet member who had told the others how strongly Maréchal Pétain had advocated to have Le Corbusier in charge of urbanism on a national scale. Even if Le Corbusier never built for the Vichy regime, Lallemant was to help him make his next step forward.
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