The catalogue, magnificently illustrated, contains a series of in-depth scientific contributions about the significance and role played by Italy in Le Corbusier's artistic education and architectural concept.
Italy played an important role in the personal and professional development of the greatest architect of the 20th century. Between 1907 and 1921, Italy is mainly an object of study for the young Jeanneret in his educational travels while, from the early 1920’s, he begins to make personal contact with exponents of contemporary Italian culture, especially in the artistic and literary field. From 1926 onwards, Italian Rationalist architects begin to make contact with Le Corbusier and establish close relationships with him throughout the 1930’s, especially in Milan, Rome and Venice. After WWII, contact is eagerly re-established. Le Corbusier goes back to Italy various times. He is invited to the seventh Ciam (International Congress of Modernist Architecture) meeting in Bergamo in 1949, to Milan by the Triennale to participate in the international De Divina Proportione conference, to the International Artists’ Conference in Venice, to the Ciam summer-school in Turin and, finally, to Florence where, in 1963, the first great Italian exhibition of Le Corbusier’s work takes place at Palazzo Strozzi. In the early 1960’s, professional commitments are added to his artistic ones, with commissions for designs for the Olivetti factory in Rho, and the hospital in Venice. The book is magnificently illustrated, thanks partly to the Le Corbusier Foundation and its wonderfully rich iconographic archive.