In 1946 Le Corbusier returned to the United States in conjunction with a French mission to study American architecture, public works, and planning. He traveled with Eugène Claudius-Petit, who would become minister of reconstruction in France. Their principal objective was to visit the Tennessee Valley Authority, considered a model for postwar reconstruction. In Le Corbusier and Postwar America: The TVA and Béton Brut, Mardges Bacon argues that the TVA’s regional planning and societal synthesis served as a model for Le Corbusier’s second-machine-age civilization. The TVA’s reinforced concrete dams employed industrial piping and a new formwork technique. Examining Le Corbusier’s postwar agenda through the prism of the TVA and a collaborative practice, Bacon contends...
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March 2015
