Seeing, understanding and acting.

The early voyages of

Charles-Edouard Jeanneret, later known as Le Corbusier

Scopophilia, what Sigmund Freud called the desire to look, is stimulated by structures of voyeurism and
narcissism which both derive pleasure in looking. Voyeurism is a controlling and distanced way of looking
in which pleasure is derived from looking at a figure as an object. Narcissistic pleasure is produced by
identification with the image and can be considered analogous to Jacques Lacans mirror stage just as a
child forms his/her ego by identifying with the perfect mirror image, so the spectator derives pleasure from
the identification with the perfect image of themselves in others.1

Unser Auge ist der stndige Kontrolleur dessen, was wir sichtbar tun, wobei wir die Form nach einem
unserm Gehirne eingepflanzten Gesetze bilden, beurteilen und handhaben. Dieses Gesetz wirkt selbstttig,
wir knnen uns ihm nicht entziehen, selbst wenn wir es wollen.2

We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time (T.S. Eliot)3

Numerous interesting studies have been published in the last decades about the young Le Corbusier (1887-
1965) and his years of formation. Almost no event in his early years in Switzerland has not been traced and
subject to scholarly scrutinizing. The significance of these beginning years has nevertheless hardly been
discussed in regard to his whole career. It remains a mystery how the changes evolved from a psychological
point of view and how Le Corbusier produced himself. In his typical manner Charles Jencks has tried to stir
up Le Corbusiers psycho, but failed to draw any profound conclusions from a historical point of view. Why
did Le Corbusier construct such a difficult, contorted relationship with his own past? He manipulated the
facts on various occasions and often took a radical different position in his future life. Whereas in his book
Prcisions he frankly stated: It is not pointless, I repeat, to keep rereading ones own work. The awareness
of ones own steps is the springboard of progress, he constantly rewrote his own history and manicured his
archive to this purpose.4 The question of his negation and confirmation of certain events has not been
touched upon thoroughly, although it nevertheless offers great insights in his mental design mechanism.
What he first accepted and enthusiastically tried to master he subsequently rejected. He went forward by a
deliberate opposition. Burn what you loved and love what you burnt, he would remark in an optimistic
way. His change of name from subject to object is proof of the complicated attraction and rejection of his
roots. In this regard Le Corbusier is the example of modern man par excellence.
For many people travelling nowadays belongs to the ordinary. They longed for confrontation with a
different environment seldom leads to new knowledge or different insights. In many cases they could of
stayed at home because in a way they never left home. For an architect this might not be the case. His
acquaintance with a different, foreign culture or with strange artefacts can have a didactical purpose and

1
J. Rendell, Ramblers and Cyprians: Mobility, Visuality and the Gendering of Architectural Space, in: L.
Durning/R. Wrigley (Ed.), Gender & Architecture, Chicester 2000, p. 145. The exact same words can be
found in: J. Rendell, Serpentine allurements: disorderly bodies/disorderly spaces, in: I. Borden/J.
Rendell (Ed.), Intersections. Architectural Histories and Critical Theories, London/New York, 2000, p.
258.
2
H. Muthesius, Das Formproblem in Ingenieurbau, in: Werkbund Jahrbuch, 1913, p. 28.
3
T.S. Eliot, Little Gidding, in: T.S. Eliot, The complete poems and plays, London 1977, p. 197.
4
Citation in French: Il nest pas inutile, je le rpte, de lire constamment dans son propre ouvrage. La
conscience des vnements est le tramplin de progrs in: LC, Prcisions sur un tat present de
larchitecture et de lurbanisme, Paris 1930, p. 136.

1
might lead to a different approach to his own design. This is especially true for Le Corbusier, who was an
ardent world traveller and in a way left never to come home again.
In 1938, in an issue of the Dutch magazine De 8 en Opbouw, the architect J.J.P. Oud reacted to a previous
article in the same magazine on Le Corbusier as a painter and on Pieter Saenredam. Oud admitted that he
did not consider Le Corbusier very important as a painter. The serene clarity of Saenredam stood in great
contrast to the neurotic restlessness of Le Corbusier. He questioned if these virtuoso, but fragile space
connections represented truly the architecture of tomorrow. The answer he gave was no! The development
of Le Corbusier had ended in qualities, which were initially his merits. Thus in a certain sense Oud settled
his scores with Le Corbusier, who as a phenomenon was history: The eyes, that still do not see, will never
be opened. This frontal attack on the Swiss-French master can be understood within the changes that
occurred in the thinking and work of J.J.P. Oud in these years. Not all of the Dutch colleagues agreed with
Oud, but nevertheless the opinions in the world on Le Corbusier and his work varied greatly, even among
the modern architects.
In 1929 the German architect Bruno Taut wrote: His architecture will never upset the middle-class world.
It is based on the salons. Here the architect is building as a painter in his studio paints his pictures, i.e. he is
building pictures.5 How wrong can one be? Yet, Taut was right in the sense that he saw in Le Corbusier the
artist-architect. Le Corbusier would probably add that he was also a writer and a modern kind of
intellectual.
When the art historian Sigfried Giedion, the famous exegete of the neues bauen, secretary of the CIAM
and as an architectural critic a student of Heinrich Wlfflin, asked Le Corbusier to say something about his
relationship with his country of birth, Switzerland, the architect responded laconically: Jusque 19 ans,
jai bnfici de lenseignement remarquable de Charles lEplattenier. Puis je suis parti voyager. Or as he
recalled in his complete work : Up until 1907 I had the good fortune to have a teacher, LEplattenier, who
was a captivating pedagogue ; it was he who opened up the portals of art to me. We studied the
masterpieces of all periods and places with him. I remember that modest library, in a simple armoire in our
drawing studio, in which our teacher had gathered together everything he considered necessary for our
spiritual nourishment.
Beyond any doubt the now almost forgotten LEplattenier (1874-1946), teacher at the Ecole dArt in La
Chaux-de-Fonds, was an important figure of inspiration for him, a man who oriented his interests towards
new activities, who guided him as a Cicerone during his first mental travels through the world of art. Le
Corbusier always recognised this influence during his life and never touched, for instance, upon his years at
the Froebel school, which Vogt has tried to illuminate. In his book Lart dcoratif daujourdhui Le
Corbusier states in his confession, where he also talks of his voyages during his formation: Mon matre
avait dit: Seule la nature est inspiratrice, est vraie, et peut tre le support de loeuvre humaine. Mais ne
faites pas la nature la maniere des paysagistes qui nen montrent que laspect. Scrutez - en la cause, la
forme, le developpement vital et faites - en la synthese en crant des ornements. Il avait une conception
leve de lornament quil voulait comme un microcosme.6 Nature was explored during the regular hiking
tours in the neighbourhood of La Chaux-de-Fonds. The students were taught to look at nature not with
innocent eyes, but to investigate it and to discover the immanent structures within nature. Lessons for the
arts were extracted. Nature became an analogy.7 This was the model of teaching which the Swiss architect
and artist Eugne Grasset had prescribed. First, learn the different techniques and observe nature. Second,
try to find the geometric laws which underlie the objects of nature. Third, make practical projects in
correspondence with the industrial needs of the time. The enormous influence of the cultural circles of La
Chaux-de-Fonds on the mind of the young artist-architect cannot be underestimated even if Le Corbusier
would later hardly acknowledge the impact of many acquaintances.8
Besides to Grassets Mthode de composition ornamentale another book LEplattenier often referred to
during his teaching was the Grammar of Ornament of Owen Jones. He not only had his students copy the
drawings in these rich works, but also wanted that they take the propositions of Jones to heart. One of these
propositions was that the decorative arts should be based on and should stem from architecture. Another

5
B. Taut, Krisis der Architektur, in: Wohnungswirtschaft, 1929, nr. 6.
6
Le Corbusier, Lart dcoratif daujourdhui, Paris 1925, p. 198.
7
For this argument , see: K. Michels, Der Sinn der Unordnung. Arbeitsformen im Atelier Le Corbusier,
Braunschweig/Wiesbaden 1989, p. 12.
8
See: J.K. Birksted, Le Corbusier and the Occult, Cambridge (Mass.)/London, 2009.

2
was that all ornament derived from geometric principles. Jeanneret learned how to deal with form and
pattern through these studies. He enjoyed these studies so much that he still recommended them to students
in his book on the decorative arts of 1925.9 In the same book he also published his drawing of the voyage
utile where the ingredients of culture, industry and folklore come together and inform the traveller. During
his school days Jeanneret also gained confidence to exploit and experiment with the vocabulary of the past.
Another book that had some impact on the thoughts of Charles-Edouard Jeanneret was Henry Provensals,
Art de demain, 1904. This writer pointed to the lois ternelles dunit, de nombre et de harmonie. He not
only pleaded for a cubic elevation of architecture but also claimed that the artist is in essence a superior
being, member of an elite, and loaded with a mission to give expression to pure thought, perfect spirit
and eternal harmony through the use of forms of the most pure geometry. Readings in his youth included
John Ruskin, who was considered a aptre touffu, complexe, contradictoire, paradoxale. Nevertheless
Jeanneret was fascinated by the abstract capabilities of the interpretative force, as were many other artists in
his days, such as the Swiss Adolph Appia in his stage designs. Appia dematerialized theatre through light
and forms. Abstraction and reduction were means towards the crux of the matter and hampered or avoided
any kind of distraction.
In the classes of LEplattenier, Jeanneret made designs for watch cases among many other projects. He
recieved prizes and sent those to the international exhibitions. Architecture was only one of the topics with
which he occupied himself. He most likely participated in the ccompetition entry for a post office in La
Chaux-de-Fonds, which LEplattenier submitted in 1905. Special interest is given to a kind of architectural
language which was original in the true sense; it had to attach itself to local traditions and materials. Clearly
also LEplattenier was searching for a basis for architecture and saw that in the vernacular.
Thanks to LEplattenier the attention of Jeanneret directed itself more and more to architecture. Through his
master he was given in 1906 the commission to design a house for the watch maker Louis Fallet. It is in the
sapin style, the Jugendstil inspired by local mountain vegetation. To his friend Lon Perrin he would write
in 1910: our pine tree must be reduced to a geometric form, making clear the principles of Grasset were
still valid. In 1933 Le Corbusier commented on his search for pure form and the possible origins. He wrote:
Cette recherche de filiation mexplique linflexible attirance quoprant sur moi les formes pures dans
lespace, et la puret dans la pense. Et aussi ma libert totale de penser et ce certain ct idaliste qui fut
de tout temps le caractre fondamental des habitants des rudes Montagnes neuchteloises.10 Of the house
Fallet Le Corbusier would write a couple years later, in 1936: I built my first house from A to Z (very
finished and complicated) at the age of eighteen. From my youth I have had the weight of stone and brick in
my arms, the astonishing resistance of wood in my eyes, the miraculous qualities of metal in my mind. The
reference to the Biblical parable seems evident. Several times Le Corbusier would prime deep into his own
past and make connections with his new life in Paris. Also the weight of things often returns in his
writings. From my early youth on I have had harsh contact with the weight of things. The heaviness of
materials and the resistance of materials. And men: the diverse qualities of men and the resilience of men.
My life was to live in their midst and to offer daring solutions to the weight of materials. 11
Not always Le Corbusier would so willingly admit the importance of LEplattenier. Sometimes he would
stress other factors. Thus in 1930. In Prcisions sur un tat de larchitecture et de lurbanisme he writes:
Today I am considered a revolutionary. I shall confess to you that I have had only one teacher: the past;
only one education: the study of the past. Everything, for a long time, and still today: the museums, travels,
folk art ... I have been everywhere where there were pure works - those of peasants or geniuses - with my
question How? Why?. It is in the past that I found my lessons of history, of the reasons for being of things.
Every event and every object is in relationship to ....12 In his last text he would state again: From my
earliest youth on I have had a rough encounter with the weight of things. With the heaviness of materials
and the resistance of materials. Add to this the human factor: peoples different qualities and general
resistance and their resistance against other people. There is often an oscillation between the different
influences, but the words he chose to express where almost always the same. Past, nature and education

9
See: Le Corbusier, Lart dcoratif daujourdhui, Paris 1925, p, 135.
10
Le Corbusier, Croisade, ou le Crpuscule des Acadmies, Paris 1933, p. 34.
11
Le Corbusier in Mise au point translated in : I. akni (Ed.), The final testament of Pre Corbu, New
Haven/London 1997, p. 83.
12
Here quoted from the English edition Precisions on the present state of architecture and city planning,
Cambridge (Mass.) 1991.

3
were the three players in his formation. Different roles were given in different moments to each one. In the
same last text he states: I am 77 years old and the moral impulse driving me on can be summed up as
follows: in life one has to make things happen, that is, one has to act with modesty, exactitude, and
precision.13
The money earned with the building of the house Fallet permitted Jeanneret to realize one of his wishes that
had been nourished by LEplattenier. Armed with the book Mornings in Florence of John Ruskin (that as he
later said would teach him to see) he departed in September of 1907 to Italy. His first trip took him over the
Alps. As companion he had some books and his friend and painter Lon Perrin, who waited from him in
Florence. One of the books, next to Ruskin, was Hippolyte Taines Voyage en Italie. As Paul Turner
indicated Jeanneret especially appreciated of Taine the way the difference was made between the beauty of
art objects, which could be conceptualised, and nature, which beauty was so majestic and noble that it
resisted all analyses. Yet, although the trip seemed to be in the tradition of the Grand Tour, it was first of all
an overall lesson in seeing and experiencing. The goals were not a scholastic apprehension of the works of
art, but, a constant attempt to exercise his hands in the different techniques of representation. The outcome
was reflected and compared to the statements of Ruskin. It was a combined experience of drawing and
writing. Long letters were written to his master and his parents, of which many have together with his
drawings miraculously survived considering the meticulous method with which Le Corbusier staged his
history as a pure modern artist. They constitute a sort of distant diary. Comments of his likes and dislikes
are continuously illustrating his juvenile battle with an avalanche of new impressions. Jeanneret was a
tourist, beyond any doubt, but a very conscious one. And one who knew what his limitations were and to
what purpose he was making this trip in the land of culture. His architectural gaze was formed, his muse
imaginaire filled. He started to collect insights.
Over the Gotthard he went to Milan, Pavia, Genoa, Carrara and Pisa. It was a voyage en zigzag and
everything illustrated this searching for an own manner of appropriation. 14 He was struck by his impressions
of Pisa. The faade of the Duomo was simply merveilleuse. This pure white marble building left its mark.
Although the nearby leaning tower is missing, Pisa was recorded in several drawings and watercolours from
the well-known monuments, sculpture and paintings. Especially the last ones were in his carnet de voyage
reduced in their representation to more simple unities. He did not however view the architectonic
monuments as an ensemble but saw them in their own right. Only much later would he dedicate attention to
the relationship between buildings. Finally a few days later Florence appeared. He wrote to his master: The
city appears to me not rich in architecture, isnt that so? Or are my eyes still dazzled by Pisa? As I told you,
the Palazzo Vecchio is a great marvel but it is difficult to study, its an abstract power, isnt it? He tried to
capture the potency of the Palazzo Vecchio in drawing, and explained much the drawing couldnt show in
words written in the margin. The visual analysis is focussed on the placing of the windows and door and on
the tower. More revealing is his watercolour of the Dome of Santa Maria del Fiore, also because in his
general comments both the campanile and the church are judged negatively. The airy sketch indicates his
interest in the atmospheric indication of the silhouette. Turner was the example to follow. This technique
was not exclusively employed. The young Jeanneret was not convinced that all his sketching should be in
one manner. The task of the journey was to experiment. The range of object was from detail to contour.
Variation and ways of observation provided a fundus for further exploration. The importance of observation
was stressed may years later again by Aldo Rossi when he wrote: Observing things maybe my most
important education.15 Jeanneret is enthusiastic about the change that he could feel he was experiencing
from the places he went and eagerly tells his teacher about these discoveries. The cupola of the Dome has
finally revealed itself to me after four weeks of indifference I descended, stupefied by its grandeur; I
retract all the foolish things I thought and perhaps wrote concerning this genius who daringly constructed a
thing that is so colossal and so strong. Bigness could only be captured in a watercolour, were the exact
lines were blurred and approximate and a watery colour could exercise its influence. From Florence he went

13
Le Corbusier, Mise au point, Paris 1966.
14
I am referring, in a different manner although, to Jencks study on the one hand and the recent
fundamental contribution of S. von Moos, Voyages en Zigzag, in: S. von Moos/A. Regg, Le Corbusier
before Le Corbusier, New Haven/London 2002 on the other. The book Voyages en zigzag (1846) of R.
Tpffer was well known by Le Corbusier, from his youth, and shows many illustrations of a wandering
spirit amidst Nature.
15
In: A. Rossi, A scientific autobiography, Cambridge (Mass.)/London 1981, p. 23,

4
to the Chartreuse de Galluzzo were he had an attack of spleen. This cloister proved to be a decisive
experience of the individual and the collective as architecturally inseparable. It was considered as an
example a modern city scheme. The road continued to Siena. Again the drawings and watercolours vary
enormously in technique of representation and in interest. The building-scape of the Palazzo Pubblico was
an explosion of colours, other drawings were analytical and refined in their execution. What was his main
concern? Some time later he came with an answer: Car pourquoi nous avoir envoys en Italie? Jai cru
jusqu aujourdhui que ctait pour nous ouvrir les yeux. Even more revealing is what he immediately
added : Et voil, aprs avoir eu une chappe sur lidal, qui est le seul ressort de notre vie, il faudra aller
faire le contraire de ce que nous avons vu.16 Do the contrary to what one has seen becomes a conscious
mechanism in his creative productivity. But before he can do the opposite he needs to study and understand
what he sees. He contemplates and exercises his hand and mind, but is not ready for new roads. His letters
till around 1917 show this struggle to find his own idealistic way. Nothing is done in great haste.
From Siena the road led back to Florence. The city was scrutinized with different eyes. If before tout se
rvle peu peu, comme un clich au dveloppement. Jamais de coup de thtre !Everything appears
slowly, like a negative in development, now the eyes are opened and a different awareness become
apparent.17 Florence: Je trouve Florence magnifique [] aprs Sienne; lelimination devient formidable, il
ne reste plus que Giotto, le plus grand de tous les peintres dcorateurs, Sta Croce, le Palais Vieu, Or San
Michele, la merveille du genie fort et robuste faisant des delicatesses et de la beaut. La couple du Dome
From his letters it becomes evident that the different ways of seeing are important to Jeanneret. His way
of conceiving is a matter of training. On his first full day in Florence he had written: Le matin vu Giotto et
la Porte dOr. Ruskin est dcidement un type, il apprend voir 18 In the colourful frescos of Giotto
Jeanneret recognized himself. At least he identified the task that lay before him and considered himself in
the realm of art as the being that had to impersonate the role of the Messiah. Much later he will confirm that
architecture is a mission requiring that those who follow it have a true calling. 19 He thought it was useless
to try to copy a Raphael or a Botticelli.
The seeing is not limited to the familiar, well-know masterworks. On the contrary, the great artists of the
Renaissance are mostly skipped in favour for those from the Gothic period. This is a result of his reading
Ruskin in a rigorous manner. Jeanneret is trying to give meaning to the things he sees within his own life.
They become heavily charged with significance. He is commenting especially those moments where he is in
accordance or clear discordances with what he had read in the books that he had with him. Furthermore he
is interested in solutions that reminded him of problems he had tackled in the Fallet house. In the drawing of
Palazzo Vecchio we can see how he looks at the articulation of the stone surfaces and the joints. The
architecture of the Renaissance is hardly noticed. It does not seem to shock his feelings. Only the enormous
dome remains as a token of the grandeur of this Renaissance city, but is is rendered in a haze and the
mountains in the watercolour are exaggerated in scale.
Jeanneret and Perrin left Florence and after some detours arrived at Ravenna, a curious stop which had been
inspired by the reading of Taine. He is struck, some say in a negative way, by some buildings and their
interior decorations.20 In Ravenna many colourful watercolours were made of the mosaics and lavishly
sculptured capitals in the early Christian churches. The comments to LEplattenier were clear: Ces
mosaques l sont bien uniques et nous avons bien fait de les tudier srieusement et de ne point trop
escompter sur celles de St. Marcs.21 The monumentality of representation in the mosaics astonishes him
particularly. Here he finds lhomme mu devant la nature, a existential theme which he is dear to him.
Nature moves mankind.
From Ravenna the journey leads to Venice. There he visits the Biennale exhibition. He wanders through the
city and writes to his master at home: Le Palais ducal, St-Marc et la Ca-dOro, autant de perles. On regarde

16
Both quotes in: M.P.M. Sekler, The early drawings of Charles-Edouard Jeanneret (Le Corbusier) 1902-
1908, New York/London 1977, p. 257.
17
Quotation from a letter to his parents, dated 14 September 1907. See: J. Jenger, Le Corbusier Choix de
letters, Basel/Boston/Berlin 2002, p. 33.
18
M.P.M. Sekler, Op.cit., p. 189.
19
L. Herv, Le Corbusier as artist, as writer, Neuchatel 1970, p. 113.
20
See: G. Gresleri, Camere con vista e disattesi itinerari: le voyage dItalie di Ch.E. Jeanneret, in : Le
Corbuiser. Il viaggio in Toscane (1907), Venice 1987, p. 23.
21
J. Jenger, Op.cit., p. 38.

5
le plus possible et lon tche de sinstruire. Cette ville ne me plairait pas pour un sjour prolong. Trop de
moments doisivet force, ces ternels bateaux, qui vous donnent le got de la grande flemme. Les crayons
ne usent plus et le papier reste bien blanc.22 Nothing indicates his later often mentioned fascination with
the transport systems in this town. He nevertheless stayed for almost two weeks in the lagoon city. In his
letter to LEplattenier, which is sometimes a lesson on his seeing, he also addresses the fact that he is
working on two houses, the Villa Jacquemet and the Villa Stotzer, on which he will also work in Vienna.
From Budapest he went to the Austrian capital.
In Vienna Jeanneret wanted to work some time for Josef Hoffmann, but probably this remained only a wish,
although he did meet this Viennese architect.23 With sarcastic words he did however write on the work of
Otto Wagner and his pupils. The cold style of Wagner does not attract him. His judgement on Wagner is
negative. A voir Wagner, on sent ses ides devenir confuses, le Palais Vieux sefface, on se laisse aller
trouver belle telle porte, telle colonne, telle fentre, qui, si on se ressaisit ne sont plus quillogisme et
laideur.Par exemple: jai vu la coupole de Wagner Steinhof, la Grande roue au Prater, je ne les ai point
regardes, nayant aucun plaisir le faire, parce que nayant aucune ide de la manire dont ctait fait, ces
questions l nveillrent en moi aucune curiosit. Je vois des arciers, des axes spciaux; ils mennuient
parce que je leur suis tranger; leur construction ne mintresse pas, parce que je ny comprends rien 24
Despite his dislike for much what he sees in Vienna the lesson of this city is resumed in the following
sentence of Jeanneret: Avant de juger regarder fond et comparer. 25 Jeanneret was well informed on what
was happening in Austria and Germany. We can ask ourselves if he tried to contact Adolf Loos. In his
letters he is silent about this Viennese architect, but later he showed a great respect for Loos. This becomes
clear in the publication of the article Ornament et Crime which he will insert in his magazine LEsprit
Nouveau. Also in Vers une architecture and in other writings direct references to Loos can be found. He
writes: Decoration is of a sensorial and elementary order, as is colour, and is suited to simple races,
peasants and savages. Harmony and proportion incite the intellectual faculties and arrest the man of culture.
The peasant loves ornament and decorates his walls. The civilized man wears a well-cut suit and is the
owner of easel pictures and books. Decoration is the essential overplus, the quantum of the peasant; and
proportion is the essential overplus, the quantum of the cultivated man. From his letters to his parents and
LEplattenier, written from Vienna, we can deduce his interest in the architectural movements in Germany.
Although he says that le mouvement germain est la recherch de loriginalit outrance, en ne soccupant
ni de construction he is illustrating his interest and desire to study the German developments more in detail.
During his stay in Vienna he is working on the two already mentioned house-projects and is of the opinion
that Les Maisons Stotzer et Jacquemet trahiront Vienne, car il y aura des fentres en ciment et des tablettes
en fer blanc.26 This remark is cryptic but shows his intention. He compares and does not say that they are
entirely different or that he was looking for something different, but that these houses betrayed what he had
seen.
What is the result, the purpose of his travels? Jeanneret touches on this argument a couple of times in his
letters, but later in his career Le Corbusier will give a direct answer: When one travels and works with
visual things - architecture, painting or sculpture - one uses ones eyes and draws, so as to fix deep down in
ones experience what is seen. Once the impression has been recorded by the pencil, it stays for good,
entered, registered, inscribed. The camera is a tool for idlers, who use a machine to do their seeing for them.
To draw oneself, to trace the lines, handle the volumes, organize the surface ... all this means first to look,
and then to observe and finally perhaps to discover ... and it is then that inspiration may come. Inventing,
creating, ones whole being is drawn into action, and it is this action which counts. Others stood indifferent
- but you saw.27 The English translation reveals even more what Le Corbusier, who during his voyage to

22
J. Jenger, Op.cit., p. 39. See also: M.P.M. Sekler, Op.cit., p. 217.
23
See: G. Fanelli/R. Gargiani, Perret et Le Corbusier. Confronti, Bari 1990, p. 5.
24
J. Jenger, Op.cit., p. 46 and p. 49. Slightly different transcription of p. 49 quotation in: M.P.M. Sekler,
Op.cit., p. 263.
25
J. Jenger, Op.cit., p. 46.
26
See J. Jenger, Op.cit., p. 46 and M.P.M. Sekler, Op.cit., 250-251.
27
Le Corbusier, Creation is a patient search, New York/Washington 1960, p. 37 (Quand on voyage et
quon est praticien des choses visuelles: architecture, peinture ou sculpture, on regarde avec ses yeux et on
dessine afin de pousser linterieur, dans sa propre histoire, les choses vues. Une fois les choses entres par
le travail du crayon, elles restent dedans pour la vie; elles sont crites, elles sont inscrites. Lappareil

6
the Orient would carry a heavy photo camera with him, meant by drawing into action. The importance of
drawing during his journeys is reflected upon on several occasions. For me, drawing is the means whereby
an artist tries to use that part of nature (of Creation) that he feels like observing, knowing, understanding,
interpreting and expressing! He has formed the habit of getting close to the subjects that he draws So that
the profile of things becomes for him revealing of the volume . 28 It is not strange that Le Corbusier has
been called a voyeur, mentally engaged but from an intellectual distance. Yet this aspect has not been
studied in depth.
Seeing, dissecting and recomposing were mechanisms of his patient search and his creative potential. To
break down what one sees and reduce it to an abstraction was his manner of approach. Even when he used
modern devices as airplanes during his travels, Le Corbusier would be continuously looking outside the
window trying to explain the world beneath. Stanislaus von Moos writes: Pour Le Corbusier la vue davion
signifi lalination de la proximit sensuelle de la nature, du contact direct avec les plantes, les fleurs, les
hommes ....29 Not by subscribing to architectural reviews could creative powers be developped but by
undertaking voyages of discovery into the inexhaustible domain of Nature was the opinion of the master in
1936, and again he cried out: open your eyes, burst the strait-jacket of professional discussions.30
In a way Le Corbusier felt he was in his artistic loneliness a victim of the modern way of living. My lot is
to be an impenitent traveller, borne into all the corners of the world. My hands burn. In the existence that
has been made for me, in which mental activity puts my nerves to the hardest tests, I am often required to
accomplish the miracle which joins the spirit, through the hands, to the wished-for work. That miracle,
which balances the pulse of the arteries and the commands of the head, and which also allows the hand to
take liberties and project inventions which are sometimes shattering, is the unconscious happiness granted
to serious craftsmen. From my youth I have been an inveterate artisan.31
Over and over again Le Corbusier turns on the point of seeing. There is no book in which the act of seeing
is not proliferated. The list of citations with the accent on his vision, his art of looking, can be long. Some
examples: Il faut toujours dire ce que lon voit, surtout il faut, ce qui est plus difficile, voir ce que lon
voit. I exist in life only on condition that I see. This is the key: to look, observe, see, imagine, invent,
create. Il faut toujours dire ce que lon voit, surtout il faut, ce qui est plus difficile, voir ce que lon voit
I am and remain an impenitent visual. I had had a sort of clairvoyant vision of the problems of
contemporary housing. Synthesis between my eyes and the horizon. Today, we see clearly. To make it
possible to visualize events, to make them understandable almost instantaneously to the onlooker, a place is
needed, a means of explanation in this case, buildings. light and seeing. captive loeil. Let us shut our
eyes to what exists. The eye can reach a considerable distance and, like a clear lens, sees everything even
beyond what was intended or wished.
The central position of the eye is sometimes illustrated in his drawings but above all in his statement: I am
a donkey, but a donkey with an eye: the eye of a donkey capable of sensations. I am a donkey with an
instinct for proportion. I am and always will be an unrepentant visualist. Even in his last surviving
sketchbook he would write on the page dated August 15th 1963 that preceded a page with a recollection of
his Italy trip: la clef, cest regarder regarder, observer, voir, imaginer, inventer, crer.
Already in Vienna Jeanneret decided that he wanted to explore further on his structural investigations and
that he would not go home, but to Paris. This was not in the original planning of his trip when he left La
Chaux-de-Fonds. He also wanted to study at the Ecole Nationale des Arts Dcoratifs. H. Allen Brooks
wrote: Jeanneret arrived in Paris determined to know, to delve into the innermost depths of architecture
and to gain insight into the phenomenon we call design, insights that would crystallize for him his own
ideal of just what contemporary architecture should be.32 Besides frequenting the museums he worked in

photographique est un outil de paresse puisquon confie une mcanique la mission de voir pour vous.
Dessiner soi-mme, suivre des profils, occuper des surfaces, reconnatre des volumes, etc. cest dabord
regarder cest tre apte peut-tre a observer, apte peut-tre a dcouvrir.)
28
L. Herv, Le Corbusier as artist, as writer, Neuchatel 1970, p. 13.
29
Stanilaus von Moos, Les femmes dAlger, in: Le Corbusier et la mditerrane, Marseille 1987, p. 195.
30
See: Le Corbusier et Pierre Jeanneret, Ouevre complete 1910-1929, Zurich 1988(12th edition), p. 6.
31
.Le Corbusier, New World of Space, New York 1948, p. 18.
32
H. Allen Brooks, Le Corbusiers formative years, Chicago/London 1997, p. 151.

7
the studio of the Perret brothers, the masters of concrete construction. 33 They were working on the design
for the hunting lodge La Saulot at Salbris. This project is very similar in its architecture to the houses
Stotzer and Jacquemet of Jeanneret. A vernacular style was strived for. Next to the museums books
provided the necessary study material. With his first pay check of Perret he bought the Dictionnaire
raisonn de larchitecture franais of Viollet-le-Duc. In the book he wrote: Je lai achet pour apprendre,
car sachant je pourrai alors crer. August Perret probably told him which chapters he had to read. In the
margins of one of the chapters we can read: Ces quelques lignes font voir que toit cet art vit par sa
carcasse. Cest un monolithe aussi, une cage de file de fer, - o les pressions verticales et les pousses
obliques tiennent lieu du ciment des blockages romains, et des ronds dacier du bton. Or, me disait August
Perret, tenez la carcasse, et vous tenez lArt. He kept his parents and his master in La Chaux-de-Fonds
informed on his development in long letters. To LEplattenier he wrote in July 1908: Dautre part cot de
labstraction des mathmatiques pures, je lis Viollet-le-Duc, cet homme si sage, si logique, si clair et si
prcis dans ses observations. Jai Viollet-le-Duc et jai Notre-Dame qui me sert de table de laboratoire, pour
ainsi dire. Dans cette merveilleuse batisse je contrle les dires de Viollet-le-Duc et jy fais mes petites
observations personelles. Cest l aussi que je vais faire mes sance de dessins dapres lantique et je vous
assur que ce sance ne sont pas les plus gaies de la journe. Jai un profond dgout de moi-mme. Non,
franchement, je suis pouvante de constater chaque jour mon incapacit tenir un crayon: je ne sens pas le
forme, je ne puis faire toruner une forme: cest en dsesprer. je recherche gometriquement le
principe du modle, la dcomposition de la lumire et de lombre sur une sphre, un ovale, un vase ou d
autre objets. And : La vie de Paris est solitaire pour moi. Et depuis 8 mois je vis seul seul seul avec cet
esprit fort qui est en chaque homme. In another letter he proclaimed: Cest dans la solitude que lon se bat
avec son moi. Solitariness is the theme of the flneur, but Jeanneret considers it as a strength which has to
be nurtured not in the city but in libraries and museums.
My concept of the art of building is sketched in outline. Since Vienna had killed my purely plastic
conception of architecture (research purely for form), I felt, on arriving in Paris, an immense empty feeling
and I said to myself: Poor chap, for the moment you know nothing, you dont even know how much you
dont know . He wants to keep on studying till he knows enough. His strife for knowing continues even if
Paris spells loneliness. To LEplattenier he complains about his solitude but even this being on his own is
made productive. La vie de Paris est solitaire pour moi. Et depuis huit moins je vis seul seul seul avec
cet esprit fort qui est en chaque homme, et avec qui je veux chaque jour causer. 34 He continues in his letter:
These 8 months in Paris cry out to me, logic, truth, honesty; away with the dream of the past arts. Eyes up,
forward! Word for word, in the full meaning of the words, Paris says to me! Burn what you loved and love
what you burnt.35 This expression, brle ce que tu as adore et adore etc., was a long time one of his
favourite slogans.36 He says frankly that he is learning what is architecture par la ngation. He is certain
that a new architecture is emerging. One speaks of the art of tomorrow. This art will be. Because mankind
has changed his lifestyle, his way of thinking. The program is new. It is new in a new context of iron
of reinforced concrete. He was aware of the fact that he had to battle ignorance, not that I know
something, but because I know that I know nothing.37
About one and a half year he would work for Auguste Perret. Unfortunately the cahiers in which he noted
the frequent discussions with this master have not turned up. As the Dutch architect A. Elzas concludes in
an article Perret en Le Corbusier it was in the office of August that Le Corbusier became familiar with the
innovative possibilities of concrete construction.38 His readings in Paris were of a peculiar melange. Besides
the classic literature of Flaubert, Baudelaire and Rousseau, he bought many other books, like Les grands

33
One of the first articles dealing with this connection is: M. Raphael, August Perret und die geistige
Situation der jungen Architekten (1934), in: M. Raphael, Fr eine demokratische Architektur, Frankfurt
a.M. 1976, pp. 45-52.
34
J. Jenger, Op.cit., p. 64.
35
J. Jenger, Op.cit., p. 65: Les huits mois de Paris me crient: logique, vrit honntet, arrire le rve vers
les arts passs. Les yeux hauts, en avant ! Mot pour mot, dans toute la valeur des mots, Paris me dit : Brle
ce que tu as aim, et adore ce que tu brlais.
36
See the letter to his parents, dated 8 March 1908, in: J. Jenger, Op.cit., p. 54.
37
See: H. Allen Brooks, Op.cit., pp. 153-154.
38
A. Elzas, Perret en Le Corbusier, in: De 8 en Opbouw, 1934, nr. 2, pp. 10-18.

8
initis written by Schur, the Vie de Jsus of Renan, and Nietzsches Zarathoustra.39 He identifies himself
often with the main characters in these books. Perret guided him in these readings even if Jeanneret
developed his own taste. At night he would sit in the national library in Paris and read. He not only was
interested in literature and philosophy but was insatiable in many directions. He would read Edouard
Corroyers famous Larchitecture romane, which fed his hunger for knowledge of structural elements. With
great care he copied illustrations from this book, meanwhile learning the techniques and combining these
with his thoughts.
In Paris he is also confronted with the work of the cubist painters, especially that of Pablo Picasso and Jean
Metzinger. Picasso with whom he much later as a foreigner perceived a certain affinity was a sort of role
model. Jeanneret still saw a career as painter in front of him. Initially he was shocked by their work for their
hardies violations du droit de peindre, but later he would show more appreciation. 40 But in that period it
was above all the work of El Greco and Tiepolo that struck him. Here too the detachment and displacement
of these international artists will have played an important role. He after all considered himself a stranger.
After his apprenticeship in Perrets office Jeanneret returns to his home town, to La Chaux-de-Fonds. On
his return he probably visited Tony Garnier in Lyon and maybe saw the neo-classical buildings by Claude-
Nicolas Ledoux. Especially French classicism had become a part of his architectural knowledge.
He only stayed a short period in La Chaux-de- Fonds, where he designed in 1910 an artists colony, the
Ateliers dArt, and went skiing, a sport which he loved even if his sight was rather poor and he had to wear
thick glasses since his youth. The design for the colony was partly based on ideas he had developed since
his visit to the Charterhouse of Ema or Galluzzo, where he had encountered an authentic and
overwhelming human aspiration, silence and solitude but also daily contact with men and yet at the same
time opening out towards the ineffable and partly on his preference for geometrically conceived
buildings.41 H. Allen Brooks points to the influence of the architecture of Peter Behrens, with whom
Jeanneret had already stated he would like to work.42 During this period in his hometown Jeanneret had
started to inquire problems of urban design. These derived above all from a preoccupation with the layout
of the city of La Chaux-de-Fonds itself, being laid out according to a strict orthogonal plan. He conceived
studies which would lead to a book sometimes referred to as La construction des villes.43 It is obvious that
he sees reading, writing and publishing as a part of his being. The work leans heavily on the study made by
Camillo Sitte as is proven by the long quotations, but Jeanneret researches also many other sources for
inspiration from Laugier to the catalogues of the German town planning exhibitions.. Richard Etlin pointed
to the importance of this project when he wrote: Although the later Le Corbusier would reject the Sittesque
approach of his youth for urban planning, it had a lasting effect on his development of the architectural
promenade.44 The town planning ingredients, which derived from Sitte, are transposed into the design of
the individual buildings. The house becomes a little town, with changing sightlines. His feet itching,
Jeanneret wanted to go abroad to study the question of urban design in more detail. An opportunity arose
when he was asked to go to Germany in order to study the movement of decorative arts, an issue which had
been on his mind for quite some time. On April 7th 1910 he left La Chaux-de-Fonds again, partly on
instigation by LEplattenier who had worked to give him a scholarship for this trip of investigation. He had
equipped with letters of recommendation for the most prominent architects, above all those connected to the
German Werkbund. . From Karlsruhe and Stuttgart he would go to Munich, where he visits Theodor
Fischer, who is one of the most important town planners in Germany, also influenced by Sitte. Fischer
introduced him to other personalities. In Munich he also became acquainted with August Klipstein and
William Ritter who would turn his interests towards the Middle East. From the letters to Ritter it is possible
to get an idea how much Jeanneret considered him a spiritual mentor. Much has been written on this trip

39
See for a more detailed study of these readings: P.V. Turner, The Education of Le Corbusier, New
York/London 1977, pp. 55-67.
40
See: H. Allen Brooks, Op.cit., p. 352.
41
Citation in: J. Petit, Le Corbusier : Lui-mme, Genve 1970, p. 28.
42
H. Allen Brooks, Op.cit., p. 197.
43
A reconstruction of this never published work was first made by M.E.A. Emery, see: Charles-Edouard
Jeanneret (Le Corbusier), La construction des villes, Paris 1992 and later, in a more careful manner by Chr.
Schnoor, La Construction des Villes. Charles-Edouard Jeannerets erstes stdtebauliches Traktat von
1910/11, Zurich 2008.
44
R.A. Etlin, Frank Lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier. The romantic legacy, Manchester 1994, p. 106.

9
through Germany that resulted in a thorough publication of the different art schools in this country. 45 This
publication also is a witness for his town planning interest. He discussed the Allgemeine Stdtebau-
Ausstellung in Berlin, an extremely important international event, and had a chapter on the Garden City
movement. The crucial role of Peter Behrens within the A.E.G. Company is enlightened and he stresses the
fact that the design of all the products of this modern company was made or controlled by Behrens. 46
Jeanneret admired Behrens but after some months in his studio this admiration had partly vanished. In a
letter to an unknown person he writes on January 4th 1911: Chez Behrens on ny fait pas de pure
architecture. Cest de la faade. Les hrsies constructives abondent. Darchitecture moderniste on nen fait
pas. Peut-tre est-ce plus sage - plus sage que les lucubrations peu classiques des Perret frres. Perret
frres avaient lavantage de chercher beaucoup avec les matriaux nouveaux. Behrens lui, serait un
protestaire. Je napprends donc chez lui absolutement que la facade en toutes choses. Le milieu est
excrable, ma vie ici est excrable, ma vie ici est imbcile.47 He was probably comparing in his mind this
experience with the work in the office of Perret and had little grip on the personality of Behrens. Yet the
denial of any influence is often a sign of the existence of such an influence. Jeanneret hates what he loves!
During the months in Neu-Babelsberg he visited the museums of Berlin. His opinion is strangely enough
rather negative: He tells his parents in a letter: Going to the museums disgusts me before going. The
badness has taken a pathological pleat. Yesterday I was in the Kaiser Friedrich Museum and I assure you it
was not a pleasant visit. And later more oil was put on the fire!: The National Gallery, what horror. I feel
emptiness, a perfect indifference, the emotion will be nothing but artificial. Only at Czanne can he look
with pleasure. Already in Munich the museums are criticized. The museum is a place where a feeling of
melancholy frequently prevails because (the things collected) stagnate there, cold evidence rather than daily
companions. During the period in Behrenss office he was an avid reader. His ideas on classicism and
regional architecture become clearer. He is inspired by the reading of the book Entretiens de la Villa du
Rouet of the Swiss writer Alexandre Cingria-Vaneyre that had been published in 1908. Jeanneret had a copy
send to him. As Gropius and Mies van der Rohe, Jeanneret regarded classicism thanks to Behrens in a
different perspective. Further Cingria opened the eyes of the young architect for a different beauty which
had little to do with what he encountered in Germany. From his quest of a German regional style he diverted
towards the desire of style more defined by a classical order, mixed with the ingredients of a specific
mountain culture, like that of the Jura area. Also for Cingria la simplicit rectiligne characterised the most
a pure classicism. The author turns himself against the Berlin developments when he writes that the new
architecture should not be composed with the help of des masses cubiques avec des sculptures carres,
comme les architectes berlinois. Jeanneret wrote in the margin a lapidary statement: this book is helping
me orient myself. It provokes an investigation, and clear luminous thinking; it unlocks the German vice
from me. One year from now, in Rome, I shall re-read it, and with sketches shall establish my Jura,
Neuchatel discipline.48 From this we can conclude that at that moment he knew he was not finished with his
traveling. The book on town planning for which he collected many postcards and made many diagrams was
pushed in the background. Through Ritter the plan settled in to go to the Orient, a trip which has been
extensively commented by scholars.49 Whereas Germany and France were comparable to some degree, as
he wrote in a letter to Osthaus, Votre Allemagne moderne est admirable, de dvouement dune part,
dnergiques resolutions, de courage civique. France qui lapides tes prophtes ! Vous ne men voudrez pas
de aimer la France ! La France est le pays du sourire et de la bonne vie, the Orient was of an incomparable

45
See H. Allen Brooks, Op.cit. ; P.V. Turner, Op.cit.; S. von Moos, Le Corbusier und die Erneuerung des
Kunstgewerbes in Deutschland um 1910, in: Werk, 1967, nr. 4, pp. 211-214; and R. De Simone, Ch.E.
Jeanneret-Le Corbusier. Viaggio in Germania 1910-1911, Rome 1989. Also the Carnets of this trip have
been published.
46
See: Ch.-E. Jeanneret, tude sur le mouvement dart decorative en Allemagne, La Chaux-de-Fonds 1912,
pp. 43-44.
47
See: J. Petit, Op.cit., p. 38.
48
See: H. Allen Brooks, Op.cit., p, 237, and P.V. Turner, Op.cit., p. 85 (Pour moi, ce livre vient
favorablement mon orientation. Il provoque un examen, les dductions normales, claires, lunineuses ; il
desserre pour moi ltau germanique. Dans une anne, Rome, je le relirai, et, par des esquisses, je fonderai
ma discipline jurassique, neuchteloise).
49
See especially: H. Allen Brooks, Op.cit. and G. Gresleri, Le Corbusier. Viaggio in Oriente, Venice 1984.

10
magnitude..50 It was an experience that initially was a confrontation with the most famous monument and
later, in Istanbul, with a culture of a complete different substance.
The Parthenon on the Acropolis in Greece is raised to an archtype, but in a particular way. At various times
Le Corbusier would discuss the building and compare it with other temples. This comparison is directly
rivalled by that of products of the car culture. Here his knowledge becomes operative and productive. The
pages in Vers une architecture are well known. Vers une architecture, that is considered a masterwork of
rhetoric, Poetics of violence and one of the strangest dichtomies. The title of the book was almost
architecture or revolution. Already in 1924 the reporter Leandre Vincent had noticed: He [Le Corbusier]
does not act according to logic, but to violent suggestion. He does not prove, he strikes. He sets antithesis
regularly side by side. Antithesis, like analogy, can hardly be called a philosophical formula used to search
for the truth. It is an argument of rhetoric: the most emotional, the one best suited for blinding the masses.
The Parthenon becomes a machine in the eyes of the Swiss architect.
The Parthenon is the undeniable master, a gigantic apparition, a terrifying machine.51 Bewildered, the
active mind grasps and plunges into a past that should not be reconstructed. These temples .... outside
reality ... could become for one hour only the heroic vision of a creative mind. And in his compilation
Creation is a Patient Search he writes about the experience in an impressive manner: The columns of the
North facade and the architrave of the Parthenon were still lying on the ground. Touching them with his
fingers, caressing them, he grasps the proportion of the design. Amazement: reality has nothing in common
with books of instruction. Here everything was a shout of inspiration, a dance in the sunlight ... and a final
and supreme warning: do not believe until you have seen and measured ... and touched with your own
fingers.52 (p. 21) He describes the temple as pure geometry which embodies the divine Ideal.
As mentioned, he describes the temple as a machine. This would become one of his favourite provocative
words to name a building. But this metaphor gets an extra status when he tells us that the Greek temple has
a rectitude dune mathematique vidente et la nettet quapporte son labeur, le mcanicien. The temple
is thus a symbol of precision, of mathematics, of geometric rectilinearness. It is superhuman.
Those who, while practicing the art of architecture, find themselves at a moment in their career somewhat
empty-headed, their confidence, depleted by doubt before that task of giving a living form to inert matter,
will understand the melancholy of my soliloquies amid ruins - and my chilling dialogues with silent stones.
Very often, I left the Acropolis burdened by a heavy premonition, not daring to imagine that one day I
would have to create. Photos show Jeanneret amidst the ruins of temples, sometimes with his back towards
the observer. The pure white color reflects the light. Oh light, marble, monochrome. Nothing shows that
he was aware of the fact that temples were originally painted.
From Asia Minor, where he made many sketches, that are more loosely made - more focused on the
grasping of an idea than on a delicate rendering - he went to Rome. Two sentences expresses his sensations:
If you have seen Rome as a compound of horizontals and prisms, cylindrical and polygonal, you will have
no mind to reproduce the obscene Punch and Judy show of pediments, columns, cupolas, and axes radiating
from star shaped figures.... Even in drawing scenes of the Campo Santo at Pisa, you will have experienced
the torments of hell; you will have witnessed crimes.53 This violent reaction in words will dominate in the
war years, when Jeanneret walked through the frontlines towards Paris and shortly after. I believe we are
living in profound ambiguity and in a depressing hypocrisy. The present social contract is only refuse. Its
morality is cruel, treacherous, lying; it is immoral. The biblical dogma that begins by defining as sin the
fundamental law of nature, the act of making love, has rotted our hearts, has finished by ending in this
twentieth century in notions of honor and honesty that are facades sometimes hiding lies and crimes. The
weight of this social contract on our most legitimate, most normal acts enslaves entire populations - slavery
measured in the secret of hearts, suffered in privacy in hidden pain. The charity of priests begins its work
with an ambiguity used to define that charitys Satan. It is easy to say, easy to do; today, it is to judge
without even looking: well-known examples to point out from the height of a pulpit! And, in effect,
punishment is dealt out to sinners! Punishment by whom? Quite simply, the cruel and unconscious

50
H. Hesse-Frielinghaus, Briefwechsel Le Corbusier-Karl Ernst Osthaus, Hagen 1977, w.p. (letter of
March 27th 1912)
51
See for his machine-thinking: S. von Moos, Im Vorzimmer des Machine Age, in: S. von Moos (ed.),
LEsprit Nouveau. Le Corbusier und die Industrie 1920-1925, Berlin 1987, pp. 12-25.
52
Le Corbusier, Creation is a patient search, New York/Washington 1960, p. 21.
53
Ibidem, p. 37.

11
honesty of those who apparently follow the code. It is judged as well as the fate of troops launched under
the artillery fire of life: those who have received the shells are the sinners!.54 Before the war he thought of
going to the United States. On August the 7th 1913 he writes to Karl Ernst Osthaus: Voici 2 ans que jai
essay de travailler chez nous La Chaux-de-Fonds. Mais il ny a rien faire et je cherche partir pour
lAmrique. Jai besoin de grand travail, o lart joue le grand rle, o on emploie mes forces et mon
enthousiasme.55 But it was not to America that he would go next, but to Paris, the great city in which he
could be the interesting stranger. There he took on a new identity and became from a subject an object.
There he would radically break with his past. He would burn it even if it would occasionally pop up again in
his mind. His past and his memory was instrumentalized for his new vocation. Behind an objective mask
the name Le Corbusier he had finally created a point of confidence and rest in himself that could serve a
fresh departure point for action. Although he took a distance from his past, his memory served him well. By
doing the contrary or opposite of what he once learned he became the epithet of modern. I practiced
architecture without professional lectures, without schools, without diplomas. I set out on a road across
Europe: Paris, Constantinople, Asia Minor, Athens, Rome. I looked, saw observed, discovered. Life
belongs not to those who know, but those who discover.56 While Le Corbusier radicalised his way of seeing
and discovering, and proclaimed he had thrown his youth overboard, others preferred, as one would say, to
keep their eyes wide shut. Through a bombardment of experiences Le Corbusier formed and informed his
knowledge and continuously enriched en strengthened his views on the world and on architecture. Gaston
Rageot best expressed the new standard human being in a book on the topic. He writes: There are
travellers, which do not know anymore that they are travelling. Nomads, who know no other home than the
cruise ship and luxurious hotels.57 The question that has to be put forward here, even if it cannot be
answered, is what the influence of the computer and internet has been on the mentality of those who design,
project and travel. The relation between the head and the hand, so crucial to Le Corbusier, has been
disturbed and altered. Consciousness of this change might produce a better awareness of the temporariness
of architectural production modes.
What becomes clear from the study of his early travelling is the psychological component that is present in
the life of Le Corbusier. If one considers the enormous energy that he had spend in these grand tours it is
even more strange that he seems to take a distance from this kind of education in his later years while
admitting the importance it had of the formation of his ideas. In his patient search he becomes more and
more convinced of the fact that he should maintain the greatest distance from images that he had produced
as a young artist and that he should focus on the wisdom that was embedded in them. The lesson was
reduced to always looking at things with fresh eyes and not to be bothered by the heaviness of the past.
Le Corbusier has written much about his formation but much is food for psychologists. They can detect the
true sense of his machinations. He constructed his life with a certain kind of refinement of which he was
totally conscious and carefully choose the parts that were useful to him. Many who have dealt with his past
are nothing but cannibals with a soul of vegetarians (Harry Mulisch). They have been too much impressed
by the stature of this architect of international fame. It is time to reveal the contradictive and pathological
side of his being!

Herman van Bergeijk

54
Le Corbusier, Precisions on the present state of architecture and city planning, Cambridge (Mass) 1991,
p.29.
55
H. Hesse-Frielinghaus, Op.cit., (Postal card I)
56
Quotation in: Ch. Jencks, Le Corbusier and the Continual Revolution in Architecture, New York 2000, p.
69.
57
R. Rageot, Lhomme standard, Paris 1928.

12