Beatriz Colomina on the new media
ETHEL BARAONA AND CESAR REYES FROM DPR-BARCELONA INTERVIEW BEATRIZ COLOMINA
I think that Le Corbusier was the first architect who really understood the media of the 20th century. By the way, this was the key reserach of my PhD thesis, about architecture and communication and was the starting point of the book Private and Publicity. In the book there’s a chapter called “Publicity,” which is based on the research I did among Le Corbusier archives. It is anecdotal that when I asked at the Fondation Le Corbusier for their archives on L’Espirit Nouveau, they told me, “We have lots of boxes with material classified as L’Espirit Nouveau” and they brought the first box. I was amazed that I only found catalogues, advertising, trend magazines, etc. Researching box by box, I only found the same kind of material until I realized that it was exactly this that interested Le Corbusier. He used images of cars and planes to illustrate his articles and this point is what I found really innovative, to mix architecture with every day objects: the Parthenon with a modern car in front of it.
