Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Main ouvert



The idea of the Open Hand first arose in 1951. It was to face the chain of the Himalayas, standing at the head of the new Capitol.






The Open Hand was born in 1948. During the years that followed it occupied and preoccupied my mind, finding its first existence at Chandigarh. There, it was welcomed. In 1952, in my traveling sketchbook, it arose out of emptiness, out of a pit that had to be dug in the clay of the plain. The pit became a chosen place, which I called 'Pit of Meditation.'



Little by little, by stages ever since 1948, this complex work of architecture, sculpture, mechanics, acoustics and ethics had run its course, from the first act of invention to the working drawings. Transformation of an inhuman hall. Closeness to man: that is the fundamental value ...


Le Corbusier
Modulor 2...
M.I.T. Press, 1958


JS Bach, Largo in F minor
Wilhelm Kempff, piano
Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft©

2 comments:

  1. all your posts are very interesting :-)

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  2. We had an essayist, named Emerson, to paraphrase for the likes of you - 'It's the good reader who makes the good book.' Still, better to be embarrassed by them, than by oneself, yes? :)

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