Towards a Public Space: Le Corbusier and the Greco-Latin Tradition in the Modern City

The public spaces in Le Corbusier’s plans are usually considered to break with the past and to have nothing whatsoever in common with the public spaces created before modernism. This view is fostered by both the innovative character of his proposals and by the proliferation in his manifestos of watchwords that mask any evocation of the past, like l’esprit nouveau (“new spirit”) and l’architecture de demain (“architecture of tomorrow”). However, if we manage to rid ourselves of certain preconceived ideas, which underpin a somewhat less-than-objective idea of modernity, we find that Le Corbusier’s public spaces not only didn’t break with the historical past in any abrupt way but actually testified to the continuity of human creation over time.　

Aimed at academics and students in architecture, architectural history and urban planning, this book fills a gap in the systematic analysis of Le Corbusier’s city scale plans and, specifically, Corbusian public spaces following the Second World War.

SEQUEIRA, Marta, Towards a Public Space. Le Corbusier and the Greco-Latin Tradition in Modern City. New York, Oxon: Routledge, 2018, ISBN 978-1-4724-7591-6
(Foreword by Xavier Monteys, 246 x 174, 198 pp. 149 illustrations)

Sobre Autora
Marta Sequeira foi directora do Departamento de Arquitectura da Universidade de Évora (2011-2012) e é professora convidada da Faculdade de Arquitectura da Universidade de Lisboa desde 2016, onde lecciona a disciplina de Laboratório de Arquitectura.
Ganhou, com a pesquisa apresentada neste livro, o Prix de la Recherche Patiente, concedido pela Fundação Le Corbusier em 2016.