Le Corbusier

by Nicholas Fox Weber

  5

  In 1964, big plans were afloat. Le Corbusier completed the design of the French embassy for which he had visited Brasília. He conceived of the ambassador’s house as an exceptionally handsome elaboration of the Pavilion de L’Esprit Nouveau, with a graceful seven-story circular office building nearby. He also resumed work on the Olivetti calculator plant at Rho, near Milan; it was to be a floating rectangular slab and a longer bowed slab linked by a thin bridge: a futuristic vision that combined the geometric and the organic. In addition, he began the design of a long hospital complex in Venice, and was working on a large congress hall in Strasbourg, where the mayor seemed a perfect client: “Under such favorable conditions, the architect may say that he labors like the Good Lord: total responsibility, integrity, loyalty. It will then be understood that architecture belongs to the realm of passion.”8 And he was designing the pavilion in Zurich.

  More proposed commissions sparked interest even if they came to nothing. Fidel Castro asked Le Corbusier to construct a “press building” in Cuba. Jean Martin, with whom the architect had made the enamel door plaques in Luynes, asked him to create “Corbusier” toilets and bidets. Le Corbusier declined with the explanation that “human legs and behinds will not acquire the habit, for over the last 50 years they have become accustomed to the English porcelain shape (Water-Closet),” but he liked the idea, and so would have Yvonne.9

  Honors were coming in a flood. There was a large show of his work in Zurich. An exhibition opened in La Chaux-de-Fonds called “De Léopold-Robert à Le Corbusier,” thus linking him with the artist for whom his childhood street had been named. Like many who disparage the power structure, he was happy enough when it applauded him. The architect was now proud to rise yet another notch in French officialdom and be named Grand Officer of the Legion of Honor. If his mother had been alive, perhaps she would have attended the ceremony; at least he would have sent her piles of newspaper clippings.

  This time, Le Corbusier was even willing to wear his evening clothes. A photograph in the December 20 France-Soir shows him with President Charles de Gaulle—both in their elegant, wide-lapeled dinner jackets leaning toward each other, as a man who opposed Vichy congratulated one who had tried to work within Pétain’s ranks. André Malraux declared, “France pays homage to the world’s greatest architect.”10

  But even if the masters of ceremony touted him, endorsement overall was short of what Le Corbusier really wanted. Of all the projects in the office, the only one that was built was the pavilion in Zurich—three years too late for Le Corbusier to see it. When the architect’s friend and colleague Paul Ducret died in September, Le Corbusier wrote, “I do not mourn those who die, death is a beautiful thing when one has lived an active life.”11

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  For a little while longer, however, Le Corbusier trudged along. The office had the usual number of potential projects in 1964—even if none were realized—and, with the start of 1965, the architect devoted himself to the Venice hospital. He had taken it on, he said, out of love for the location; no other city addressed the issues of urban living in the same way as Venice, a place he had adored since 1907.

  Le Corbusier designed a sprawling horizontal complex that meandered around and over canals. Most of it was only one story high. It provided rooms and care for 1,200 emergency cases and acutely ill patients. Its complex roof structure equipped every one of the rooms, while windowless, with side skylights that would enable patients to control both the temperature and the amount of sunlight coming in and also give these ill people “the feeling of being pleasantly isolated.”12 How the hospital would really have turned out is another matter. These cell-like rooms without windows at eye level might have felt confining.

  Beyond that, as with the Gare d’Orsay cultural center, Le Corbusier wished to impose a building concept that looks as if it has descended from another planet. Extending into the water with its gondola port and laboratories and operating rooms, this behemoth would have borne little relationship to the palazzi and canals and old neighborhoods around it. The architect was better off building in locations like Ronchamp and La Tourette and Chandigarh, where the relationship was between Le Corbusier’s work and nature. When the pairing was between Le Corbusier’s ideas and an existing city, it often became a rivalry the architect had to win. Most people are glad he lost.

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  On July 27, two days before he was to leave for the south of France for his annual holiday, Le Corbusier worked at 35 rue de Sèvres throughout the morning. It was a reversal of his previous routine, but he now found himself too tired to make architecture in the afternoons.

  He and his former staff architect Jerzy Soltan visited that day, and they took a taxi to the rue Nungesser-et-Coli to have lunch there. Soltan recalled: “Le Corbusier offered me a drink. The sun was resplendent on the terraces. All sorts of plants were in bloom. Far away, Mount Valerian was vibrating in the summer heat; nearby, bees and flies buzzed around their heads. What will you have? Something light. Perhaps a Dubonnet. And you? Le Corbusier poured himself a double pastis, hardly taking any water. It is a deadly beverage, and I protested mildly. Le Corbusier dismissed my grumbling. He was smiling but serious. As long as he was alive he would not allow himself to be pampered. As long as you live, live with gusto! After luncheon, however, he weakened visibly. Yes, he thought he would lie down. A Mediterranean siesta—nothing more. Kindly, but firmly, he saw me off.”13 It was the following day that the architect took off his shirt in Dr. Hindermeyer’s dining room because of what he described as rats in the plumbing.

  A day later, Le Corbusier took a Paris–Nice flight. The air journey was a remarkable improvement over the long treks by car or train of years ago. When he arrived at Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, he wrote Albert, “My fatigues are those of a man of fifty.” He described a life in which, without exception, he was at the office at nine every morning—which would have been true if the studio counted as the office. “So, dear friends, brothers, comrades or near relations, let me and my fatigue get the hell out of here.”14

  Again, Edouard announced his beliefs to his older brother: “My morality: in life, to be doing. This means, to act in all modesty with exactitude, with precision; an atmosphere favoring the creation of art = modest regularity, continuity, perseverance.”15 Le Corbusier told Albert how happy he was to be at l’Etoile de Mer and how wonderful Thomas Rebutato and his wife were.

  Summing things up, the architect voiced his confidence in Albert’s musical talent and assured Albert that his future would be full of successes. As for himself, Le Corbusier had other ambitions: “Myself, I have one hope for life, expressed by a crude phrase: everyone has to croak some day…. Yet it is a hopeful phrase, one which commits a man to choosing life, the one worthwhile choice on this earth (for oneself, for one’s conscience), and with it the choice of laughter, good spirits, without donning the gloomy mask of the offstage actor. Greetings, old man. As you see, the physical and the moral are naturally good; I shake my brother’s hand.”16

  A YOUNG PHOTOGRAPHER took some shots of the seventy-seven-year-old architect walking into the sea in his black swim trunks. Le Corbusier turned to the man with his camera and said, “Don’t take the trouble with an ugly old man like me. It would be better for you to take pictures of Princess Grace, just behind that rock, or Brigitte Bardot at Saint Tropez.”17

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  Charles-Edouard Jeanneret wrote one last time to the companion with whom he had braved winter winds on Alpine peaks when they were both under the age of ten and had their mother and father at their sides. On August 24, responding to his brother’s concern about him, he assured Albert that the Rebutatos were being attentive to his need for a healthy diet and for ample rest and relaxation. “They treat me as if I were a stick of barley-sugar.” Le Corbusier told Albert, “I’ve never felt better.” He chided his older sibling for having taken on the role of nurse. “I’m feeling fine!” he insisted.18

  In the Mediterranean on August 25, 1965

>   Meanwhile, Le Corbusier was correcting the manuscript of Jean Petit’s book about him—in truth, his own book about himself. He praised its preface for saying “that I’m a simple guy. Which is the truth.”19 He probably did not know that this was the same adjective Josephine Baker had used to describe him more than thirty-five years earlier.

  Concluding that letter, Charles-Edouard Jeanneret did something rare in his life. He turned his attention completely to the other person. This was not a time to say anything about himself—his beliefs, his achievements. Rather, it was an occasion only to bolster spirits and encourage confidence.

  He focused not on art but on music: the passion of their mother, the lifeblood of the household. “Dear old man, go on with your sharps and flats for the delight of our ears. Your music’s in fine shape. You’re eighty and I’m78…. Greetings, older brother.”20

  It was one of his distortions for the sake of poetry. Three days later, more than a month before Le Corbusier would have reached his seventy-eighth birthday, his body was brought in by the tide under a lustrous sun.

  We live in an old chaos of the sun,

  Or old dependency of day and night,

  Or island solitude, unsponsored, free,

  Of that wide water, inescapable.

  —WALLACE STEVENS, “Sunday Morning”

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  The idea of my writing a biography of Le Corbusier was initially proposed by Rebecca Wilson, then an editor at Weidenfeld and Nicolson in London, where we had worked together on my biography of Balthus. Rebecca knew that no one else had written a book about Le Corbusier’s entire life, and I am extraordinarily grateful for her suggestion that I should undertake the task.

  The project would not have proceeded without the endorsement of my remarkable editor at Alfred A. Knopf, Victoria Wilson. Her support, patience, and understanding for more than two decades have become a mainstay of my existence, and the guidance she has given for the nine years I have been working on Le Corbusier has been of inestimable value. Vicky’s overarching intelligence and powerfully incisive mind, combined with her rare integrity and spectacular sense of humor, are unfailing. Moreover, she has in spades the rare quality that Le Corbusier himself considered the most important of all—genuine heart. It is a privilege to know her.

  I owe my acquaintance with Vicky to the greatest of literary matchmakers, the marvelous Gloria Loomis. Merriam-Webster defines the word “agent” as “a power that acts…a moving force…in which a mind or a governing intelligence executes its intentions” that’s only the half of it. Gloria is also a friend in the truest sense, and her combination of consummate professionalism with abiding warmth is a boon not just to my life but to that of my entire family. She is one of the most understanding and perceptive people I have ever met, and she makes other people’s existences better.

  WITH THESE THREE fine people there from the beginning, I faced a thrilling, but initially daunting, task in trying to know who Le Corbusier really was. During the first few months of research, I felt as if I were trying to gain entry to the most private of Swiss bank vaults. I could not imagine how I could unlock the dense steel door that guarded my subject’s personality. The first individual who came to my aid, and who has played a role of immeasurable value to this book ever since, was Stéphane Potelle. When we met, he was librarian at the Fondation Le Corbusier in Paris; subsequently, he worked full-time on the project. In guiding me to far-ranging sources, in tracking down a plethora of details, and in helping me organize the vast amount of information I needed to distill in an effort to know Le Corbusier as a human being, Stéphane has done a prodigious amount of work with grace and intelligence. Equally important, his deep personal engagement with our subject, his tireless interest in Le Corbusier’s fascinating personality, his eschewal of the clichés with which people have thought about the architect, and his deep knowledge of French history have made him a true ally and an ideal tutor.

  This book would not have been possible without the extreme generosity and graciousness of the two directors of the Fondation le Corbusier during whose tenures I have done my research and writing. Evelyn Tréhin accorded me every opportunity a scholar could desire. In 1999 and 2000, I regularly haunted her establishment, where I was treated with utmost graciousness. Then, when Mme. Tréhin knew I had gleaned almost all that was possible from Le Corbusier’s letters to William Ritter and his mother, and from all the literature on the architect, she invited me for what was a biographer’s dream: a chance to read previously unstudied letters between Le Corbusier and his great, secret inamorata. That correspondence with Marguerite Tjader Harris was like an epistolary novel, one of passion and romance, except that there was nothing fictive about it. Mme. Tréhin’s successor, the insightful and refreshingly independent Michel Richard, has been nothing other than wonderful in his support of this book. A true man of letters—open-minded, full of humor, and erudite—he has been spectacularly giving of his time and energy, and true to both the professionalism and the gift for laughter that Le Corbusier cherished. The trust he evinced in according me blanket permission to quote freely from Le Corbusier’s letters and other writings showed an open-mindedness, selflessness, and generosity that had unequaled impact on this text.

  My friend Eve Tribouillet-Rozenczweig has been not just, as always, a true sustainer of my morale, but she has shown, time and again, an intellectual perspicacity of the highest order. Her complete bilinguality combined with her real psychological understanding allowed me to see, in some of Le Corbusier’s more obscure ramblings, aspects of the architect that otherwise would have eluded me.

  Philippe Corfa has been amazing in the work he has done by putting my text in order at each of its many stages of revision. It has been my good fortune to work with someone of such patience, meticulousness, and overriding intelligence, and I am immensely grateful. It is not an overstatement to say that without him I cannot imagine how I would have completed the book.

  Daphne Warburg Astor has been the exemplar of friendship and sage advice. Always there in the rough patches, offering encouragement whenever it was needed, boosting my spirits on countless occasions, she has been a fine presence in both my life and that of my entire family.

  There are few people more pleasurable to talk to about human relationships, and in particular those of parents and children, than Sophie Dumas, a vibrant human being whose input on this book has had great meaning. Pierre-Alexis Dumas, in addition to being a wonderful friend, is one of the most knowledgeable people on this earth when it comes to the issues of aesthetics and color, and the meaning of real dedication to art; I am grateful for the impact of many of our conversations on this book.

  From the time I began this project, my spectacular friend Nick Ohly, a gifted architect and passionate enthusiast of great buildings, was a true soul mate. Time and again I bounced ideas off of him, and had the benefit of responses from someone in Le Corbusier’s own profession who understood a range of issues from an insider’s point of view. At the same time, Nick was a warm and encouraging presence, as well as an ideal companion for frequent games of tennis and squash, always a boost to my spirits. On the day of his untimely death in November 2007, we had discussed yet another nuance of Le Corbusier’s work, and I like to picture Nick as he was at that moment: smiling, interested, in love with beauty, and full of insight.

  At the Fondation Le Corbusier in Paris, the following people have been both extremely professional and consistently kind: Isabelle Godineau, manager of the archives, who has helped unstintingly with the images and documents for this book; Delphine Studer, specialist in documents, who also tracked down material and assisted with the images; and Arnaud Dercelles, librarian, who helped with research materials.

  The following Le Corbusier experts, all remarkable scholars, have imparted their knowledge in a way that has been of the utmost value to this publication: Tim Benton, whose specialty is Le Corbusier’s villas; Caroline Maniaque, who knows more than anyone else about the Maisons Jaoul; Je
an-Louis Cohen, a versatile scholar with a particular expertise about Le Corbusier and the Soviet Union; Stanislaus Von Moos, a specialist in Charles-Edouard Jeanneret’s early years as well as a fine architectural historian in general; Kiran Joshi, a professor at the Chandigarh College of Architecture, Chandigarh; Alejandro Lapunzina, an expert on Le Corbusier’s work in Latin America; Sven Sterken, a specialist in the life and work of Iannis Xenakis; Flora Samuel, a professor interested in Le Corbusier’s relationship to women; and Mardges Bacon, an expert on Le Corbusier and America.

  I am also very grateful to the colleagues of Le Corbusier who were generous with their time and willingness to tell anecdotes: Roger Aujame, Jean-Louis Véret, Lucien Hervé, M. Sharma, and Robert Rebutato. Balkrishna Doshi, in particular, was exceptionally helpful in shedding light on the spiritual Le Corbusier, in a long discussion we had in dramatic circumstances immediately following the Ahmedabad earthquake that, earlier that same morning, had killed ten thousand people within a five-kilometer radius of where we sat—adding unanticipated significance to our discussion of Le Corbusier’s views on mortality as well as on construction standards.

  Oscar Niemeyer, just shy of his hundredth birthday when he and I spent several hours together discussing Le Corbusier, abetted my quest significantly, and I am grateful to Victor Tamm for setting up our meeting in Rio.

  Ivan Zaknic’s helpfulness and enthusiasm for this project have been a particular boon. His translation of Voyage to the Orient and his The Final Testament of Père Corbu are both masterful; this fine professor of architecture and architecture historian has been exceptionally kind. Dr. Jacques Hindermeyer, whom I initially met thanks to Ivan, has been a source of information and insights central to my understanding of Le Corbusier, and I thank this charming and energetic man for his willingness to make his friend “Corbu” come alive.