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Description: The Final Testament of Père Corbu: A Translation and Interpretation of Mise au...
Le Corbusier’s Mise au point (Into Focus) is presented here as more than a simple translation. I hope this edition will appeal to an audience of architectural historians, architects, readers of biographies, students of modernism, and—in a special group—those interested in the final, triumphant and embittered years in the lives of great creative minds, in this case, one of the giants of twentieth-century architecture. …
PublisherYale University Press
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00134.002
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Preface
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The task of a translator working with this sort of biographical and psychological material is complex. As the reader will observe, Le Corbusier often seems angry, but just as often he is chivalrous and inspired; he moves quickly from the public to the private register, making neutral references to well-known events and on occasion, as if the past suddenly struck him with fresh immediacy, indulging in moments of disappointment or bitterness. In translating, I have tried to make Le Corbusier’s text as readable as possible in English, reflecting these abrupt changes in intonation within the demand for an accurate rendering of the original.
Minute liberties in translation can at times have striking consequences. In the history of Le Corbusier scholarship, perhaps the most daring license was the one Frederick Etchells took in 1927 when he translated Vers une architecture as “Towards a New Architecture”—inserting a single adjective and thus confusing the intended meaning and causing polemics that still rage among architectural scholars. As Hilaire Belloc wrote in 1931: “The art of translation is a subsidiary art, and derivative. On this account it has never been granted the dignity of original work, and has suffered too much in the general judgment of letters.”
Yet a translator can bring dignity to the original text in many ways, without, ideally, using the original text as a pretext to recast a thesis or dazzle an audience. The mere matching up of words from source language to target language is only one way; another is the attempt to illuminate the possible concealed utterance and contexts, or, perhaps, to tell the story not only through words or additional commentary but also by means of supplementary images and photographs. Thus I felt that this edition should be both bilingual and illustrated, for those in a position to appreciate such texts. The French text, published several months after Le Corbusier’s death, has not received full scholarly attention—beyond the occasional excerpting of fragments to suit specific purposes. To respect its integrity, the actual text of Mise au point, as Le Corbusier wrote it, has not been illustrated in its English version but only annotated. The appended French text appears as it does in the French original of 1966.
As I worked on this project, I realized that unraveling the many allusions and references would require a good deal of footnoting. This scholarly apparatus itself soon became insufficient, and I began to sense a more creative connection between Le Corbusier’s recurring anxieties, literary passions, and enthusiastic outbursts. This led me to provide an introduction in which I explore some of these themes and link them with an occasional image. Although this speculative introduction is longer than Mise au point, I hope it will not drown out that original text but rather pay homage to it and make it more accessible.
What remains is a most pleasant task: to thank a number of people who have contributed to the completion of this book. First, my thanks to Evelyne Tréhin of the Fondation Le Corbusier in Paris for her cooperation and support, and to librarians Holly Reveloarisoa and Valerie Valentin, who helped with archival materials. In Switzerland I am grateful to Françoise Frey, librarian at the Bibliothèque de la Ville at La Chaux-de-Fonds, and Jean Petit, who published the first French edition of Mise au point. Among those who have been especially helpful in securing illustrations, I thank especially Angela Giral, director of Columbia University’s Avery Library; the Honorable Tony P. Wrenn, archivist at the American Institute of Architects Library in Washington, D.C.; Susanne Mercier at UNESCO, Paris; and Joyce Rosenblum, photo librarian at the United Nations in New York. Special thanks also to several of Le Corbusier’s associates and friends with whom I was able to correspond or to interview, including André Wogenscky, Jerzy Soltan, Roger Aujame, Charlotte Perriand, Jean-Jacques Duval, Jullian de la Fuente, Robert Rebutato, Dr. Jacques Hindermeyer, Lucien Hervé, and Henry Pessar. Many friends and colleagues were generous with their support at different times and in various capacities: Jacqueline Charon, Elaine Rogers, Kirstin Rääf, Isabelle Morillion-Roumagnac, Kenneth Frampton, John Gery, Harris Sobin, Jaime Coll, Jordi Oliveras, Hughes Bigo, Deidi von Schaewen, and Geysa Sarkany, Jr.
Special gratitude is due to the staff of Yale University Press, especially Cynthia Wells, my editor Laura Jones Dooley, and designer James J. Johnson. Their expertise brings to publishing the dignity of an art.
Through faculty research grants for travel to off-campus libraries for necessary archival research and interviews in Paris, Lehigh University greatly facilitated my work on this book. One special person played a crucial role at a critical time: Robert Geppert, artist, poet, ardent student of literature and the arts, and Maecenas in an era when such patronage is hard to come by. His generosity was indispensable in bringing this book to publication.
And then there are those who wish to remain unnamed but whose encouragement and support were at all times essential.