Des Canon, Des Munitions? Merci! Des Logis...S.V.P.

Artist: Le Corbusier 
Author: Le Corbusier 
Publisher: Editions de L'Architecture d'Aujourd'hui 
Date: 1938 
Condition: A first edition of this very scarce volume. The coloured printed boards are complete if a little rubbed and grubby at the edges and have some surface scratches and handling marks front and back. There is a very minor loss to the top and bottom corners of the front cover. Bound with an ivory linen spine. Internally the book is apparently complete and in good condition, despite a little tanning to the edges of the pages. Inside the front cover is the booksellers label for Foyles. Text in French

This striking volume is a great rarity now, being published in 1938 as Le Corbusier's ideas on how the technologies that were then rearming Europe for war could be applied to the creation of idealised urban architecture. Filled with plans, models, designs, text and the occasional photocollage, the whole topped off with the splendid cover taken from one of Le Corbusier's collages, this is an important architectural document but also a testament to the mindset of the modernists in Europe who we now know were just a year away from a World War.