About
Upcoming Exhibitions
BGC Gallery will resume its exhibition programming this September with the return of Sèvres Extraordinaire! Sculpture from 1740 until Today, originally slated for fall 2024.
Bard Graduate Center is an advanced graduate research institute in New York City dedicated to the cultural histories of the material world. Our MA and PhD degree programs, Gallery exhibitions, research initiatives, scholarly publications and public programs explore new ways of thinking about decorative arts, design history, and material culture.

About
28th Annual Iris Foundation Awards
Honoring Irene Roosevelt Aitken, Dr. Julius Bryant, Dr. Meredith Martin, and Katherine Purcell
Events
Wednesdays @ BGC
Join us this spring for weekly programming!





Publications

Bard Graduate Center publishes award-winning exhibition catalogues, books, and journals focusing on scholarship in the decorative arts, design history, and material culture.

Contemporary Artists
Publications
Barbara Nessim
An Artful Life


Publications
Waterweavers
A Chronicle of Rivers

Publications
Sheila Hicks
Weaving as Metaphor

Publications
Richard Tuttle
What Is the Object?
BGCX
Publications
Ritual and Capital
BGCX
2020

Publications
What is Research?
BGCX
2021

Publications
What is Conservation?
BGCX
2023

In his numerous writings, Le Corbusier remained uncharacteristically silent about his early career. This intriguing book examines his nascent years as a designer and architect, focusing on the period from 1907 to 1922—the year he changed his name from Charles Edouard Jeanneret and established his identity as Le Corbusier. The contributors to the book offer in unprecedented detail an account of Le Corbusier’s formative years and the cultural, intellectual, and artistic concerns that absorbed him as a young artist in Switzerland and Paris.

From 1907 to 1922 Jeanneret learned the art and craft of architecture and design, and defined his own image as an artist. The book discusses the cultural climate of his Swiss hometown, La Chaux-de-Fonds; his early mentors, friends, and clients; his educational pursuits, including his self-designed Grand Tour; and his first successes as an architect and designer. More than 350 illustrations—including architectural drawings and models, watercolors, sketches, photographs, and furniture—show the range of young Le Corbusier’s work and illuminate the principal themes and issues of his formative years.



Stanislaus von Moos is professor of modern art at the University of Zurich. Arthur Rüegg is professor in the School of Architecture at the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule, Zurich, and also a practicing architect.

Table of Contents
Foreword
Susan Weber Soros

Preface
Eva-Maria Preiswerk-Losel

Introduction
Stanislaus von Moos and Arthur Ruegg

Chronology
compiled by Klaus Spechtenhauser

1. Voyages en Zigzag
Stanislaus von Moos

2. Le Corbusier and the Gothic
Pierre Vaisse

3. Jeanneret, the City, and Photography
Leo Schubert

4. Architecture: Proportion, Classicism, and Other Issues
Francesco Passanti

5. The Challenge of the “Grand Siecle”
Antonio Brucculeri

6. Marcel Levaillant and “La Question du Mobilier”
Arthur Ruegg

7. From Art Nouveau to Purism: Le Corbusier and Painting
Francoise Ducros

Catalogue
with contributions from H. Allen Brooks, Antonio Brucculeri, Marie-Eve Celio, Corinne Charles, Francoise Ducros, Giuliano Gresleri, Francesco Passanti, Klaus Spechtenhauser

Notes to the Catalogue

Checklist of the Exhibition

List of Sources Cited

Index
Images