The exhibition at Zentrum Paul Klee Bern and the catalogue of the same name ‘Le Corbusier. Die Ordnung der Dinge’, published in German by Scheidegger & Spiess, traces Charles-Édouard Jeanneret's everyday understanding of himself, his work and the world.
Text: Sandra Hofmeister
Le Corbusier (Charles-Edouard Jeanneret) Ilot insalubre n°6, Paris, 1936 Indian ink on paper 75 × 108 cm Fondation Le Corbusier, Paris © 2025, FLC/ProLitteris, Zurich
Episteme and rules
Not yet another exhibition and book on Le Corbusier. Let's be honest, there are so many of them, and some are downright baffling. But this time it's different. Because at the Zentrum Paul Klee in Bern, curator Martin Waldemeier manages to look behind the myth to the everyday preferences, habits, processes and understanding of art of Charles-Édouard Jeanneret. So how did he organise the world for himself, while travelling and studying, in his sketches and paintings? The title ‘The Order of Things’ is very carefully chosen. It is reminiscent of the German translation of Michel Foucault's key work ‘Les mots et les choses’. The perspective of the exhibition is clearly set with this reference. It applies to epistemes and focusses on Le Corbusier's knowledge and language, their rules and principles.
Le Corbusier (Charles-Edouard Jeanneret) Poème de l’angle droit (Portfolio, Blatt 17), 1955 Lithografie 32 × 49 cm, Fondation Le Corbusier, Paris © 2025, FLC/ProLitteris, Zurich
Art and the avant-garde
Jeanneret's dream was actually to become a painter - it was only later that he became interested in architecture. While travelling, he sketched nature studies, sent postcards and sketched buildings or found objects that he liked. The Acropolis, a shell... Charles-Édouard Jeanneret was an art-loving free spirit who moved to Paris in 1917 and, together with the painter Amédée Ozenfant, published the magazine ‘L'Esprit Nouveau’ - a mouthpiece for the avant-garde.
Le Corbusier (Charles-Edouard Jeanneret) Conference drawing [il faut tuer la «rue corridor»!], 1929 Charcoal on paper 99 × 77 cm Fondation Le Corbusier, Paris © 2025, FLC/ProLitteris, Zurich
Organisational principles and everyday life
As a Swiss brochure with a cover, the catalogue continues the tradition of notebooks. It shows sketches and photos, postcards and quotes from letters and writings. Le Corbusier is portrayed as an architect and artist who methodically processed his sources of inspiration according to new principles of organisation. It is not surprising that order begins with the architect and artist's lifestyle. Le Corbusier's everyday life was organised with Swiss precision. Morning gymnastics, painting, office... all according to a strict rhythm.
Le Corbusier (Charles-Edouard Jeanneret) Untitled (open shell), 1932 Graphite pen and pastel crayon on paper 36,5 × 26,9 cm Fondation Le Corbusier, Paris © 2025, FLC/ProLitteris, Zurich
Attitude and Principles
The individual chapters of the catalogue take up various observations such as ‘Imaginary compositions’, ‘The geometry of progress’ or ‘The world according to plan’. They are organised according to the artist's and architect's observations. Parallel to this, essays by various experts look behind different areas of order and characterise Corbusier's attitude and principles. In addition to the manifesto ‘The Order’ from 1925, the exhibition also looks at the design drawings, research studies and ‘The Order and the Organic’.
Le Corbusier (Charles-Edouard Jeanneret) Axonometric of the Maison Cook, 1926 Gouache on print 91 × 86 cm Fondation Le Corbusier, Paris © 2025, FLC/ProLitteris, Zurich
Disenchanted
Anyone who wants to understand Le Corbusier should not miss this catalogue and the exhibition. They explain in a coherent way how Le Corbusier could go from admiring medieval Italian churches to the cities in the chequerboard pattern of the ‘Ville radieuse’. Le Corbusier disenchanted, it was long overdue!
"Le Corbusier. Die Ordnung der Dinge", ed. by Martin Waldmeier and Nina Zimmer, with contributions byTim Benton, Marianna Charitonidou, Johan Linton, Danièle Pauly, Arthur Rüegg, Amélie Joller and Martin Waldmeier, many isllustrations and a glorrady on Le Corbusier's artistic and architectural concepts, 256 pages, 240 illustrations, 18 x 24 cm, Verlag Scheidegger & Spiess, Zurich 2025, ISBN 978-3-03942-220-3
The exhibitoin "Le Corbusier. Die Ordnung der Dinge" at Zentrum Paul Klee Bern is open until 22. June 2025.
