Le Corbusier: An Analysis of Form

Rating:
Summary: Clear, persuasive analyses presented with style
Review: Prof. Baker's presentation of Le Corbusier's architecture as a series of progressively related formal compositions is comprehensive, extraordinarily clear, and wonderfully executed. The bulk of the book consists of Baker's own drawings and diagrams which lend a consistency and lucidity to his analyses of form. Each project is desrcibed in the same format, with unusual attention to both the physical and biographical context in which it was built or proposed. The investigation of buildings as formal compositions gives a persuasive critical consistency to Corbusier's ouvre from the earliest Swiss villas to the didactic purism of the international style to his later, more mature expressions of the interaction of spirit and matter. This study, in its thoughtfulness and elegance, is invaluable to any student of architecture and will provide insight not only into the techniques of formal composition but into the mind of one of the real heroes of modern design.