Life of Architect Gets a Reading

For years, Le Corbusier, a major modernist architect of the twentieth century, was admired exclusively for his art, biographer Nicholas Fox Weber said last night. But many overlooked his personality in favor of his achievements, he added, addressing a small crowd at the Carpenter Center, the sole building in the U.S. designed by the Swiss native.

Sharing anecdotes from the artist’s life, Weber, the author of a newly released biography, sought to introduce the man who was known as Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris before his career took off.

“Getting to know the man behind Le Corbusier is like getting inside a Swiss bank vault,” Weber said.

His book is the “first to approach Le Corbusier in a narrative that goes through his life,” he told community members last night.

The book signing, organized by Random House Publishers, Harvard Book Store, and the Department of Visual and Environmental Studies, was an opportunity for art enthusiasts to hear more about the architect.

Weber said he moved to Paris specifically to study Le Corbusier’s personal letters to his mother and friend. “You get to know the person, not judge them,” Weber said, adding that he was the first to gain access to these papers.

Weber noted that many of his missives drew the connection between architecture and sexuality.

“For Le Corbusier, there were two kinds of erections,” Weber said.

Melissa Davenport, the manager of events and publications for the Department of Visual and Environmental Studies, said this was a unique opportunity to hear Weber speak about a person who designed the very building audience members were in.

Le Corbusier’s relationship with the United States was complicated. The first time he saw a skyscraper in New York City prompted him to say, “They’re not tall enough,” relayed Weber.

The architect, Weber explained, was obsessed with the view seen from buildings, rather than the buildings themselves. “What he was able to do with space was unprecedented,” he said. “He was described as a ‘machine for living’ but it was the living that was most important to him.”

Local artist and photographer Helen K. Eddy said that she was able to relate more strongly to the late architect after Weber’s talk. “My art, like that of Le Corbusier, is to express beauty,” she said. “Some artists create art to express truth, but Le Corbusier showed that truth is beauty.”