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Exhibition Review: Jean-Louis Cohen - Le Corbusier at MoMA

by Irina Vinnitskaya | Jun 07, 2013
The Le Corbusier: An Atlas of Modern Landscapes exhibit at the MoMA opens on June 15th. The exhibit will be centered around Le Corbusier‘s worldview of architecture. It explores both his most famous architectural projects, as well as the means by which he was able to realize them. Through a collection of early watercolors, drawings and photographs, curator Jean-Louis Cohen provides a peak into Le Corbusier’s journeys and developments as an architect, revealing how he explored the world and what he drew from his travels and observations.

Le Corbusier’s work and considerations have had a widespread influence on the architectural community. His five points of architecture are studied by young architects in schools throughout the world. His modernist ideals are considered timeless in some ways. And his urban theories have been brought to fruition in garden cities across the country. He and his contemporaries transformed architectural practice through material experimentation and engineering by embracing the technologies and techniques of the time. They exploited the potential of prefabrication, as well as the unadorned aesthetic of simple forms and functions. But the architect never strayed from the considering the way the human body inhabited space. His sketches reveal an adhearance to the golden ratio and explored similar ratios of the human body, exploring ways in which the ideal form of architecture could best accommodate the body.

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