About Buildings + Cities

We’re in Paris, 1917, where Charles-Edouard Jeanneret is making friends, thinking about sex (and writing enormous letters about it), designing the occasional mechanised abattoir / concrete garden terrace, going bankrupt, trying to sell concrete blocks to postwar society, inventing a new style of painting, launching a highly costly art magazine, and (finally!) acquiring the name under which he would become famous — Le Corbusier! One of us had a very creaky chair in this episode. Also we were drinking again. Apologies for both. We discussed —  The breeze block plant at Alfortville Societe d'Applications du Beton Arme a Slaughterhouse at Challuy, near Nevers (for no good reason) Upton Sinclair’s ‘The Jungle’ (1906) - Unbuilt project for a dam a Water Tower in Podensac - his meeting and collaboration with Amedée Ozenfant - Purism as a style in Art — the Tate has a good definition - Fernand Léger - L’Esprit Nouveau Pierre Jeanneret We’ve been reading —  Nicholas Fox Weber ‘Le Corbusi