University of Virginia Library

BEYOND THE REVIEW

Although the review folded at the end of 1933, Badovici and Morancé were
able to keep its legacy alive through the publication of a number of books worthy,
in their eyes, of the l'Architecture Vivante name. We have already seen how the
seventh volume of the Le Corbusier and P. Jeanneret series entered the series,
despite its origins in a related, but separate review. In 1938, Morancé published
Le Corbusier: Œuvre plastique: Peintures et dessins, architecture, edited by Badovici. 67
While the bookis dedicated primarily to painting and graphic art, a few draw-
ings and photographs of the Pavillon des Temps Nouveaux are included, and
L'ARCHITECTURE VIVANTE appears on the publisher's page, where EXTRAIT DE
L'ARCHITECTURE VIVANTE appeared in previous publications. An outer card-
board portfolio cover held two inner paper ones; the first contained a text by
Badovici as well as drawings, while the second contained thirty-six heliotype
plates and four lithographs. Both the cover and the layout were designed by Le
Corbusier (fig. 13.1). 68 While Le Corbusier himself included this volume among
the "oeuvre complète' issued by Morancé, 69 the publisher consideredit separate
from that series, although still within the l'Architecture Vivante family: both were
listed in catalogs and advertisements under the heading l'Architecture Vivante en
France. In 1953, Morancé's son Gaston, now managing the publishing house,
suggested to Le Corbusier that a second edition be published, substituting some

more recent work for the pages devoted to the Pavillon des Temps Nouveaux. Le
Corbusier subsequently considered republishing it himself, but no second edition
ever emerged. 70

In the late 1930s, Badovici edited two slight books by the American architect
Paul Nelson, who had been living in Paris since attending the École des Beaux
Arts in the 1920s. The first, Deux études de Paul Nelson: Maison de santé et pavillon de
chirurgie, presented his unbuilt projects for a small-scale hospital and a surgery pa-
vilion in Ismailia, the research for which ultimately led to his major built works:
hospitals in Saint-Lô, Dinan, Neuilly, and Arles. The second, La maison suspendue,
is dedicated to his extraordinary project for a new type of house. Both books are
spiral bound, with orange cardstock covers printed in black with undistinguished
typography for the titles and publisher's name, but with L'ARCHITECTURE VI-
VANTE printed vertically ina stripe up the right side, exactly as it was placed on
the fourth Le Corbusier volume and the Garnier volume (figs. 13.3, 13.4; plate
16). "Biblio" records the dates of the two books as 1938and 1939 respectively, 71
and these are likely correct. Notices for Deux études appeared in both l'architecture
d'aujourd'hui and the Italian magazine Emporium in 1938, and Nelson sent a copy
as a gift to the Museum of Modern Art, where it was received on 10 November
1938. 72 La maison suspendue includes, on its final page of text, a postscript dated
12 January 1939, which appears to be conclusive for that book. But earlier dates
have also been proposed: Nelson himself, in his 1959 article Design for Tomorrow
gives a 1937 publication date for La maison suspendue, and in his entry to the Ameri-
can Architects Directory of 1970 liststhe two publications as 1934 and 1937. 73 In the
bibliography of his 1971 interview with Judith Applegate inPerspecta 13/14, they
are listed, presumably by him, as 1936 (a more plausible date for Deux études) and
1937; these dates are repeated in most subsequent literature. 74 While Nelson's
dates may simply be incorrect, either by error or design, there does remain the
possibility of two separate printings of both books. Some copies of Deux études
have a variant cover with white printing on blue cardstock; Nelson's own copy
was the blue version, suggesting that it might have been the earlier one, but then
so was the copy he sent to MoMA (fig. 13.2). 75 The supplemental nature of the
dated section of La maison suspendue also suggests an earlier version without it, but
I have been unable to locate a copy.

Following the Second World War, Badovici worked as an architect on the
reconstruction of several towns near Maubeuge in northeast France. It was there
that he met the Greek architect Panos Dzelepy, who had also joined the re-
construction, perhaps through the agency of Christian Zervos. Before the war,
Dzelepy had been the architect for two complexes designed specifically for the
convalescence of children, Voula and Péndély; these became the subject of Ba-
dovici's final book, Villages d'enfants. It was published in late 1948, in a similar
format to the two Nelson titles. 76 It is spiral bound, with black typography on
brown cardstock for the covers; the blackstripe proclaiming the L'ARCHITECTURE
VIVANTE affiliation runs across the bottom. Inside are 18 pages of text, followed
by 66 pages (although numbered to 64) of photographic plates, drawings, and
charts (fig. 13.5).

In advertising for the extraits throughout the 1930s, several of Badovici's early
Morancé publications were included in the l'Architecture Vivante series. Thosewor-
thy of this title were Maisons de rapport de Charles Plumet, La maison d'aujourd'hui:
Maisons individuelles, and Grandes constructions: Béton armé-acier-verre; left out, pre-
sumably for not being sufficiently avant-garde, were Les intérieurs de Sue et Mare,
"Harmonies": Intérieurs de Ruhlmann, and Intérieurs Français 77 No change was made
to any of these publications, and their publisher's pages still identifiedthem as
part of the Documents d'Architecture series.

Albert Morancé died in 1951, 78 Jean Badovici in 1956. Two later Morancé
titles, Urbanisme and Belgique, now edited by Gaston Morancé, were published
in 1956 and 1958 respectively under the l'Architecture Vivante banner, but cannot
be considered part of the same series. 79 Badovici also had one additional edito-
rial effort with Morancé outside of the l'Architecture Vivante series which bears
mentioning. In 1937, he was a guest editor of the first fascicule of l'Encyclopédie
de l'Architecture Moderne, devoted to the Paris Exposition of that year, eventu-
ally to be subsumed into Tome XI of that publication. Morancé's extraits from
l'Encyclopédie were arranged by building type, which typically meant that they
drew from a number of volumes. In this case, though, the complete fascicule
was reissued the following year in book form under the title: Architecture de fêtes:
Arts et techniques. 80

In Badovici's obituary, the claim is made for 70 l''Architecture Vivante publica-
tions under his direction. 81 This is not explained, but can be interpreted as fol
lows: 42 fascicules of the review, 21 extraits (including the Le Corbusier volume
reprinted from I'Encyclopédie), 4 new titles following theend of the review
(Le Corbusier, Nelson, and Dzelepy), and 3 titles from the 1920s appropriated into
the series. There are many pieces still missing from the puzzle, most important
to me the number of copies printed (and sold) of both the review and the extraits.
The extent of their reach, both within and outside of the European architecture
community, could then be analyzed: for instance, the relative importance of
Badovici's presentation of Le Corbusier's work compared to Willi Boesiger's con-
current publications for Verlag Girsberger; 82 or the extent to which Badovici and
Gray's E.1027 was known, and whether its relative obscurity in the early histories
was partially due to the inaccessibility of its documentation.