The most bizarre and inexplicable book on this (or any other) architect to appear lately is Le Corbusier and the Occult by J.K. Birksted, who teaches at the University of London architecture school. The author maintains that his subject was profoundly affected by Freemasonry, an insight that had eluded scholars for the simple reason that Le Corbusier never joined the Loge L'Amitié—the Masonic chapter in his Swiss hometown of La Chaux-de-Fonds. Undeterred, Birksted insists that the architect was much influenced by several loge illuminati, whom he knew from the hiking group headed by his father, Georges-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris.

heres another review. Birksted sees validation of his thesis in Le Corbusier's buildings, early and late. He discerns the hallmark Masonic pyramid motif atop the architect's Villa Jeanneret-Perret of 1912 in La Chaux-de-Fonds (a house that nearly bankrupted his parents), although the roof is neither purely pyramidal nor a configuration alien to Alpine regions. Le Corbusier discussed everything of any significance to him in his copious and confessional correspondence, and his silence therein about Freemasonry consigns Birksted's fanciful theory to the realm of baseless speculation.

with my prolific understanding of secret societies as a guide, id say his silence about any masonic influence is itself proof of its profound influence.
- dave 4-10-2009 8:49 pm [add a comment]

"The handshake involved touching elbows (first right then left), followed by a "Woooooo" sounding cry as they wiggled the raccoon tail on their lodge hat. They ended by chorusing: "Brothers under the pelt." "
- bill 4-10-2009 9:12 pm [add a comment]

would have gone with something marginally more contemporary.

- dave 4-10-2009 11:10 pm [add a comment]