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Veronique Boone, "Le Corbusier on Camera: The Unknown Films of Ernest Weissmann" (Birkhaüser, 2024)
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Ed Dimminburg
welcome to the New Books Network. Hello, My name is Ed Dimminburg. I teach architectural history at the University of California, Irvine. And it's my pleasure to welcome you to this episode today. My guest is Veronique Boone. She is professor of architecture at the University of Brussels. And we will be speaking about her book Lecourb, you say, on camera. The unknown films of Ernst Weissman. Veronique, welcome.
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Veronique Boone
Hello. Thank you.
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Ed Dimminburg
So I think my first question when I learned about the book and before I read it, was, who was Ernst Weizmann? Can you tell us a little bit about the subject of your book, please?
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Veronique Boone
Yes. Well, Ernest Weizmann was one of the collaborators at the atelier of Le Corbusier and Pierre Genre in Paris in 2019. So he arrived there. He was a Croatian architect who arrived there in 29amongst some of the most well known collaborators of that time of Norman Rice, Charlotte Parrion and Maikawa and others who were working there at the same time. So they were forming like the first biggest group of collaborators that were very, very close and that they kept contact also for the rest of their lives together for the. For their whole career, during their whole life, their whole careers of Charlotte, of Norman, of Ernst, all of them. But they stayed some few years. For example, Ernest Weizmann stayed until 1930, but he kept in contact with Le Corbusier. So even afterwards they met at the cm. For example, Weizmann was also one of the very precious Persons about the more communist form of the chardaten that he really wanted to have with another turn than Le Corbusier wanted. But nevertheless they had a very close relationship, very friendly relationship during the whole life.
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Ed Dimminburg
I was surprised by the extent of Weissman's career activity after he worked for Le Corbusier. He went on to have a fascinating career. And a bit like the character Zelig in Woody Allen's film. He seemed to be everywhere and seemed to have a knack. A great facility for connecting to interesting projects and people. Can you say a bit about that?
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Veronique Boone
Yeah, it's true. It's a very intriguing life that he had. Because he started as an architect. And then more and more turned more into being like a facilitator of other architects. So he was working for the UN after the Second World War. So he moved to America in the end of the 30s and first stayed in New York, where he worked also as a photographer, not only as an architect by in meanwhile also working for the Yugoslavian government for the Pavilions of the World exhibitions. And then slowly he moved into the un and he had there like a quite central position. But it's like very representative for our way of thinking on architecture that we don't know that kind of figures. Because we do know the genius architect. But we never know the people who were behind the. Facilitating the careers of that kind of people of architects, genius architects. So. And Ernest Weissman was one of that kind of persons who had really important role into the UN and facilitating big urban projects. Big urban or also architecture projects. But he was never. He was always working as for the un. So that's the reason that his name, especially for in. In America and after the Second World War, is not. Not very well known.
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Ed Dimminburg
Do you think he deserves recognition as one of the socially progressive and politically progressive architects of his age?
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Veronique Boone
Yes, I'm sure about that. And there's a Croatian colleague who did already research on him for his pre war activity as an architect, as a socially and politically engaged architect. But I think you. There's really research needed and to put his name on the agenda also for what he did for the un, for example. And I think it's also because in recent research there's also a bit of space for that kind of other practices in architecture. That it's not only the building architect that is important anymore. But we start to see more and more all the other kind of professions that are related to the building of architecture. And one of them is like being like the client. And the client as the un and who are all the architects that were working for a client? As the un.
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Ed Dimminburg
So it sounds as if Weismann is certainly a subject for further research. But turning to your book, let's talk about Weismann's career as a photographer and filmmaker. How did he come to photography and film?
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Veronique Boone
Yeah, he came quite early, already in his youth to photography and film. It was a bit like the boys with toys. So he had also a motorcycle in the 20s who was quite weird. So it was quite. He had a quite bourgeois life. He had an easy life in Croatia. So for him it was like normal that he had like a photo camera and that he bought in the end of the twenties a film camera. So it was the first film camera, amateur film camera that came on the market in Europe. The Pate 9.5 millimeters, that was launched in Paris and in France in the beginning of the twenties. And he bought it in the end of the twenties when he arrived in Paris, he bought a camera as like to registrate all what he was living there. The exceptionality of his life in Paris.
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Ed Dimminburg
And can you say a bit about the status of cinema at that point in the 1920s and 1930s, particularly its relationship to architecture? I think we need to bear in mind that cinema was the most advanced media technology of the period.
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Veronique Boone
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's true. But we are still in like the silent cinema period. So it was. All the decors were very important to explain the film. So you had another way of explaining films than what you have like with the non silent, with the spoken films. So there, there are some. Some very famous films on architecture, like Metropolis, who is like, it's this year's the Hundred Years of Metropolis. So that were the films that were really famous in that time. And so there was like an intriguing relationship between architects, avant garde architects and cinema. And so like also like people as Le Corbusier, they. They went often to the cinema because it was like a new kind of art. And that's the reason that for Le Corb also, when he launched l' Esprit Nouveau, the magazine that he launched in the beginning in 1920, that they also took the cinema really as like one of the art forms. So for architects it was like an evidence that you could take film cinema also as a kind of an art form.
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Ed Dimminburg
So Weissman begins to work for Le Corbusier in the atelier in Paris and. And he takes his movie camera into the atelier and he begins to film. What does he film?
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Veronique Boone
Yeah, it's really Interesting to see what he filmed, what he's filming, because when you start to see the films, you realize that for him, these are his memories. So he was realizing that when he came to Paris that for him, this was an important step in his life. So he bought the camera and he was kind of filming. And it's. At first sight, it's also like. And that's the intriguing side of it. It's exceptional. And on the other hand, an exceptional moments. And on the other hand, just like the normal moments and both together, that makes it. That it's quite an intriguing kind of film. So, for example, he's filming one of the meetings between Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret, and how Pierre Jeanneret, so the cousin of Le Corbusier with whom he was running the office until 19, then Pierre Jeanneret was then explaining to the other collaborators what they had to do. Pierre smiling. Le Corbusier is smiling. But then you also see that they are, for example, Le Corbusier, who is taking for the first time an airplane and going to Moscow. So he's taking the airplane to Kog and then to Berlin, and then from there on is taking the train further. But he was in lack of time, so he had to take. Suddenly he had to take an airplane. But he's already promoting the airplanes, as you know, from new architecture that he's already showing that kind of the same. The same airplanes, the Goliads. He's already showing that in 1920 in Le Spree Nouveau as being like new kind of architecture. And that architecture had to be similar to that kind of new developments in industri creation, like the airplanes. And that the same plane. Airplane he is taking in 20, Le Corbusier is taking in plant in 29 to go to Moscow. And so that is. It's an exceptional event. So Weizmann is conducting them to the airport and he's filming that how he's going to take off to Kiln and first to Berlin.
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Ed Dimminburg
So it sounds as if there's a parallel between film and aviation, between the mode of perception that film allows and the mode of perception that flying in an airplane allows. That there seems to be a recognition on the part of Weismann that these are two new ways of looking at the world.
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Veronique Boone
Yeah, yeah, that's true. It's about. Yeah, it's new technology, it's new ways of moving. And so it's the new world. And that's what you see that when Weizmann is filming there at the airport, he's not interested in the store places that are there, although they are very famous. But it's from Frey Cineso, it's a very famous engineer, so he could film that also the architecture itself. But it's not filming the architecture, he's filming the new technologies. And so that's quite interesting to see on how they are all the collaborators that were working there at the time, that they were embracing that kind of the new ideology and the new ideas that were by Le Corbusier, that were put together in Werner Architektur, that he was taking that they were all embracing that together. And Weismann was filming that then.
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Ed Dimminburg
So who are some of the people who appear in Weismann's films?
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Veronique Boone
You can see several people that appear there. So a bit like the core friends of that time. So you see Maikawa, for example, at several times you see also Sert, who was there also. So Sert, who also later moved to America, but then still was living between Paris and Catalonia. And then also Charlotte Perrion. You also see them because there's one sequence, and it's very interesting because there you see the parallels on how you also, when you're working as an architect in a famous office today, where you see all the friends together working day and night, because one of the projects has to be finished. And one of that kind of projects was the diorama that they had to show in Geneva on the Mundaneum. And they had to work during one weekend for a big panorama to show there in Geneva. And so they're working with seven of the collaborators during the whole weekend together. And so you see them passing by, painting, resting, painting again, being tired. So it's a very intensive weekend that you see all of them, Charlotte Sirt, Rice, Weismann. So then you see. Then you know that someone else is taking the camera, because you also see Weismann that is being filmed. And so it's very. And also, of course, the bosses, Le Corbusier and Pierre Genre, that were also there the whole weekend filming with them. So that's very interesting to see how they were like, they bonded together through work.
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Ed Dimminburg
So what about the style of these short films that Weismann was making? Obviously they were short films because the movie camera he was using did not allow them to be any longer than. How long? 2 minutes, 3 minutes. But besides the length, can you talk a bit about their appearance, the cinematic techniques he employed?
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Veronique Boone
Yeah, they're really short. They're even shorter. They were like one minute. So the first model was like small reels of one minute. And then after you also had like two minute reels, but most of the reels are just like one minute. And even then he never took like one whole minute to film. So he took it in really short episodes of 10 seconds, 20 seconds to show at every time, to first show a bit as a kind of a panorama, what was going on. So when they were in the atelier, for example, showing the panorama, what was going on, fixed frame, or just like moving from left to right on a very big screen and then zooming in into details. And it's also because like the kind of cameras didn't allow to have a lot of light into the lenses. So it was very difficult to. So you had to be slowly to film and they were commanding also when you, when you read the manuals, to start it as a fixed frame and then just let the people move. So that was like to guide the amateurs on how to film. But that's also where you see that he had like an experience already as a photographer and not ready as already as an amateur filmer, that he was starting to film first. The first period there was more filming as a photographer than as a filmer. And then gradually there you see that he's more getting used to the camera that he has. And what are the possibilities of the camera? Also probably because he developed some of the films and he looked at them so he knew what was possible and not possible. And so then he gradually evolved and it became more complex on what he was showing.
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Ed Dimminburg
It seems as if some of Le Corbusier's most famous buildings, the ones with which we associate him today, were filmed by Weismann. Which ones?
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Veronique Boone
Yeah, but the most famous is the Villa Savoy, of course, and that he filmed like five times during the whole building site. So it shows also that he really kept. And it was probably not only Weizmann, but it was also presented into or in the office as one of the core projects or maybe like as the final touch on a whole period of building. And so it meant that when the building site started that he decided to film it. And every time that he went on the building site to the building site, he filmed the advancement of the building site. So it's very interesting to see, you really see growing. The Villa Savoy is growing, and during one year. And so you first. And it's not only the growing of a big project and one of the major projects and the best well known projects of Le Corbusier of the pre war period, but it's also interesting to see what were the working conditions of the working people there. But also to see how that maybe if he wanted. Le Corbusier wanted that kind of buildings being as like a shrine and being shiny and white and seeing like concrete, that finally it's not at all dead. So that's also what you see because, like the. The building methods that were used are in contrast with what he wanted to do with that modern architecture. Le Corbisse, so. And the Villa Savoy is like a very interesting example to see through that kind of films, the short films that he filmed. Because you see it in another way. You see, you. You see the construction is going, but you also see, like, how Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret are visiting the building site and how they're inspecting and discussing with the contractor. But you also see how the other ones, the other collaborators are just like, having fun on the building site and during a visit, for example, Le Corbusier
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Ed Dimminburg
wrote about what he called the architectural promenade and emphasized that to experience architecture, we needed to move through it. Are there ways in which Weismann's films demonstrate this claim and argument?
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Veronique Boone
He tried to. And you see it already a bit in the building site of the Villa Savoir, that sometimes they're really doing a tour through the building for the following following up of the building sites. But you also see it sometimes when they're. At one moment that they're going to do some visits of other buildings of Le Corbusier and Piage that were already f. Finished, but they had some clients and. And they had to do some visits of the buildings and they go to the Villastein, the Monzy, and there. There's like a hello staircase upstairs at the terrace upstairs. And at one moment they tried to do like, okay, like, as when you're thinking as an architect, you're like going through the movement. And so he was thinking like, okay, let's do that also with the camera. I'm going through with. With myself in the movement. I'm gonna film it. And there you see that it's like, it's. It's completely a loss because you can't film like, in the same way as you're looking, as when you're walking and moving, you have to do it in another way. You have to. You have to. You have to have something that is moving in the image and not being the moving image itself. So. And that was an experience that he had really on the terrace of the Steinemundsee.
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Ed Dimminburg
For me, one of the most humorous and quite unexpected moments in the book was your account of the Athens conference and how Weismann ends up attending the conference, the way in which he travels with the other participants. Can you say a bit about that?
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Veronique Boone
Yeah, that's a funny moment because. Yeah, it started when I discovered that that film. It started where you see the whole Parthenon and being filmed and you see how they're all in extase about the Parthenon and seeing it. So it's again, as for the film of Moly Natsch, it's not the congress. Even if the film of Moyni Natsch is called like an architect's congress, diary of the Congress, it's not showing the congress itself, it's showing the whole journey of the architects and what they are all doing of activities on the boat and on the cruise boat afterwards, in Athens itself, on the Parthenon. But it's not about the congress itself. And that's what Weizmann is also doing. So he went from Croatia directly to Athens by car or by bus. So he didn't do the boat trip from Marseilles to Athens and there he joins then their big groups. He show his friends again, because at that time he wasn't working anymore at Eliel Corbusier, nor of the others, but they also. So it started again in Athens, so they also see the joy of seeing each other again. But then when the congress was ended and they all had to go back to Marseille, he decided to go with them because it was too important, because they had to write the Chardetaine at the boat. And there were some frictions between the Le Corbusier and others. And then more, the more communist people that wanted some differences in the Shahdatin. So he really wanted to be on the boat to be sure, to be more weight, to have more weight on some of the decisions that on the written texts. But he didn't have a ticket. So then you see that someone else is taking off the camera and you see him just like going onto the boat and all the other collaborators just smiling. Yes, he did it. He went to the boat and he was there on the boat, but he didn't have the ticket. So.
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Ed Dimminburg
Extraordinary. Lecobier, you say, was famous for controlling the images that circulated about his work, the photographs of his work. And he had very definite ideas about how his architecture should be represented. Did he attempt to control Weismann and Weismann's films and filming?
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Veronique Boone
Yes and no. Yes, because it stayed. They stayed in a very confined way, until recently, until I did the book. So in that way he did it and he was able to control it because it was never published. But in the other way, he wasn't able to control it because, like. And I think I'm quite convinced, because you see Le Corbusier smiling to the camera when Weismanner was filming. So I'm quite convinced that he really. He loved it to be filmed by that amateur filming. So I think he was really enjoying that kind of filming. But because it was an amateur format, there was never the danger that it could damage maybe his public image.
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Ed Dimminburg
Interesting, interesting. So the film differs quite a bit from that famous film by Pierre Chanal, l' architectur aujerduit, which was a professional documentary production.
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Veronique Boone
Yeah, that was really the first one, big professional production where he had really a big hand in it. So Le Corbissier really had a big hand in the scenarios. So. And there. There it was like the coming out, really, with a public image of himself and his buildings.
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Ed Dimminburg
And what is the status today of these films by Ernst Weismann? Is it possible at all for people to view them?
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Veronique Boone
Yeah, that's a bit. It's a bit difficult. So. When I discovered the films, so I didn't discover them really. So Mary McLeod saw them already in the 1970s when she did her PhD, but then they were like, left silent. And nobody touched it, nobody looked at it, everyone forgot about them. And so they were still on reels. So it was like the problem, okay, let's digitize them. And so we had them digitized first and first digitation, and then a second one was like really taking photo per photo, so image per image. So to have the best quality that was possible. But in the meantime, the films, most of the films on Le Corbusier of the Weismann films were bought by the funation Le Corbusier in Paris. And so they are visible there, but they're not publicly visible. And then there's another big other part of films that from the archive of Weismann that are still in the UBU Gallery in New York.
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Ed Dimminburg
Do you think there's any chance that these films might one day become easier to see?
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Veronique Boone
I would hope so, yeah. I think there would be interest to have them online. Maybe the foundation will be open to discuss that in the future, to have maybe a media collection online, not only with the Weisman films, but also with other documents, because there are other quite interesting professional documents that passed on television and so on, so they really could do something about their media library, that they have to do something on the public figure of Le Corbusier and that kind of films would really help for that.
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Ed Dimminburg
That would be wonderful. I hope one day we can look forward to Le Corbusier streaming channel and be able to watch his films easily. Can you say a bit about your current projects? What are you working on since this book after you completed?
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Veronique Boone
Yeah, a bit continuing on Le Corbusier, but on like the margins. Corbusier in the same line as the interest in the collaborators and how the atelier was functioning. I was working together with some colleagues and also with students on the women that worked in the atelier Le Corbusier because there were like about 30 of the collaborators were female collaborators between 1927 and 1949. So it's about 15%. So it's nothing. And it's interesting to see all the different careers that they had. So it's really showing an international, Very, very large. Yeah. Way of how different women on different periods, pre war after war, started to have their career in different kind of countries. So north of Europe is completely different as the. As North America, as central. So. And it's very interesting to see what are personal choices, what are cultural choices about that kind of profiles of the women. So it's going beyond Le Corbusier and working at Le Corbusier and just taking that as a starting point to looking at different career forms for women architects from the 20s to the 70s.
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Ed Dimminburg
A fascinating and of course, very timely project. I wish you much success on it. Our guest today was Veronique Boone, author of the book Le Corbissee on the unknown films of Ernst Weissmann, published in 2024 by Berkheuser Verlag. Veronique, thank you so much.
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Veronique Boone
Thank. You. Foreign.
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