Le Corbusier. Furniture and Interiors

摘要

Arthur Ruegg's magnificent, expensive, new book Le Corbusier. Furniture and Interiors 1910-1965, done in collaboration with Klaus Spechtenhauser, presents an aspect of Le Corbusier's career that is little known, especially in the English-speaking world: his lifelong preoccupation with the decorative arts. Architects and design historians have long been familiar with the now-famous three chairs and 'airplane' table, which he created with Pierre Jeanneret and Charlotte Perriand in 1928-1929; but few individuals-aside from those fortunate enough to have read Ruegg's earlier essays or to have seen the 2002 exhibition 'Le Corbusier before Le Corbusier' (curated by Stanislaus von Moos and Ruegg)-are familiar with the range of Le Corbusier's furniture and interior designs, especially his early work in his hometown La Chaux Chaux-de de-Fonds, Switzerland, which was often inspired by Directoire and Biedermeier models. This book, which brings together more than forty years of research, includes four synthetic essays tracing the evolution of Le Corbusier's ideas on decorative arts, as well as a comprehensive catalogue raisonne of his known furniture designs; the catalogue entries, arranged by year and project, explain lucidly (and in some detail) construction techniques and the various editions of commercially produced pieces. The book is beautifully illustrated, with excellent photographs, as well as numerous colour images of design sketches, paintings, archival documents, contemporary advertisements and furniture brochures; it also features elegant line drawings done by Ruegg and his collaborators, including plans, sections and elevations of furniture pieces; analytic diagrams explaining fabrication and assemblage; and reconstructed plans of interior spaces that were not published in Le Corbusier and Jeanneret's eight-volume Oeuvre complete, such as the model apartment shown at the 1929 Salon d'Automne in Paris, the 'Study for a Young Man' displayed at the 1935 Brussels World's Fair and Le Corbusier's atelier at 35 rue de Sevres in Paris. The illustrations alone justify-for collectors and academic libraries, at least-the book's high sticker price. Moreover, the research on the early interiors, the tubular-steel chairs, the Unites d'habitation, Le Corbusier's own residences, and the wallpapers and Salubra paint colours is impeccable. Scholars will also appreciate the appendix, which includes a useful bibliography and a list of exhibitions that displayed the atelier's furniture. One small complaint: the index consists only of names cited in the text, and it is frustratingly incomplete at that. Nonetheless, this catalogue raisonne will remain the standard reference work on the subject for years to come. One can only hope that in the future a more modest, affordable edition of Ruegg's wonderful essays (ideally in their full-length versions) might be made available for a general audience.