Nun

Majestically different from the rest Notre – Dames

of your life, a differentiating ‘du Haut’

will point out the prevailing character of the place.

A genius loci mastered by a genius mind.

And the building, as having sailed here

in order to acquire the best view of the sunset,

is dedicated to pilgrimage.

The long journey of a great moral significance.

The treasure hunt.

Only a statue of the Virgin - rescued from the ruins of WWII -

few minimal crosses & the handwriting of Le Corbusier,

forming the name ‘Marie’ on the windows

reveal the identity of the building.

The rest lie at your will.

They hide behind the wooden squares

for confession, they remain silent

waiting for you to lift your head up and then down, again.

Strolling down the hill, with their

freshly ironed, white collars, carrying the little book of faith,

the nuns will signal the end of the day.

You will wave goodbye from the open window,

& they will wave back,

as you are both heading for your happy-hour cocktails.

As if the building, was never around.

The Hidden Geometry

of 24 Nungesser et Coli

♦

Opening Hours

by appointment

Saturday

10.00 – 13.00

13.30 – 17.00

Sources: Fondation Le Corbusier Paris, My Pictures Archive.

Pennyroyal + Pumpernickel

Jochen Gerner @ galerie anne barrault

♥

Branchages

[Branches]

is the title that mr. Gerner

gave to his notebook

with the sketches he made

‘while he was on the phone’

between 2002+2008.

Or what a six-year-phonecall

would be.

Designs + Words

Numbers + Colours.

The poetry of mal Foutu + The beton of Le Corbusier.

Under the tunes of

a Drin – Drin.

Sources: galerie anne barrault, 22 rue st-claude, 3eme, paris, until the end of october.

Reinforced Concrete & Nylon

Equals 1

♥

A special issue of Forme et Vie

dedicated to the question of

‘Evolution du Costume en rapport avec l’Architecture’

published first the dress designs of Le Corbusier.

The issue opened with an advertisement for fashions by Balmain

& had an editorial by L. Bruder that supported:

‘dress is architecture expressed

in terms of the human body, under the protean form of material’.

For Bruder, this millennial ‘dialogue’

leads to an association between Le Corbusier’s buildings

& Paul Poiret’s dresses

between – as he puts it -

‘reinforced concrete’ & ‘nylon’.

Sources: Mark Wigley, Comme des Garcons Parfumerie, A summer breeze, UB40.

+

Le Corbusier – The poem of the right angle

Le Corbusier –> Handwriting

♦

Years ago

- while at the first steps of architecture’s promenade -

a friend of mine asked me

‘what is the first name of Le Corbusier’

and i paused.

*Hmm*

I had never thought about it,

so i replied that i knew, but i could not recall.

Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris,

 chose to be known as:

Le Corbusier,

as he strongly believed

 that anyone could reinvent oneself.

‘Ma réponse - Mon choix’

- as he concludes the above letter.

 His new name was an altered form of

his maternal grandfather’s name:

Lecorbésier *.

Le Corbusier also became a French

citizen at his thirties.

♦

Today i spent the day

translating my cv in french,

keeping in mind that

this would be not

a Jeanneret’s kind of way,

bearing – on the contrary – the thought

that reinvention may not be my answer

(ma réponse)

but it is a certainly of my choice

(mon choix).

It is always a matter of the right angle.

* Some architectural historians claim that this pseudonym translates as ‘the crow-like’ one.

Sources: Babelfish, Dictionary, Pick-Tureen, Wikipedia.