Le Corbusier on Camera: The Unknown Films of Ernest Weissmann - Paperback

by Veronique Boone (Author)

The book is based on amateur films, shot by the architect Ernest
Weissmann (1903-1985) with a Pathé Motocamera in the years 1929-1933 at
the Atelier Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret, among others. These films
have never been published before and capture moments from Le
Corbusier's life that have never been seen before. It also documents his
friendships with Pierre Jeanneret, Josep Lluís Sert, Charlotte
Perriand, Norman Rice, Kunio Maekawa, Sigfried Giedion and others. In
six chapters, the book shows impressive stills of these films and places
them in the respective historical and personal context of Le Corbusier
in introductory texts.
Two introductions are devoted to the history
of these films and Ernest Weissmann's life and his life-long
relationship with Le Corbusier.
- A documentary treasure trove on the life of Le Corbusier
- Featuring 80 previously unpublished film stills
- Available as softcover (9783035627282), hardcover (9783035627299) and limited special edition with three photographic prints (9783035627305)

Le Corbusier (1887-1965) is considered one of the most famous
visionary architects and urban designers of the 20th century. With his
cousin, he ran the Atelier Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret from 1922
until 1940. During this period, most of the practice's modernist villas
were built, and bigger works such as the Centrosoyus in Moscow, and the
Cité de Refuge and the Pavillon Suisse in Paris, realized. In parallel,
Le Corbusier developed urban-design projects for such cities as Paris,
Antwerp, Algiers, and Buenos Aires, and wrote extensively on his
architectural and urbanistic ideas. He continued the Atelier Le
Corbusier on an individual base from 1940 on, with projects such as the
Unités d'Habitation in Marseilles and in Nantes-Rezé, Briey, Firminy,
and Berlin; the Monastery of Sainte-Marie de La Tourette; and the church
of Notre-Dame du Haut Ronchamp. He designed the new state capital of
the north Indian states of Punjab and Haryana, Chandigarh, with its
representative buildings, from 1951 on.

Ernest Weissmann
(1903-1985) was a Croatian (then-Yugoslav) architect and
developer/planner. He graduated in architecture in Zagreb, and worked
for Adolf Loos and Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret in Paris. He
dedicated his work to the development of the prefabricated
hospital-building type and city planning viewed from social and economic
points of view. He was an active member of the Congrès Internationaux
d'Architecture Moderne (CIAM) from 1929 until 1947. From 1942 until
1966, he worked for the United States Board of Economic Warfare and
United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, Economic
Commission, and Department of Economic and Social Affairs. At the UN,
Weissmann was in charge of housing, building, and planning at a global
scale.

Author Biography

Veronique
Boone is an architect from the University
of Ghent, Belgium and doctor from the École Nationale Supérieure d'Architecture
et de Paysage de Lille (ENSAPL), France and the Université Libre de Bruxelles
(ULB), Belgium. She is an associate professor at the Faculty of Architecture La
Cambre Horta at the ULB. She lectures on architectural history and theory as
well as on the conservation of 20th-century architecture. Her research focuses
on the history and theory, as well as alternative narratives of modern
architecture. She has published extensively in academic publications on Le
Corbusier and the mediation of architecture by film and television, and is a
correspondent for Belgian and international architectural magazines on
contemporary architecture. She has worked on several exhibitions as curator
and/or contributor to catalogues - among them, Lucien Hervé, l'oeil de
l'architecte, CIVA, 2005; Le Corbusier and the Power of Photography, Musée des
beaux-arts La Chaux-de-Fonds, 2012; L'Architecture modern à l'écran, Cinematek,
2014; In the Studio at 35, rue de Sèvres: an Amateur cameraman's Informal View,
Fondation Le Corbusier, 2017 and Atelier Jespers, 2018. She is also
Vice-President of DOCOMOMO Belgium.