Événement

Le Corbusier's Women

[TICKETS STILL AVAILABLE AT THE DOOR!]
308 Bowery, NY

The Swiss-born, French architect Le Corbusier (1887-1965) whose work is featured in this summer's blockbuster exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art will be 'live' on stage at the Bowery for one day only on Sunday, September 22nd 2013.

Le Corbusier's Women is a one-man show written and performed by Charles Knevitt, formerly Architecture Critic on the London Times. Le Corbusier was the greatest architect of the twentieth century, the "Picasso of architecture". He designed several iconic buildings, such as the Villa Savoye, Ronchamp pilgrimage church and the Unite d'Habitation in Marseille, and became the first global architectural brand.

He was also a painter, sculptor, furniture designer, town planner and prolific writer and publisher. His most famous book is Vers une Architecture, first published in French in 1923, and subsequently in English translations in London and New York in 1927. It is still in print and available in a score of other languages. In his passport he described his profession as Man of Letters.

Women exerted a major influence on his life: his mother, his wife, his mistress of 30 years, a string of other lovers and those he met through casual encounters. They included, allegedly, Josephine Baker, Mitzi Solomon, Minette de Silva, Marilyn Monroe and London showgirl Christine Keeler who was at the centre of the 1963 Profumo scandal that toppled a British Government (although she denies a link with the architect).

Knevitt explores the man, the myth and the artist in this 60-minute reading, when he becomes the architect, 'live' on stage. 5pm show introduced by Suzanne Stephens, Deputy Editor of Architectural Record. 7:30 show introduced by top architecture critic, Martin Filler of NY Review of Books.

CHARLES KNEVITT trained as an architect before becoming a full-time journalist and author, including Architecture Critic on two national newspapers, the Sunday Telegraph and The Times, London.

He has lectured on Le Corbusier in Bristol, London, Valletta, Venice and Warsaw, and first performed his one-man show, Le Corbusier's Women, in London at Riverside Studios (2012) and Chelsea Arts Club (2013).

The show is currently in development as a musical with Peter Manning, Concertmaster at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London; and the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, in Edinburgh. London shows directed by Jayne Beaumont.