ABSTRACT
A strong surrealist element exists in the architecture of Le Corbusier, although he never explicitly acknowledged its presence. Le Corbusier’s review of a “madman’s” drawings in the Surrealists’ Minotaure magazine attests to his intimate knowledge of their work. 1 It was not Le Corbusier’s intention to relate directly to the decadence of surrealism, as he described it, in When the Cathedrals Were White, but the coincidence of imagery is too close to be accidental. 2 For although Le Corbusier’s early work appeared to be the triumph of rationality, a white architecture of “sunlight, space, and greenery,” it is pervaded by a slightly sinister atmosphere in contrast to and commenting on the major themes of the work. This dialogue between the rational and the surreally anti-rational creates an ironic tone, a questioning, even in his most self-assured modern statement, the Villa Savoye. In Le Corbusier’s later work the surrealist themes of the ambiguity between inside and outside, ghostly presences, ruins, petrification, and the occult become more prominent, dominating, for example, the chapel at Ronchamp.
