Essential Le Corbusier: L'Esprit Nouveau Articles - First edition

Essential Le Corbusier brings together in one volume the three main books in the Architectural Press Le Corbusier series: Towards a New Architecture; The Decorative Art of Today and The City of Tomorrow. These classic texts provide architects and students of architecture with the information they need about Le Corbusier and his works in one, complete, highly illustrated volume.


Towards a New Architecture
The only piece of architectural writing that will be classed among the "essential literature of the 20th century." In Vers une Architecture, published in Paris in 1923, Le Corbusier equates the pure forms of the machine with the pure forms of the Parthenon, to illustrate his view of architecture as a question of mass rather than facades, and that machines are highly architectural. First published in English in 1927, it is now the most influential architectural manifesto of modern times.

The City of Tomorrow
'In this book there repeatedly occur statements, comments and criticisms that strike a completely contemporary note and indicate his awareness of the same environmental problems that we are occupied with today. He saw further ahead than we may think.'
J.M.Richards

The Decorative Art of Today
This volume concerned with design, Le Corbusier's principal theme, is the distinction between a work of art and an object of use. He states that the latter should not attempt to usurp the role of the former. The arguments put forward, which are essential to an understanding of Le Corbusier's apparently reductivist design, are nowhere else systematically advanced. Full of wit and vitality, this essay provides essential reading for his admirers by covering important aspects of his thought at a crucial period.


Brings all of the essential Le Corbusier articles in the famous L'Esprit Nouveau magazines into one volume

Highly illustrated, mainly with Le Corbusier's own drawings