Marco Iuliano

Lucien Hervé and Le Corbusier: pair or peers?

The lasting iconicity surrounding the seminal accomplishments in modern architecture has its roots in long-term alliances between architects and photographers. The Masters of the Modern Movement carefully managed their public ‘image’ largely by establishing a distinct relationship with specific photographers, whose visual sensibility appeared to amplify the underlying design intent for maximum impact on the collective unconscious. Le Corbusier experienced particularly effective affinities with Lucien Hervé (1910–2007), whose photographic signature memorialised the last fifteen years of the Swiss/French architects output. By choosing one photographer and remaining loyal to him for a significant amount of time, Le Corbusier ensured that his architecture took on a consistency that is partially the by-product of a photographic mind close to his architectural sensitivity. After the Second World War, there are numerous examples of such an interrelationship, among the most notable being Neutra/Shulman, Bunshaft/Stoller and Ellwood/Rand, with varying degrees of intensity, yet all revealing similar patterns of co-construction. Such a dynamic touched every corner of the globe where modern architecture was built and published, but was particularly visible in Europe and North America. Drawing on published and unpublished materials this paper focusses closely on the ramifications of the working couple Hervé/Le Corbusier so as to highlight the formation and consolidation of the partnership. This collaboration would elucidate the mutual influences between disciplines when a new, more humane idea of Modernity was formed and broadcast around the world.