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all it coincided with his friendship with Henry The complete ingly illustrated by a photograph taken of his
Moore. Read is sometimes said to have architect celebrated blackboard at the Atelier in the
`made' Moore, since he was his publicist. It Rue de Sevres. On this he had drawn, full size
is conceivable that it happened the other way Le Corbusier, Last Works (The Complete and in coloured chalks, the section through a
round. In any case, their forty-year friend- Architectural Works, Volume viii), by Willie patient's room as he had planned it for Otto-
ship demonstrated time and again that the Boesiger. 208 pp. illus., Thames and Hudson, lenghi's proposed hospital in Venice. Unlike
work of the sculptor was the perfect comple- £8 10s. the previous volumes, the eighth has many
ment to the writing of the critic—much more The Necessary Monument by Theo Crosby, illustrations in colour. At times, especially in
so than, for instance, was Arp; Read had 128 pp. illus. Studio Vista, 45s., Hard covers, those of Chandigarh, the quality of colour
much less instinctive confidence in writing 21s. Paperback. reproduction is reminiscent of the pages of the
about him. Read had his time with the National Geographic Magazine. They are some-
Surrealists, especially over the London sur- The eighth volume of the 'Oeuvres completes' times unnecessary, or unhelpful, as in the
realist exhibition in 1936, but he didn't really sees the completion of a publication venture photographs of the exterior of a building in
like Dada, or in any case couldn't take it which has spanned four decades. Willie the City Centre, Chandigarh, and the interior
whole. He didn't like a nervous, excitable, Boesiger, as a young architect, edited the first of a classroom at Firminy-Vert. But they do
jesting sort of art, and he continually emascu- volume in 1929 and all but the third (edited remove Le Corbusier's work from the realm
lated Dada by limiting it to over-simple by Max Bill), subsequently. Only this final of black and white building which has
gestures of defiance towards an academic volume has not had the participation of the virtually been the creation of the architect-
establishment. original publisher, Dr H. Girsberger. If Le ural press, to reveal the brilliance, even the
He liked art that might have grown in his Corbusier's Vers une Architecture, published garishness, of his use of colour on the huge
own back garden in Stonegrave. Not un- when he was thirty-two, was the most pivoting main gate to the Parliament build-
naturally, he also liked the guiding lines of influential single text in the whole of the ing, or in the restless interior of the Council
tradition of the modern art he himself had modern movement in architecture, no vol- Chamber. Here, green and brown hide seats
lived through, and the departure of post-war umes have been pored over with more atten- alternate, the carpet is red, the tapestried
painting from the modes which he described tion, or discussed more excitedly, than these, walls are indian red, the ceiling_ blue-green.
as `exfoliation' from the 'call to order of as they appeared at invervals of a few years. The other tapestries are reproduced in strong
Cézanne... Cubism, Futurism, Expression- This final volume is something of an appendix primaries, with the repetitive symbols of Le
ism, Surrealism and Constructivism' was a to the series. It fills in on a number of last Corbusier's own iconography drawn upon
nasty jolt to him. The 1964 'Painting of a works, most of which have been completed the squares of colour. Corbusier has had
Decade' exhibition at the Tate resulted in a after Le Corbusier's death in 1965. Of these fewer followers in his use of colour than he has
lecture (originally printed in this journal in perhaps the most important are the Youth in his handling of form; the present reproduc-
1965) in which he expressed the feeling that Centre and House of Culture, and L'Unité tions may make few converts but they do
we were at the end of the era in which those d'Habitation at Firminy-Vert. emphasise its importance in his total concep-
styles predominated; the end was at hand; The editor lays emphasis on the Museum of tions.
you could see it in 'stylistic excess', just as had Knowledge and the Tower of Shadows in Will the present final volume have the
happened at the end of the Gothic period, Chandigarh, for these projects, illustrated by inspirational stimulation of its predecessors on
and at the end of the Renaissance. It was models and drawings, have not been published the present generation of students and young
quite an apocalyptic piece, and seemed hard before. Where they are to stand is at present architects? Perhaps not; there are many
on that exhibition's Bownessian catholicity. a barren wasteland, and is likely to remain so projects illustrated which remain incomplete,
He was wrong, in fact. I wish that Robin for a long time to come. others which have been completed, but in
Skelton, the editor of this symposium, who Apart from these major works or projects details, not entirely according to Corbusier's
himself contributes a somewhat uneasy there are others which are less well known, or wishes. As if there was a sudden realisation
EngLit piece on Read's poetry, had not more modest in scale. Among these latter, are that the master could not live forever, he was
decided to print the ageing critic's 'The the lock-keeper's station, and the customs and showered with projects and invitations in the
Limits of Permissiveness in Art', which will navigation offices, of the sluice-gate of last years of his life, not all of which he was
not do. Its emotionally-loaded title stands Kembs-Niffer on the Rhone-Rhine Canal. able to carry much beyond the initial concep-
guard over a stern condemnation of the The keeper's station is a tightly articulated tual stages. Yet even if students may gain
Beckett M-trilogy, which he finds 'super- vertical cluster which contrasts with the more from earlier volumes which show all the
ficially exciting but fundamentally boring' broader sweep of the customs house roof; a stages from sketch to completed building or
(to swop the adjectives here would surely be small complex of great formal clarity. the detailed studies of projected works, there
nearer the truth), together with Abstract One of Le Corbusier's most striking works and is still much that is thought-provoking here.
Expressionism, Optical Art and Pop Art, most exhilarating of spaces was his house in `Le Corbusier changed architecture—and the
which are condemned as 'pseudo-movements', Zurich, built for Heidi Weber and completed architect. That is why he was one of the prime
`the creation of journalists'. Such sentiments after his death. A brise-soleil was constructed moving spirits of the age.' The words are
were common enough in Read's last years, of angular metal screens bolted to form a those of André Malraux on September 1,
and it's depressing to contrast them with the crisply undulating roof. Beneath this extra- 1965, at his funeral. There is hardly an
earlier man, whose generosity towards the ordinary structure, which served as a protec- architect living who would not agree with
importance of art, both as product and tion from the weather during the rest of the them.
activity, are saluted in some moving words construction, the 'inhabitable structure' was
from Henry Moore; Moore's few sentences built. A strongly-expressed steel frame was St Pancras Station, Manchester Town Hall,
are so humane and sorrowful, so full of years partially clad with sheets of brightly-enamelled the Albert Memorial, the Prudential Insur-
past, that they make one quite forget the steel screens and glass, only the ramp and ance building, some masterly, some absurd,
grumpy and querulous last years of Read's staircase being built in concrete. Today the —these Victorian edifices provoke responses
career, and make one quite forget that we are building is used as a permanent exhibition today ranging from hostility to condescending
perhaps justified in being a trifle petulant hall, the Centre Le Corbusier. affection, sometimes even to grudging admira-
about Read himself. q Le Corbusier was a most considerate designer: tion.
TIM HILTON nothing was left to chance. This is illuminat- `In our cities', writes Theo Crosby, 'the
54