Sometime and After

A sauce can accommodate a smelly fish just as an excessive décor can accommodate kitsch. A work of art strives for concentration. Works of art should inspire awe in us.

Edouard Jeanneret also known as Le Corbusier, 1925

Up to old age, Le Corbusier (1887–1965) fought the public opinion. He struggled to find order, a precise and genuine expression in the world of artificial nature. This is common to both his architecture and writing. His effort to establish a new connection between fine arts, architecture and urbanism was an expression of the highest ambition: to establish poetry as the basic value in life.

Le Corbusier maintained friendly relations with pre-war Czechoslovakia and it was Vítězslav Nezval who first called him a poet. “Defense of Architecture”, a controversy with Karel Teige, first published in 1931 in the Musaion magazine, is released here for the first time in a book form and unabridged. We are convinced that this important period text, in conjunction with a literary interview, accompanied with a number of shorter texts and notes, makes up a whole, which can help readers to discover the world of this great artist.