Le Corbusier’s exhibition at the Pompidou Centre is the most popular architecture show at the museum, ever.
“Mesures de l’homme” clocked in more than 260,000 visitors in its three months up at the Paris museum from April 29 to August 3. The number of visitors was more than any other architecture show held at the institution including preceding ones of architects Frank Gehry, whose 2014 show saw 204,000 visitors; Charlotte Perriand, who worked with Le Corbusier, and whose show saw 202,000 visitors in 2005; and Eileen Gray, whose 2013 show had 173,000 visitors.
When the Corbusier exhibition opened in April, the museum was hit by critics saying the museum’s show looked over recent accusations that the Swiss-born French architect was a fascist and Nazi sympathizer with links to the World War II Vichy regime.
According to the Art Newspaper, curators of the Pompidou exhibition Olivier Cinqualbre and Frédéric Migaryou dismissed the newly published books claiming the architect was active in several fascist groups in France during the Second World War, as merely “tabloid publications.”
The Pompidou and the Le Corbusier Foundation announced on April 28 that they would be launching a research project that will investigate the architect’s life and beliefs during the 1930s and World War II. Their findings will be presented in a symposium in 2016.
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A New Corbusier-Inspired Exhibition Opens to Coincide with the 50th Anniversary of His Death