Radmila Veselá

The Battle over Modern Architecture. Auguste Perret versus Le Corbusier – Le Corbusier versus Karel Teige

One of the first architects to recognise the significance of the media for disseminating ideas and projects was Charles Édouard Jeanneret. The programmatic articles he wrote and published in the early 1920s in the periodical L’Esprit Nouveau under the pseudonym Le Corbusier spoke not just to his fellow architects but also to the wider public. Jeanneret’s former employer and teacher Auguste Perret also observed how a media image is informed by the choice of themes and the way one is depicted, something he had experience with from the dispute that was waged over who was the true author of the theatre on the Champs Élysées just before the First World War. At the end of 1923 he decided to use his younger rival Le Corbusier’s strongest weapon against him by expressing his disagreement with the direction in which architecture was being taken by the young generation. True to the rationalistic tradition, Perret called for architecture to produce maximum utility by as economical means as possible. He emphasised a well-thought-out structure that should be veraciously represented on a building’s exterior. This very point was the source of a dispute that arose between the highly esteemed teacher and his brilliant student. The debate that then erupted over this disagreement encompassed questions about the exterior representation of the internal structure versus smooth plastered surfaces, vertical versus horizontal windows, and the presence of cornices and chimneys, but moreover also about whether to embrace or reject the architectural tradition of the past. The debate influenced the ideas and shaped the opinions of those who took part in it and permeated the entire discussion around architecture in France. This article introduces the main protagonists in the controversy, the history of their relationship, and some important moments in its progress. However, it also recalls another debate Le Corbusier engaged in that left a meaningful imprint on the complex picture of modern architecture between the two world wars. This debate was with the Czech theorist Karel Teige and it shares some surprising points in common with the debate between Le Corbusier and Perret.

< back