Le Corbusier

One room into the Barbican's vast Le Corbusier exhibition and two things suddenly occurred to me. firstly, during the year i spent living in Paris i never even sought out, let alone visited the Fondation Le Corbusier. secondly, every year when i visit at the RA's summer exhibition the architecture room is the one i always whizz through. two things which made me wonder why i had been so keen to come to this retrospective, let alone drag others with me. anyway, there i was. and unsurprisingly given these recalled revelations, i found it pretty hard work. the three sections - Contexts (inspirations of place, design and aesthetic); Privacy and Publicity (his designs for villas, interiors and furniture); and Built Art (his relationship between art and architecture) - loosely made a coherent narrative, but it was a dry one to say the least. I think i knew i was in for a rough time from the first images of his plans for 20 skyscrapers in the centre of Paris, plus his 'project for a contemporary town of 3million inhabitants'. radical, bold, ambitious and daring indeed; visually vitriol to my eyes though. plus the inspirations and collected ephemera which were supposed to give a sense of the development of his style seemed totally random to me and explained absolutely zero. in the next section, many of the models, photos, and plans of the villas, are beautiful, but it was difficult to get a sense of the development of the design process and so hard to engage - especially when it was boiled down to topic headings like Machines For Living, and Furnishing the Machine (his terms obviously, but still). it was purism this, primitivism that, and constructivism the other. reading the blurb for each section was SERIOUSLY labour intensive. no real description of his character, the colourful people, artists, designers et al around him, nor his life outside of architecture. was he married? children? a bit of personal drama might have been some emotional relief. by the time i got to Built Art i had to re-read the blurb about 17 times i couldn't take any more info in. but what i did love was his interest in sunlight (a top priority of mine - i have no curtains anywhere in my flat), and his huge, bright tapestries, plus some of his smaller sketches - like the voluptuous Three Women Standing, One in a Blue Corset. and his reinvention of himself by using the pseudonym Le Corbusier - i love the idea that he vehemently believed anyone can recreate their own identity. and of course his buildings are incredible - i love the Governor's palace at Chandigarh - the silhouette is amazing, as is the Philips building (above). hard work, but glad i went.