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kottke.org posts about lecorbusier

Why are famous paintings worth more than famous houses?

David Galbraith calculates that if buildings by famous architects were priced like paintings, a Le Corbusier building would be worth more than the entire US GDP.

The top floor of Corbusier’s Villa Stein (one of perhaps the top 500 most important houses of the late 19th/early 20th centuries - i.e. a Van Gogh of houses) is for sale for the same price per sq.ft. (approx $1400) as buildings in the same area of suburban Paris, designed by nobody in particular. Meanwhile, Van Gogh’s Portrait of Dr. Gachet sold for an inflation adjusted price of $136 million yet a poster of similar square footage and style costs around $10.

In terms of signaling, it’s difficult to hang a house on one’s parlor wall…buying a Corbusier means living in it wherever it happens to be located, at least part of the year.


Related to the stories about binding books

Related to the stories about binding books with human skin from earlier in the week, apparently architect Le Corbusier bound one of his favorite books (Don Quixote) with the hide from one of his favorite dogs (Pinceau). The result looks like that textbook in Harry Potter that you needed to stroke the spine to get it to open without biting you.