Le Corbusier

“In the tapestry, I have found a medium which allows me to capitalize part of my wall research. My vocation as a painter finds its architectural nourishment in full knowledge of the situation.”

In the tapestry, Le Corbusier found a welcome link between his architectural and painterly work. For him, tapestries were not merely decorative objects. Instead, they became an important part of an architectural concept. They have certain advantages over murals or paintings. Tapestries are portable; you can easily “take them down, roll them up, carry them under your arm and hang them up somewhere else”, as Le Corbusier described it. In a society in which you no longer live in the same place for life, instead choosing and changing where you live like a nomad, the tapestry is the appropriate medium. This is why he termed it “Mural nomad” from 1952 onwards – it is the mural of the modern age. The tapestry is a synthesis of painting, architecture and design, all at the same time.

Le Corbusier had discovered the tapestry as a medium as early as 1936. Marie Cuttoli, a collector, asked him for a design for a tapestry. It wasn’t until 12 years later that he would actually get to grips with the medium. Le Corbusier met Pierre Baudoin, an artist and teacher living in Aubusson – a town with a long tradition in the textile arts. Le Corbusier would later design about 30 tapestries and have them made up by weavers from Aubusson.

In modernist buildings made of concrete and glass in particular, the texture, materiality, design and chromaticity of tapestries can lead to better acoustics and a certain warmth.

In 1954, Le Corbusier designed nine monumental tapestries with an area of 44 to 162 square metres for the law court in Chandigarh. This study shows a design for the abstract tapestries used in the court.