Looking for Le Corbusier

This is a project that has been going on now for a very long time - in fact for about 40 years.
Early on, before I ever went to art college, I was a student of the History of Architecture. Someone gave me a copy of Corbusier's book Vers une architecture and I was hooked. This was later reinforced by things like Sigfried Giedion's Space, Time and Architecture and Colin Rowe's Mathematics of the Ideal Villa. All this was just theory, just ideas until in the 1980s I started making regular trips to France and found that many Le Corbusier buildings could be visited and the physical feeling of architectural space experienced at first hand. As an aide-memoire I started making quick drawings and sketches, and at some point it became obvious that I needed to visit all the Corb buildings - typical 'completist' thinking!

At the moment I have only five or six buildings to see and I'll have 'done' Corb's output in France. (Then of course I can start on Switzerland and Germany.) Here is just a small selection of sketches; the earliest from 1985, the latest from 2022. As I also have my notes from visits the aim is one day to put the whole lot together and make an illustrated book or exhibition.
But first I need to get on with competing the list...


Looking for Le Corbusier

This is a project that has been going on now for a very long time - in fact for about 40 years.
Early on, before I ever went to art college, I was a student of the History of Architecture. Someone gave me a copy of Corbusier's book Vers une architecture and I was hooked. This was later reinforced by things like Sigfried Giedion's Space, Time and Architecture and Colin Rowe's Mathematics of the Ideal Villa. All this was just theory, just ideas until in the 1980s I started making regular trips to France and found that many Le Corbusier buildings could be visited and the physical feeling of architectural space experienced at first hand. As an aide-memoire I started making quick drawings and sketches, and at some point it became obvious that I needed to visit all the Corb buildings - typical 'completist' thinking!

At the moment I have only five or six buildings to see and I'll have 'done' Corb's output in France. (Then of course I can start on Switzerland and Germany.) Here is just a small selection of sketches; the earliest from 1985, the latest from 2022. As I also have my notes from visits the aim is one day to put the whole lot together and make an illustrated book or exhibition.
But first I need to get on with competing the list...