cover image Journey to the East

Journey to the East

Le Corbusier. MIT Press (MA), $29.95 (270pp) ISBN 978-0-262-12091-3

Twenty-four-year-old Le Corbusier (born Charles-Edouard Jeanneret) kept a travel diary as he roamed central and Eastern Europe, visiting ancient monuments and soaking up native architecture. His journal is a blend of overripe, lyrical prose, incisive impressions and thoughts on architecture and landscape. His trips to the Parthenon and Mount Athos, which triggered his decision to become an architect, make intense reading. He writes movingly of Anatolian vistas that express the ""lofty, poetic Turkish soul'' and dubs the traditional Turkish wooden house ``an architectural masterpiece.'' Even more revealingly, this neoclassical innovator admires Rumanian peasant houses for their dazzling white stucco and adaptation of classical elements. The first book Le Corbusier wrote, Journey was published posthumously in France in 1966. This first English translation is most welcome. (May)