In hopes of
dancing through the Rain Room,
we headed to MoMA a few weekends ago. But not being
people overly fond of waiting in line for more than four hours, we decided to
check out another exhibit instead: Le Corbusier, An Atlas of Modern Landscapes, which will run through
September 23.
This is MoMA's
first major exhibit of the work of Le Corbusier (Charles-Édouard Jeanneret),
curated by Jean-Louis Cohen; it "[encompasses] his work as an architect,
interior designer, artist, city planner, writer, and photographer ... [and]
reveals the ways in which Le Corbusier observed and imagined landscapes throughout
his career, using all the artistic techniques at his disposal, from his early
watercolors of Italy, Greece, and Turkey, to his sketches of India, and from
the photographs of his formative journeys to the models of his large-scale
projects."
Although Le Corbusier's architecture is examined in depth, it was some of his earliest works and his loosest sketched plans that I found most intriguing; being primarily acquainted with how his work has translated into the modern city of Chandigarh, it offered an intimacy and a closeness that I hadn't associated with, say, the Capitol Complex or his towering Open Hand. (They're also a far cry from his later theorizing on the Modulor, so regimented and orderly a system.)
Going back to his youth or the beginnings of his career offers a different view of his vision, glimpses of the world captured in pastel or ink as he passed through different places. For instance, a mountain study in watercolor and gouache from 1904-05:
