Le Corbusier: Towards a New Architecture (1923–)

“For the Swiss-born architect and city planner Le Corbusier, architecture constituted a noble art, an exalted calling in which the architect combined plastic invention, intellectual speculation, and higher mathematics to go beyond mere utilitarian needs, beyond ‘style,’ to achieve a pure creation of the spirit which established ’emotional relationships by mean of raw materials.’

The first major exposition of his ideas appeared in Vers une Architecture (1923), a compilation of articles originally written by Le Corbusier for his own avant-garde magazine L’Esprit Nouveau. The present volume is an unabridged English translation of the 13th French edition of that historic manifesto, in which Le Corbusier expounded his technical and aesthetic theories, views on industry, economics, relation of form to function, the “mass production spirit,” and much else. A principal prophet of the “modern” movement in architecture, and a new-legendary figure at the “International School,” he designed some of the twentieth century’s most memorable buildings: Chapel at Ronchamp; Swiss dormitory at the Cite Universitaire, Paris; Unite d’Habitation, Marseilles; and many more.

Le Corbusier brought great passion and intelligence to these essays, which present his ideas in a concise, pithy style, studded with epigrammatic, often provocative, observations: ‘American engineers overwhelm with their calculations our expiring architecture.’ ‘Architecture is stifled by custom. It is the only profession in which progress is not considered necessary.’ ‘…a cathedral is not very beautiful…’ and ‘Rome is the damnation of the half-educated. To send architectural students to Rome is to cripple them for life.’

Profusely illustrated with over 200 line drawings and photographs of his own works and other structures he considered important, Towards a New Architecture is indispensable reading for architects, city planners, and cultural historians – but will intrigue anyone fascinated by the wide-ranging ideas, unvarnished opinions and innovative theories of one of this century’s master builders.” (from the back cover)

Note: This translation of the book has also been a source of controversy with regard to its change of style and very specific alterations to the text. The alterations have generated criticism and required correction, even as some of them began to define architectural language. A new translation was released in 2007 that is meant to be truer to Le Corbusier’s intention. (from Wikipedia)

Originally published in French under the title Vers une architecture, Paris, 1923.

This edition, first published in 1986, is an unabridged and unaltered republication of the work originally published by John Rodker, London, in 1931, as translated from the thirteenth French edition and given an English introduction by Frederick Etchells
Publisher Dover Publications, New York
ISBN 0486250237, 9780486250236
320 pages

Wikipedia

PDF (no OCR)

Pierre Klossowski: Nietzsche and the Vicious Circle (1969–) [FR, ES, EN]

“Long recognized as a masterpiece of Nietzsche scholarship, Nietzsche and the Vicious Circle is made available here for the first time in English. Taking a structuralist approach to the relation between Nietzsche’s thought and his life, Pierre Klossowski emphasizes the centrality of the notion of Eternal Return (a cyclical notion of time and history) for understanding Nietzsche’s propensities for self-denial, self-refutation, and self-consumption.

Nietzsche’s ideas did not stem from personal pathology, according to Klossowski. Rather, Nietzsche made a pathological use of his best ideas, anchoring them in his own fluctuating bodily and mental conditions. Thus Nietzsche’s belief that questions of truth and morality are at base questions of power and fitness resonates dynamically and intellectually with his alternating lucidity and delirium.”

Publisher Mercure de France, Paris, 1969
Revised edition, 1978
367 pages

English edition
Translated by Daniel W. Smith
Publisher by University of Chicago Press, 1997
ISBN 0226443876, 9780226443874
282 pages

Publisher (EN)

Nietzsche et le cercle vicieux (French, 1969/1978, 5 MB, added on 2015-3-7)
Nietzsche y el circulo vicioso (Spanish, trans. Roxana Páez, 1995)
Nietzsche and the Vicious Circle (English, trans. Daniel W. Smith, 1997, 4 MB, updated on 2019-11-22)

See also Geoff Waite’s Nietzsche’s Corps/e (1996).

Pierre Klossowski: Living Currency (1970–) [FR, ES, EN]

“Essai littéraire et philosophique. Depuis le milieu du siècle dernier, des anathèmes ont été lancés au nom de la vie affective contre les ravages de la civilisation industrielle. Imputer aux moyens de production une action pernicieuse sur les affects, c’est, sous prétexte de dénoncer son emprise démoralisante, lui reconnaître une puissance morale considérable. D’où lui vient cette puissance ? ” Telle est la question qui traverse de part en part cet essai. L’auteur interroge d’autres écrivains en les citant, illustrant ainsi sa propre pensée. Sade, mais aussi Fourrier, Stendhal, Nietzsche s’expriment sur le processus même de l’émotion voluptueuse lorsque le corps est perçu comme monnaie vivante, objet de troc ou vecteur fantasmatique.”

“In Living Currency Klossowski draws a parallel between mass industrial production and sadism, between human bodies and currency. He analyzes the impact of industry and exchange on emotional life, and in so doing challenges several fundamental concepts of sexuality and value.”

Published in French as La Monnaie vivante, Editions Joëlle Losfield, Paris, 1970.

English edition
Translated by Jordan Levinson
Self-published, May 2012
32 pages
via translator

Commentary: Graham Joncas.
2008 Tate London exhibition inspired by the essay

La monnaie vivante (French, 1970, RTF)
La moneda viviente (Spanish, trans. Axel Gasquet, 1998)
Living Curency (English, trans. Jordan Levinson, 2012)