Journey to the East

This is the first English edition of Le Corbusier's 1912 manuscript account of his 1911 journey to Turkey, Greece, and Italy by way of several Eastern European countries. As a travel diary it may be chiefly of interest to modernist architects, to Le Corbusier scholars, and to students of architecture for what it reveals of the great architect's thinking and experience some ten years before his landmark manifesto of modernism, Towards a New Architecture (1927). Two features distinguish this book. First, Le Corbusier's relentlessly enthusiastic descriptive passages are periodically distilled into sketches of exceptional visual power. Who but a great architect could see the Parthenon stylobate as it is rendered on page 219? Second, both the text and the sketches build to a climax when, late in his journey, Le Corbusier encounters the Parthenon. The small squarish format enhances the personal nature of the subject. Editor's notes and a list of drawings follow the text. Recommended for university architecture collections.-J. Quinan, SUNY at Buffalo

Twenty-four-year-old Le Corbusier (born Charles-Edouard Jeanneret) kept a travel diary as he roamed central and Eastern Europe, visiting ancient monuments and soaking up native architecture. His journal is a blend of overripe, lyrical prose, incisive impressions and thoughts on architecture and landscape. His trips to the Parthenon and Mount Athos, which triggered his decision to become an architect, make intense reading. He writes movingly of Anatolian vistas that express the ``lofty, poetic Turkish soul'' and dubs the traditional Turkish wooden house ``an architectural masterpiece.'' Even more revealingly, this neoclassical innovator admires Rumanian peasant houses for their dazzling white stucco and adaptation of classical elements. The first book Le Corbusier wrote, Journey was published posthumously in France in 1966. This first English translation is most welcome. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Le Corbusier was one of the greatest architects of the 20th century, if not the greatest in terms of influence and fecundity. This is the first book he ever wrote, never before published in English and only partially published in French in 1966, long after it was written in 1911. The translation, by an authority on the architect, is marvelously direct and straightforward, conveying the strength and poeticism of the original. The book records the young architect's vivid impressions on his first ``Grand Tour''not of London, Paris, and Vienna, as one might expect, but of Dresden, Prague, Budapest, Bucharest, Brindisi, Pompeii, and, finally, Athens, where before the aura of the Parthenon he became enthralled as an architect. A thrilling visual and verbal document of early modern architecture. Peter Kaufman, Suffolk Community Coll. Lib., Selden, N.Y. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

The journal that the enigmatic, important French architect kept at age 24 while travelling through central and eastern Europe. ""Corbu"" was not considered an evocative writer. Indeed, his important texts (and this is far from being one of them) were often written by a ""ghost"" and simply signed with his name. The reasons for this practical choice are evident when one sees this journal, completely lacking in literary value or evocative power. Even an exciting scene such as the haggling merchants of a bazaar refuses to come to life under the ineptitude of Le Corbusier's pen. There are accompanying sketches of the architectural monuments that the young aspiring architect saw, none revelatory of much more than competent draftsmanship and certainly not the genius that was to come. Of interest only to specialists. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.