Le Corbusier's Postcard Collection: Poetical Assemblage as a “Porous” Classification System

Le Corbusier collected about 2,300 postcards throughout all of his life but he always kept them secretly stored in his apartment. They are nowadays held in the archives of the Fondation Le Corbusier, filed by geographic origin. However, this system is not suited to unravel its signification. Through a new associative layout, this article strives to highlight its proper value and aspires to place them fully connected to his other creative tools. Accompanied by his paintings, sketches, writings, and architecture, they will all reveal Le Corbusier’s capacity to synthesize subjects and concepts regardless of time and space. Stability and transition are the guiding keys to jump from image to image, at the same time charged with the power of evoking the tradition and building the present. The concept of “poetical assemblage” will prove that three main goals are intermingled in growing degrees: inspiration, education and verification.