A New Lens on Le Corbusier’s Classics

Through the square eye of Emanuele Piccardo’s Hasselblad camera, Le Corbusier’s white walls take on new life. Shadows dance across pristine surfaces, staircases spiral into geometric abstractions and Mediterranean light transforms concrete into poetry. This is how Piccardo sees the master of modernism. His new exhibition, Looking at Le Corbusier at Maison La Roche in Paris, offers more than just another perspective on familiar architecture – it invites viewers to see these iconic spaces as if for the first time.

Few figures have shaped modern architecture as profoundly as Le Corbusier. Born Charles-Édouard Jeanneret in Switzerland, he later adopted the famous pseudonym that became synonymous with his work, revolutionizing 20th-century architecture through his radical vision of urban living. As an architect, critic and founder of the digital journal archphoto.it, Piccardo brings a uniquely qualified eye to his subject, combining scholarly rigor with artistic sensitivity. Piccardo’s photographs guide viewers through Le Corbusier’s spaces with deliberate pacing and rhythm. Images flow one into the next, each carefully positioned to reveal how light and shadow transform these modernist spaces throughout the day. 

The exhibition’s innovative use of diptychs – pairs of photographs displayed side by side – creates what Piccardo calls “two eyes looking” at Le Corbusier’s work, allowing viewers to experience these spaces simultaneously from different angles or moments in time. A sun-drenched corridor might be paired with its twilight counterpart, or a sweeping exterior view might dialogue with an intimate interior detail, creating a stereoscopic effect, deepening viewers’ understanding of these  spaces. Through these thoughtful juxtapositions, Piccardo weaves connections between forms, lines, and shadows across different buildings and seasons, creating a visual rhythm that pulses through the gallery.

This rhythmic approach to architectural documentation is deeply rooted in Piccardo’s cultural background. As an Italian photographer, Piccardo shares with Le Corbusier an intimate understanding of Mediterranean light – that distinctive interplay of sun and shadow that defines the region’s architectural character. This cultural kinship is particularly evident in his treatment of the Marseille Unité d’habitation rooftop, which he likens to an acropolis. His photographs capture not just concrete forms, but the way light sculpts them across changing seasons, breathing temporal life into static architecture.

The choice of Maison La Roche as the exhibition venue proves particularly apt. Designed between 1923 and 1925 for banker Raoul La Roche, this building represents one of Le Corbusier’s earliest and purest expressions of architectural modernism. Here, he first implemented his revolutionary five points of a new architecture – the free facade, free plan, long windows, roof garden, and pilotis – principles that continue to shape our experience of space. The building’s original dual function as both private residence and art gallery creates a fascinating historical resonance with Piccardo’s current exhibition. 

La Roche, an avid art collector and patron of Le Corbusier, insisted on spaces that could seamlessly transition between domestic intimacy and public display. Today, Piccardo’s photographs inhabit these same carefully calibrated spaces, transforming them once again into a gallery while simultaneously documenting their residential character. His images of private corners and sweeping public areas echo the building’s original dual identity, creating a dialogue not just with Le Corbusier’s architecture, but with the purpose of  its design – the harmonious coexistence of art and daily life. 

In his introduction to the exhibition catalogue, architecture historian Tim Benton notes how the photographer’s work creates fresh perspectives through his masterful use of geometry. Like Lucien Hervé before him, Piccardo works with square formats and diagonal lines, but deliberately avoids symmetry, creating tension and movement within the frame. In a surprising parallel with history, Piccardo’s compositions echo the spatial arrangements of Italian Trecento painting, where perspective had not yet been codified into strict rules. This pre-Renaissance influence manifests in his treatment of depth; where trees, shadows, and architectural elements seem to exist on a single plane, creating a unique spatial relationship between architecture and nature. His images of tree shadows cast upon Le Corbusier’s white walls become abstract compositions that blur the line between built form and natural element.

Through this careful curation of moments caught in time, Piccardo demonstrates how architectural photography can transcend its documentary roots to become a form of artistic interpretation in its own right. His work reminds us that while photographs can never fully replace the experience of inhabiting these spaces, they can reveal hidden interactions between light, form, and human experience. In these images, Le Corbusier’s modernist vision meets contemporary artistic interpretation, creating a fitting tribute within the walls of a masterpiece that continues to inspire generations of architects and artists alike.

Looking at Le Corbusier is on view until March 15th at Maison La Roche.