Le Corbusier

“Ubu” is the name Le Corbusier gave to this wooden sculpture from 1947. It seems like a strange bouquet of carved shapes. The different forms are reminiscent of wings or auricles, aeroplane wings, the soles of shoes, waves or an outstretched tongue. They are abstract forms with great dynamism: movements go from bottom to top, are carried on in waves and are calmed in arcs.

1940 saw Paris under occupation by the army of Nazi Germany. Le Corbusier first went to Ozon in the Pyrenees, later moving on to Vichy. You can find more information on Le Corbusier’s attitude towards the Vichy regime in the exhibition texts.

During this time, he produced numerous studies and sketches based on objects from his collection: driftwood, roots, pebbles and bones. Step by step, Le Corbusier used studies of objects of this kind to create autonomous abstract forms. As he said himself:

“I took stones and pieces of wood and put them together to form a composition in an attempt to evoke a poetical feeling; it wasn’t supposed to be a still life, and it wasn’t intended to be a human being either. It was to be a creature that stands above life. Something tabooed, but not exotic, an object that served as a medium allowing me to connect with the remoteness of sensation and sensitivity and open up the space.”

After the war, Le Corbusier cooperated with the Breton carpenter and sculptor Joseph Savina. Savina realized Le Corbusier’s designs as a series of wooden sculptures. The artist -architect painted some of them in bright colours. Le Corbusier called the sculptures “acoustic” forms. They are not classical sculptures which stand alone and have to be viewed from a certain angle. Instead, they are forms which interact with the space. Le Corbusier had the following to say in this connection:

“It is a kind of acoustic sculpture, meaning that it projects the effect of its forms into the distance and receives the pressure of its surroundings in return.”

With the church at Ronchamp, Le Corbusier transposed the idea of the “acoustic” form into architecture in an exemplary fashion.