"Maybe academics will stop babbling about him so much now?"
The public may start to turn against him and he may start to disappear from some ad campaigns as the article mentions...
These stories are not exactly new and there are some books out on it I believe. I do find the ad campaigns in Europe interesting since in the US noone outside our circle has heard of him.
But you can't dismiss his skill. Our study of him is not for political reasons but for his design abilities. The level of depth of some of his seemingly simple spaces blows my mind everytime I study/see them... He was operating on a level that few others have tread in my opinion...
He was a self-aggrandizing man that socially leached onto Ozenfant, discredited the work of Eileen Gray, stole patent ideas of beton arme from Max Dubois, and locked out Iannis Xenakis rather than fire him.
Waddya want - burnings of L'Esprit Nouveau?
This is old news. What is new is the level of response that it is causing. Le Corbusier is not the only person who you will study in architecture school who had questionable political affiliations. Ernst Neufert (known for his Architect's Data) was actually a member of the Nazi party. He was Albert Speer's expert on housing during World War II. Tange Kenzo based his Hiroshima Peace Center on his previous design for the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere Memorial Hall at the base of Mt. Fuji.
as smss says, this is definitely old news... his relationship to vichy is well documented and caused a rift between him and his cousin/partner pierre jeanneret...
my reading of corbu is that he was largely apolitical... all he wanted to do was build and he would cater to whoever was in the position to make that happen...
^ Yea, I havent seen any evidence he bought into the racial purity thing, but it does seriously put into question his moral fortitude. The Nazi's ideas and intentions were well known, even in sepia tone of historical context what was happening really was beyond the pale, and even cooperation to me speaks to a really unforgivable lack of moral courage. Academically it doesnt make him less interesting, hes still an unquestionably fascinating and influential figure, but Ive never thought it was right to white-wash history to lionize someone just because we like their art. They still teach Albert Speer and Vladimir Tatlin, (and the monarchist Ledoux and slave-owning Thomas Jefferson for that matter,) they just provide the context of their political views to help us understand how those motivations may have influenced their work.
It does make you think though how people like Rem will be judged.
what, you think rem is a communist sympathiser? to be honest you will have a very hard time finding any international office that has no work in china right now. why single rem out?
anyway, this is all old old old old news. not that it is unimportant, but heck even I know about it so it can't be that much of a secret.
the story of philip johnson and his trip to join the fascist struggle was a much more interesting bit of sordid gossip in my mind...
No, Im just saying China's track record on human rights is pretty abysmal, (so is the United States' for that matter). A hundred years from now, having designed the central office building where a billion people were surveilled and propagandized may not be the the shiningest mark on his record. Same goes for pretty much anybody who worked in Dubai knowing full well it was being built by slaves.
Architecture is a vanity profession. And like all vanity professions, it is fed by vanity.
The being said... most extremist regimes-- whether it be absolutism, dictatorship, communism, national socialism, a despot et cetera-- all have tremendous cults of personality and extreme amounts of vanity behind them.
Whether or not artisans agree or disagree with the opinions and laws of the ruler de jure is difficult and extreme subjective to ascertain without specific statement from those artists. However, vanity professions are drawn to these parties-- either in favor or opposition-- because imperial cults and cults of personality tend to have deep pockets to get things done.
Its when those getting those things done start to have moral and ethical repercussions. Early modernism was a rejection of Continental (mainline European) values which lead to the first World War. Modernism, however, became a symbol of tyranny post World War II because of its role in empowering the middle and lower classes.
Even though modernism was started as a symbol of freedom. perception of modernism changed gradually that necessitated the formation of brutality, postmodern, contemporary and deconstructionist ideals.
Whether or not these historical events were correlated or the direct cause of the several changes throughout the 20th century, it is important to note that perception trumps causation in these analysis.
An example of this is that it is often thought that World War I was the last war of the aristocracy of Europe where as World War II was the last war of the middle-class rebellion.
Don't forget that Nazi party was the party that restored Germany from poverty state in 1930's one of the fastest growing economies after the great depression. People really fell for that party and they really had no idea that things will so wrong with their leader's brain. They really believed him, and his speeches were only about peace and prosperity, there was no word about killing jews or conquering other countries...
There is some aloof cynical shit going on in here. If some client came to you asked to build a rape room in his basement, I think most of us wouldnt find much time before we hung up and called the cops. But somehow Rem gets away with building an institution where a billion people are brainwashed and are having their internet unwittingly surveilled in case the Party needs to haul them off to some disavowed political prison to be tortured and organ-harvested? Im sure I havent a clue what Unicorn is talking about, but Im quite sure happily drawing away for a bunch of people running concentration camps shows at least a person prone to severe moral lapses.
Under both the "Kingdoms" of Francia (aka the Frankish Empire) and the Holy Roman Empire, Central Europe (Germany, Switzerland, parts of Austria, Poland and Northern Italy) has nearly 1500 years of uninterrupted rule, prosperity and stability.
What makes this mildly comparable to today is that the Frankish Empire and the Holy Roman Empire pretty much functioned as a version of the European Union-- individual kingdoms were granted specific regional powers with all sorts of inter- and intra-kingdom treaties and alliances between Western and Eastern Europe. Specifically, this conglomeration of royalties included Bavaria, Wuttenberg, Austria, Bohemia, Saxony, Munster, Luxembourg, Lorraine, Burgandy, Savoy... I'm sure you get the picture.
As much as these "city-states" hated each other, they hated their neighbors even more-- the peninsula and island asshats (England, Scotland, Denmark, the Lowlands (Belgium and 'Holland'), Italy, Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Norway, Estonia... and so on). A enemy of my enemy is a friend sort of thing.
With the collapse of all of these governments during the 19th century and the failure of many unification attempts, that previous span of uninterrupted security amplified the unease of many of the people of Central Europe. Even the German Empire/Weimar Republic was a temporary stopover from the previous way of life that was essentially destroyed by some french frat boy named Napoleon.
So, from about 1918 onwards, 'Germany' desperately seeking out someone who could fulfill the empty promise of unification, who could recreate the 'college of kings and princes.' And the Nationalist / National Socialist party was making those big picture promises.
And, in this group of people... many of which were former aristocrats, war heros and other celebrities of sorts... was you know who. They had all the trappings and credentials of martyrdom and celebrity.
Some of these people had gone to prison over their beliefs, many of them were persecuted and others died for the idea of a reunified Holy Roman Empire sans the Holy.
This is were my point comes in.
Between 1918-- after the war and the Treaty of Versailles-- and 1933...
Many of these people, him included, were considered heroes and people of great economic, philosophical and political ideas. New ideas for a new world. And these figureheads wanted new art, new architecture, new fashion, new media et cetera. So, at the time... yes, these particular people were of national, continental and international acclaim and many people all over the world were focused on them.
But, between 1933-1935, they quickly fell out of favor because the rumors were becoming true.
So, yes, someone like Le Corbusier could call you know who a great man in 1925... because he was. Ask Le Corbusier what he thought of you know who and the Nationalist Party in 1944... and I'm sure it was a completely different opinion.
Architects are just so wired to solving circulation problems and making buildings more efficient that they don't really care who they build for, I don't even thing that when they build those gas chambers they even knew that those will be used on humans and not on turkeys.
dont be stupid zen maker. really it doesn't become you. unless you are trying to be ironical for some weird reason?
oe, i get you but i disagree the cctv is an enlarged version of a rape room. somehow it seems less black and white to me. i have mixed point of view on the project. understandably it is a place where not all good things happen and there could be some big brothering going on, and yet it seems like china is on the cusp of changing too. so perhaps rem's argument that his building is supporting that change is not altogether impossible.
time will tell. myself i have better hopes for china than, say, north korea.
I know thats how he justifies it, but it seems staggeringly naive for him to think somehow his clever spaces are magically going to change the way that government does business. The Politburo doesnt give a fuck. Its a funky shaped office building. Thats it. All they care is that the same old shit theyve been doing now has some glitzy 21st century branding to hide itself behind. And hes complicit in that.
And Unicorn, thats all fine and dandy, but Mein Kampf was written in 1925. I dont care how he rationalized it, Corb should have fucking known better.
Ya know I could really believe Corbu was a Nazi sympathizer from the way he designed buildings.Soulless,unfeeling,all about order, just plain cold with their naked light bulbs...
i like corbu's work as far as that goes. his politics? not so much.
i don't think rem believes he is going to change anyone with his building oe. i sorta got the impression he just thought he was entering china during a time when its politics were changing and so his stuff was not all that bad...and possibly enabling of a different character....
anyway its a stretch but who knows... in 50 years it may well be a different country. they have certainly got the ruthless and mercenary capitalist part down cold, if not the democracy. perhaps that comes next...
Perhaps he'll start being referenced in hip hop lyrics and gap ads and casually in popular movie dialogue, dancing modular man silhouette ipod posters, justin bieber in a bow tie and those fucking glasses. And then everyone can hate him as the backlash kicks in and i can have him all for myself, finish building the tower of shadows in my backyard, singing the poem of the right angle at the top of my lungs all the while.
zen maker you nailed it...all the crazy shit didn't go public until later. Who wouldn't have fallen for it? I wish I had a doer and not a promiser. UBS has no balls.
Verbal degradation of minorities was not only a fact of life in the early 20th century. It was encouraged. However, there is a hairline of a border between verbal persecution and bullying... and actual violence towards those groups.
Nationalism, Patriotism, Ultranationalism, Facism, Jingoism, Statism... all base their ideologies on one group versus another group because triumph cannot exists without a conflict. In many areas of the world, conflict is usually based on the physical existence of Earth itself or the human adaption of Earth.
And you really can't wage a war on the Earth itself or the roads and cities built upon it. I mean, you can... But the "Battle of rubbish bins not being approximately 3 feet from the curb of 1923" doesn't have a particularly romantic feeling.
Nor does dispatching the National Guard to combat declining phosphorous content in Rocky Mountain farm soil. "SHOOT THE SOIL, IT IS STEALING OUR PHOSPHOROUS."
In the book Hitler, Germans, and the 'Jewish Question,' the author addresses the social perception of of the necessity of violence versus the necessity of discrimination in pre-World War Germany. About 20% of Germans did not agree with genocide but did agree that actions were necessary to ensure the security of their state.
Between 1946 and 1955 and depending on the wording of that question, there was about a 35-55% agreement that some variety of action was taken on minority groups in Germany. However, almost none of the respondents said that they should have resorted to physical harm or genocide.
1% of the population leading 45% of the population who kind of agrees with the insanity of the 1%-- classic plutocracy.
But the kind of pedantic reasoning and arbitrary idealism found in Mein Kampf is no different than what was happening all over the world. In the US, we referred to it as the "Reconstruction."
It's a pretty basic formula for manipulating populations:
1) Identify the fringe group as a target.
2) Discredit the fringe group through unfair comparison.
3) Amass media campaigns against the fringe group.
4) Deny the fringe group the right to basic services.
5) Use the denunciation of the fringe group as norm for inter socialization.
6) Claim the new growing concern of the fringe group as the basis of a majority of problems.
7) Use said problems as the basis of directly attacking the fringe group.
8) Deny the fringe group rights to privacy and property.
9) Declare the activities and cultural preferences of fringe group a crime.
10) Jail, deport, restrain or eliminate fringe group.
The U.S. has mastered this formula. And, even now, there are many cultural groups within the U.S. who are now the new fringes and therefore the new enemies.
The problem is that steps 1-6 aren't technically illegal and many people indulge in them despite realizing how dangerous and how much of a slippery slope it is.
seriously nobody believes a camp for the slaughter of humanity in wholesale was not understood by those involved? the idea is absurd.
i don't see that cctv (a generic building) is really comparable with Auschwitz (an industrial complex organised to commit genocide), although i understand that it is just a matter of degree if you want to see it that way. but then, isn't everything?
Seriously, do architects really care about politics?
Don't they just care about efficiency of their designs more than who is going to be spying or killing people in that same building? or who they build for?
Le Corbusier a Nazi simpathizer?
The Associated Press has an interesting story on Corb. Maybe academics will stop babbling about him so much now?
"Maybe academics will stop babbling about him so much now?"
The public may start to turn against him and he may start to disappear from some ad campaigns as the article mentions...
These stories are not exactly new and there are some books out on it I believe. I do find the ad campaigns in Europe interesting since in the US noone outside our circle has heard of him.
But you can't dismiss his skill. Our study of him is not for political reasons but for his design abilities. The level of depth of some of his seemingly simple spaces blows my mind everytime I study/see them... He was operating on a level that few others have tread in my opinion...
He was a self-aggrandizing man that socially leached onto Ozenfant, discredited the work of Eileen Gray, stole patent ideas of beton arme from Max Dubois, and locked out Iannis Xenakis rather than fire him.
Waddya want - burnings of L'Esprit Nouveau?
This is old news. What is new is the level of response that it is causing. Le Corbusier is not the only person who you will study in architecture school who had questionable political affiliations. Ernst Neufert (known for his Architect's Data) was actually a member of the Nazi party. He was Albert Speer's expert on housing during World War II. Tange Kenzo based his Hiroshima Peace Center on his previous design for the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere Memorial Hall at the base of Mt. Fuji.
as smss says, this is definitely old news... his relationship to vichy is well documented and caused a rift between him and his cousin/partner pierre jeanneret...
my reading of corbu is that he was largely apolitical... all he wanted to do was build and he would cater to whoever was in the position to make that happen...
^ Yea, I havent seen any evidence he bought into the racial purity thing, but it does seriously put into question his moral fortitude. The Nazi's ideas and intentions were well known, even in sepia tone of historical context what was happening really was beyond the pale, and even cooperation to me speaks to a really unforgivable lack of moral courage. Academically it doesnt make him less interesting, hes still an unquestionably fascinating and influential figure, but Ive never thought it was right to white-wash history to lionize someone just because we like their art. They still teach Albert Speer and Vladimir Tatlin, (and the monarchist Ledoux and slave-owning Thomas Jefferson for that matter,) they just provide the context of their political views to help us understand how those motivations may have influenced their work.
It does make you think though how people like Rem will be judged.
what, you think rem is a communist sympathiser? to be honest you will have a very hard time finding any international office that has no work in china right now. why single rem out?
anyway, this is all old old old old news. not that it is unimportant, but heck even I know about it so it can't be that much of a secret.
the story of philip johnson and his trip to join the fascist struggle was a much more interesting bit of sordid gossip in my mind...
No, Im just saying China's track record on human rights is pretty abysmal, (so is the United States' for that matter). A hundred years from now, having designed the central office building where a billion people were surveilled and propagandized may not be the the shiningest mark on his record. Same goes for pretty much anybody who worked in Dubai knowing full well it was being built by slaves.
Bleghhhhhh...
Architecture is a vanity profession. And like all vanity professions, it is fed by vanity.
The being said... most extremist regimes-- whether it be absolutism, dictatorship, communism, national socialism, a despot et cetera-- all have tremendous cults of personality and extreme amounts of vanity behind them.
Whether or not artisans agree or disagree with the opinions and laws of the ruler de jure is difficult and extreme subjective to ascertain without specific statement from those artists. However, vanity professions are drawn to these parties-- either in favor or opposition-- because imperial cults and cults of personality tend to have deep pockets to get things done.
Its when those getting those things done start to have moral and ethical repercussions. Early modernism was a rejection of Continental (mainline European) values which lead to the first World War. Modernism, however, became a symbol of tyranny post World War II because of its role in empowering the middle and lower classes.
Even though modernism was started as a symbol of freedom. perception of modernism changed gradually that necessitated the formation of brutality, postmodern, contemporary and deconstructionist ideals.
Whether or not these historical events were correlated or the direct cause of the several changes throughout the 20th century, it is important to note that perception trumps causation in these analysis.
An example of this is that it is often thought that World War I was the last war of the aristocracy of Europe where as World War II was the last war of the middle-class rebellion.
Don't forget that Nazi party was the party that restored Germany from poverty state in 1930's one of the fastest growing economies after the great depression. People really fell for that party and they really had no idea that things will so wrong with their leader's brain. They really believed him, and his speeches were only about peace and prosperity, there was no word about killing jews or conquering other countries...
^ Is that a joke?
how is this information going to help me land a job people?
What about Aldo Rossi in his neo-rationalist interest with Italian Rationalist architecture of the 1930s during Mussolinis's fascist era?
There is some aloof cynical shit going on in here. If some client came to you asked to build a rape room in his basement, I think most of us wouldnt find much time before we hung up and called the cops. But somehow Rem gets away with building an institution where a billion people are brainwashed and are having their internet unwittingly surveilled in case the Party needs to haul them off to some disavowed political prison to be tortured and organ-harvested? Im sure I havent a clue what Unicorn is talking about, but Im quite sure happily drawing away for a bunch of people running concentration camps shows at least a person prone to severe moral lapses.
Under both the "Kingdoms" of Francia (aka the Frankish Empire) and the Holy Roman Empire, Central Europe (Germany, Switzerland, parts of Austria, Poland and Northern Italy) has nearly 1500 years of uninterrupted rule, prosperity and stability.
What makes this mildly comparable to today is that the Frankish Empire and the Holy Roman Empire pretty much functioned as a version of the European Union-- individual kingdoms were granted specific regional powers with all sorts of inter- and intra-kingdom treaties and alliances between Western and Eastern Europe. Specifically, this conglomeration of royalties included Bavaria, Wuttenberg, Austria, Bohemia, Saxony, Munster, Luxembourg, Lorraine, Burgandy, Savoy... I'm sure you get the picture.
As much as these "city-states" hated each other, they hated their neighbors even more-- the peninsula and island asshats (England, Scotland, Denmark, the Lowlands (Belgium and 'Holland'), Italy, Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Norway, Estonia... and so on). A enemy of my enemy is a friend sort of thing.
With the collapse of all of these governments during the 19th century and the failure of many unification attempts, that previous span of uninterrupted security amplified the unease of many of the people of Central Europe. Even the German Empire/Weimar Republic was a temporary stopover from the previous way of life that was essentially destroyed by some french frat boy named Napoleon.
So, from about 1918 onwards, 'Germany' desperately seeking out someone who could fulfill the empty promise of unification, who could recreate the 'college of kings and princes.' And the Nationalist / National Socialist party was making those big picture promises.
And, in this group of people... many of which were former aristocrats, war heros and other celebrities of sorts... was you know who. They had all the trappings and credentials of martyrdom and celebrity.
Some of these people had gone to prison over their beliefs, many of them were persecuted and others died for the idea of a reunified Holy Roman Empire sans the Holy.
This is were my point comes in.
Between 1918-- after the war and the Treaty of Versailles-- and 1933...
Many of these people, him included, were considered heroes and people of great economic, philosophical and political ideas. New ideas for a new world. And these figureheads wanted new art, new architecture, new fashion, new media et cetera. So, at the time... yes, these particular people were of national, continental and international acclaim and many people all over the world were focused on them.
But, between 1933-1935, they quickly fell out of favor because the rumors were becoming true.
So, yes, someone like Le Corbusier could call you know who a great man in 1925... because he was. Ask Le Corbusier what he thought of you know who and the Nationalist Party in 1944... and I'm sure it was a completely different opinion.
Architects are just so wired to solving circulation problems and making buildings more efficient that they don't really care who they build for, I don't even thing that when they build those gas chambers they even knew that those will be used on humans and not on turkeys.
dont be stupid zen maker. really it doesn't become you. unless you are trying to be ironical for some weird reason?
oe, i get you but i disagree the cctv is an enlarged version of a rape room. somehow it seems less black and white to me. i have mixed point of view on the project. understandably it is a place where not all good things happen and there could be some big brothering going on, and yet it seems like china is on the cusp of changing too. so perhaps rem's argument that his building is supporting that change is not altogether impossible.
time will tell. myself i have better hopes for china than, say, north korea.
I know thats how he justifies it, but it seems staggeringly naive for him to think somehow his clever spaces are magically going to change the way that government does business. The Politburo doesnt give a fuck. Its a funky shaped office building. Thats it. All they care is that the same old shit theyve been doing now has some glitzy 21st century branding to hide itself behind. And hes complicit in that.
And Unicorn, thats all fine and dandy, but Mein Kampf was written in 1925. I dont care how he rationalized it, Corb should have fucking known better.
Ya know I could really believe Corbu was a Nazi sympathizer from the way he designed buildings.Soulless,unfeeling,all about order, just plain cold with their naked light bulbs...
i like corbu's work as far as that goes. his politics? not so much.
i don't think rem believes he is going to change anyone with his building oe. i sorta got the impression he just thought he was entering china during a time when its politics were changing and so his stuff was not all that bad...and possibly enabling of a different character....
anyway its a stretch but who knows... in 50 years it may well be a different country. they have certainly got the ruthless and mercenary capitalist part down cold, if not the democracy. perhaps that comes next...
Pere Corbu rocks.
Perhaps he'll start being referenced in hip hop lyrics and gap ads and casually in popular movie dialogue, dancing modular man silhouette ipod posters, justin bieber in a bow tie and those fucking glasses. And then everyone can hate him as the backlash kicks in and i can have him all for myself, finish building the tower of shadows in my backyard, singing the poem of the right angle at the top of my lungs all the while.
sweet.
Why is the this even relevant? The guy has been dead for a long time...
zen maker you nailed it...all the crazy shit didn't go public until later. Who wouldn't have fallen for it? I wish I had a doer and not a promiser. UBS has no balls.
Nailed it, minus 20 years.
Well, OE, in the context of Mein Kampf...
Verbal degradation of minorities was not only a fact of life in the early 20th century. It was encouraged. However, there is a hairline of a border between verbal persecution and bullying... and actual violence towards those groups.
Nationalism, Patriotism, Ultranationalism, Facism, Jingoism, Statism... all base their ideologies on one group versus another group because triumph cannot exists without a conflict. In many areas of the world, conflict is usually based on the physical existence of Earth itself or the human adaption of Earth.
And you really can't wage a war on the Earth itself or the roads and cities built upon it. I mean, you can... But the "Battle of rubbish bins not being approximately 3 feet from the curb of 1923" doesn't have a particularly romantic feeling.
Nor does dispatching the National Guard to combat declining phosphorous content in Rocky Mountain farm soil. "SHOOT THE SOIL, IT IS STEALING OUR PHOSPHOROUS."
In the book Hitler, Germans, and the 'Jewish Question,' the author addresses the social perception of of the necessity of violence versus the necessity of discrimination in pre-World War Germany. About 20% of Germans did not agree with genocide but did agree that actions were necessary to ensure the security of their state.
Between 1946 and 1955 and depending on the wording of that question, there was about a 35-55% agreement that some variety of action was taken on minority groups in Germany. However, almost none of the respondents said that they should have resorted to physical harm or genocide.
1% of the population leading 45% of the population who kind of agrees with the insanity of the 1%-- classic plutocracy.
But the kind of pedantic reasoning and arbitrary idealism found in Mein Kampf is no different than what was happening all over the world. In the US, we referred to it as the "Reconstruction."
It's a pretty basic formula for manipulating populations:
1) Identify the fringe group as a target.
2) Discredit the fringe group through unfair comparison.
3) Amass media campaigns against the fringe group.
4) Deny the fringe group the right to basic services.
5) Use the denunciation of the fringe group as norm for inter socialization.
6) Claim the new growing concern of the fringe group as the basis of a majority of problems.
7) Use said problems as the basis of directly attacking the fringe group.
8) Deny the fringe group rights to privacy and property.
9) Declare the activities and cultural preferences of fringe group a crime.
10) Jail, deport, restrain or eliminate fringe group.
The U.S. has mastered this formula. And, even now, there are many cultural groups within the U.S. who are now the new fringes and therefore the new enemies.
The problem is that steps 1-6 aren't technically illegal and many people indulge in them despite realizing how dangerous and how much of a slippery slope it is.
seriously nobody believes a camp for the slaughter of humanity in wholesale was not understood by those involved? the idea is absurd.
i don't see that cctv (a generic building) is really comparable with Auschwitz (an industrial complex organised to commit genocide), although i understand that it is just a matter of degree if you want to see it that way. but then, isn't everything?
hmmm... I guess a good question would be to find out which greatest architect of current generation is an Obama and death panel supporter.
It would be like having a time machine where we can stop the next movement in architecture (welfareism) from ever happening!
Man, trolling is fun! If I could just get a paycheck out of this...
"But she's such a cute Nazi" Obscure?
Seriously, do architects really care about politics?
Don't they just care about efficiency of their designs more than who is going to be spying or killing people in that same building? or who they build for?
Isnt that a terribly damning and embarrassing admission to make of our profession?
We need more humanists and less humanitarians.
exit wound - check out "building desire" by dodds
oe - yes it is. we need politics for the irony of our art, which unfortunately tends to be idealist.
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