Charles-Edouard Jeanneret, known as Le Corbusier, was a Swiss architect, urban planner, painter, writer, designer, and theorist.
His progressive artistic vision set him at the head of the modernist movement in the 1920s. In the 1950s he jointly managed the urban-planning project of Chandigarh, building the new city in northern India in line with his architectural theories.
His designs from Chandigarh regularly delight specialists and amateurs alike. Within the full extent of his inventory, it is very rare to find a piece like the Bureau des Ministres as very few of his works are so monumental in scale.
This exclusive piece was made in a very limited edition for the city’s ministerial palace, a function that deserved a more imposing design hence its size and essentialist form.
Its two-part removable top forms an open corner, resting on three legs and supporting a central unit with further compartments. Balancing these elements in such a rational way is a testament to Le Corbusier’s clarity of vision and understanding of practical considerations in his work.

Provenance:

Palais des Ministères, Chandigarh, India.

Literature:

E. Touchaleaume, Alain de Gourcuff (ed.), Le Corbusier Pierre Jeanneret : L’aventure indienne, Paris 2010, pp. 164-166, 579.

Location: London