ABSTRACT
In exhorting his readers to “keep your odds and ends in drawers or cabinets,” Le Corbusier (1887-1965) transmitted a yearning for tidiness inherited from his predecessors. Architecture, it seems, is in an endless struggle against disorder and decay. Nevertheless, those forces continue to assert their presence, penetrating buildings, images and texts. This chapter explores tensions and conflicts that produce periodic eruptions and reversals in architecture’s campaign to impose and preserve order. It looks to architectural texts for evidence of suppression of information or images, sleight of hand or outright censorship, as well as the thwarting of those efforts.
