The Decorative Art of Today by Le Corbusier

The Decorative Art of Today
Le Corbusier
Translated by James Dunnett

Among the most famous of Le Corbusier's works, this book first came out in 1925 as a companion volume to Towards a New Architecture and The City of Tomorrow, two of the most influential writings on architecture and town planning Le Corbusier produced. This is the first English translation of Le Corbusier's densely illustrated polemic against the crafts tradition and superfluous ornament in interior decoration.

The Decorative Art of Today was inspired by and written in protest to the Decorative Arts Exhibition mounted in Paris in 1925. In it Le Corbusier warned about certain dangerous trends he saw emerging in interior, industrial, and architectural design. He did not like what he saw. Against the official tradition of interior decoration, he called for an architecture that satisfied the imperatives of function through form and for an interior and an industrial design that responded to the industrial needs of the present, machine-age methods of production.

Although the exhibition that spawned the term "Art Deco" was organized by the French Ministry of Industry and Commerce for the purpose of creating a market for French arts and crafts and to fend off the influx of foreign products, Le Corbusier saw an opportunity to show that the industry was capable of supplying not only the apartment but the entire city with mass-produced furniture and objects. His own roots lay in the crafts tradition; yet in this book he rejects the masters Ruskin, Hoffmann, Guimard, and Grasset and provides a theoretical basis for his opposition to decoration. The translator, James Dunnett, is professor of architecture at the University of Canterbury.

About the Author

Swiss-born architect, urban planner, sculptor, painter, and writer Le Corbusier (1887-1956), born Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, was one of the most influential architects of the twentieth century and one of the leading figures of architectural modernism.



The Decorative Art of Today (ペーパーバック)
Le Corbusier (著)
From Publishers Weekly
Published to celebrate the centennial of Le Corbusier's birth, this volume about design is one of four books based on articles by the architect that appeared in L'Esprit Nouveau, a magazine he edited with Paul Dermee beginning in 1920. Objecting to the great use of ornament in his day, Le Corbusier sets forth here to attack its excesses. The author discusses specific aspects of decorative art or design. For example, "Iconology, Iconolaters, Iconoclasts" deals with ornaments' references to wealth, pomp and majesty, while "Plagiarism, Folk Culture" concerns the imitation of authentic folk designs. Presented in a relaxed and personable manneralthough with some abrupt shifts in the textthis book is reminiscent of a notebook and is accompanied by helpful illustrations.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.



The translator, James Dunnett, is professor of architecture at the University of Canterbury.

• ペーパーバック: 240ページ
• 出版社: Mit Pr; 1st MIT Press Ed版 (1987/04)
• 言語 英語, 英語, 英語
• ISBN-10: 0262620553
• ISBN-13: 978-0262620550
• 発売日： 1987/04

Eugène Samuel Grasset

翻譯較難的是文化背景（2）：The Decorative Art of Today by Le Corbusier 之Eugène Samuel Grasset

"Grasset was the geometrician and algebraist of flowers. With him we had to extend our admiration for all flowers as far as the secret of their structure, to love them so much that there was no alternative but to scatter them over all the works that we would like to have undertaken. Our childhood was illuminated by the miracles of nature. Our hours of study were spent hunched over a thousand flowers and insects. Trees, clouds and birds were the field of our research; we tried to understand their life-cure, and concluded that only nature was beautiful and that we could be no more than humble imitator of here forms and here wonderful materials."---
Le Corbusier , The Decorative Art of Today

這本1925的法文書很早就有日本翻譯本； 1965年修正版。如果MIT出版社說的沒錯，英文翻譯是1986/7年的事。 初淺的Eugène Samuel Grasset 介紹，還是對他們之間的關係了解有限。我是透過Le Corbusier's formative years by Brooks, H. Allen...的索引來了解他們的奇遇（Le Corbusier在電話步上看到他在學校讀書看過的Grasset的電話號碼，後者給他2小時之「先知般的教誨」：巴黎建築為”頹壞之流無法落實19世紀新材料之承諾、頁364有裝飾圖案之分解的習作學習...）