Le Corbusier Sketchbooks - Vol. 2, 1950-1954

These notebooks are the most private of Le Corbusier's work, the mostspontaneous, perhaps the most significant, encompassing all the others;the work ofan entire lifetime.;Andr? Wogenscky, President, Fondation Le CorbusierThis secondvolume in the series of four Le Corbusier Sketchbooks contains notes and sketches LeCorbusier made in the 1950s, a particularly rich period for him. During that time hereceived the commission for Chandigarh -- a mandate to create an entirely newcapital to house the government of the recently created state of Punjab. The nextyear, he began working on projects for two villas and the Millowners' Building atAhmedabad. All ten original notebooks record Le Corbusier's reaction to this exoticand complex culture, his interest in its vernacular architecture, and hispreoccupation with environmental control through architectural design. Theydemonstrate how he converted new experiences into unique and very personal designs.They also record his bitter disappointment at being excluded from work on the UnitedNations building in New York.These sketchbooks also document the years when LeCorbusier transformed his strict, glass-and-metal International Style intoaggressively sculptural forms. Here are the initial drawings for this changingsensibility: the Unit? d'habitation at Marseille (1947-1952), and the revolutionarypilgrimage chapel at Ronchamp (1950-1954).