Books by Jean-Louis Cohen

Frank Gehry, Architect

by Frank O. Gehry, Jean-Louis Cohen, Frank Gehry

New Lower Price This book, the catalogue to the first large-scale retrospective of Frank Gehry's work in 15 years, examines the Los Angeles-based architect's unique vision and audacious accomplishments. Frank Gehry, Architect presents nearly 40 of Gehry's most significant works, from his earliest residential projects, including the 1977-78 transformation of his own Santa Monica residence--in which he used chain-link fencing, asphalt flooring and corrugated sheet metal to effectively build a house around an existing house--through his most recent public buildings worldwide. Among these, his best-known completed project is the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, an architectural marvel of limestone, glass and titanium that brought Gehry international renown. This book provides the career-long perspective with which to interpret Gehry's recent work, such as the Nationale-Nederlanden Building in Prague, the Experience Music Project in Seattle and the DG Bank Building in Berlin, as well as a host of major projects currently in progress, including the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles and the Ray and Maria Stata Center at MIT. Gehry's experiments with furniture design have been complementary to his architectural endeavors, and this book also looks at his celebrated cardboard furniture, bentwood furniture and playful lamps made from Colorcore.

Above Paris: The Aerial Survey of Roger Henrard

by Jean-Louis Cohen

Above Paris is Henrard’s remarkable study of the urban landscape of Paris and its best-known monuments. Over 350 beautifully printed duotones, systematically grouped by themes such as the course of the Seine, the main roads, the stations, and the neighborhoods of Paris give a clear overview of the city’s layout. Maps at the beginning of each chapter further help orient the reader and together with detailed captions and essays by Jean-Louis Cohen make Above Paris a must for anybody interested in Paris or urban design.

Complexity and Contradiction at Fifty: Robert Venturi's "Gentle Manifesto": A Symposium

by Jean-Louis Cohen, Stanislaus Von Moos, Robert Venturi, Lee Ann Custer, Peter Fröhlicher, Diane Harris, Andrew Leach, Mary McLeod, Joan Ockman, Emmanuel Petit, Stanley Tigerman

Now available in its original edition along with critical commentary, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture is the founding text of postmodernism in architecture
First published in 1966, Robert Venturi’s Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, widely considered the foundational text of postmodernism, has become an essential document in architectural theory and criticism.
This new two-volume boxed set presents a facsimile of the original edition paired with a compendium of new scholarship on and around Venturi’s seminal treatise.

The ten selected essays, a number of which were presented at a three-day international conference co-organized by MoMA to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Complexity and Contradiction in 2016, address diverse issues, such as the book’s relationship to Venturi’s own built oeuvre and its significance in the contemporary landscape. Additional short commentaries by contemporary practitioners attest to Complexity’s enduring influence on architectural practice. Together, these two volumes expand the horizons of―and introduce a new generation to―Venturi’s “gentle manifesto.”

Building a new New World: Amerikanizm in Russian Architecture

by Jean-Louis Cohen

An essential exploration of how Russian ideas about the United States shaped architecture and urban design from the czarist era to the fall of the U.S.S.R.

Idealized representations of America, as both an aspiration and a menace, played an important role in shaping Russian architecture and urban design from the American Revolution until the fall of the Soviet Union. Jean-Louis Cohen traces the powerful concept of “Amerikanizm” and its impact on Russia’s built environment from early czarist interest in Revolutionary America, through the spectacular World’s Fairs of the 19th century, to department stores, skyscrapers, and factories built in Russia using American methods during the 20th century. Visions of America also captivated the Russian avant-garde, from El Lissitzky to Moisei Ginzburg, and Cohen explores the ongoing artistic dialogue maintained between the two countries at the mid-century and in the late Soviet era, following a period of strategic competition. This first major study of Amerikanizm in the architecture of Russia makes a timely contribution to our understanding of modern architecture and its broader geopolitics.

Distributed for the Canadian Centre for Architecture

Le Corbusier: Le Grand

by Jean-Louis Cohen, Tim Benton

A spectacular visual biography of one of the greatest architects of the 20th century.

The Future of Architecture Since 1889: A Worldwide History

by Jean-Louis Cohen

The highly acclaimed history of the architecture of the twentieth century and beyond - now in paperback
Jean-Louis Cohen, one of the world's leading architectural historians, serves up a compelling account of the developments that have shaped the world in which we live today. This highly accessible book begins with the Paris Universal Exposition of 1889, tracing architecture's evolution to the early twenty-first century's globalized architectural culture. Illustrated with hundreds of drawings and photographs as well as portraits, publications, diagrams, film stills, and more, this survey places radical developments in architecture in a larger context, among those of art, technology, urbanism, and critical theory.

Le Corbusier

by Jean-Louis Cohen

Born Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, Le Corbusier (1887-1965) is widely acclaimed as the most influential architect of the 20th century. From private villas to mass social housing projects, his radical ideas, designs, and writings presented a whole-scale reinvention not only of individual structures, but of entire concepts of modern living.



Le Corbusier's work made distinct developments over the years, from early vernacular houses in Switzerland through dazzling white, purist villas to dynamic syntheses of art and architecture such as the chapel at Ronchamp and the civic buildings in Chandigarh, India. A hallmark throughout was his ability to combine functionalist aspirations with a strong sense of expressionism, as well as a broader and empathetic understanding of urban planning. He was a founding member of the Congrès international d'architecture moderne (CIAM), which championed "architecture as a social art."



This book presents some of Le Corbusier's landmark projects to introduce an architect, thinker, and modern pioneer who, even in his unrealized projects, offered discussion and inspiration for generations to come.

Le Corbusier Le Grand

by Phaidon Editors, Jean-Louis Cohen

Back in print, the spectacular visual biography of the life and work of Le Corbusier - one of the twentieth century's most influential architects

'Le Corbusier arguably had more of an influence on the form of the modern world than any other architect... You couldn't make a book like this about just any architect. Beyond the architecture, it reveals a great deal about the man himself' - Guardian

Almost two decades since its first publication, the bestselling and classic monograph Le Corbusier Le Grand is finally available again. Documenting the life and work of one of the giants of twentieth-century architecture and design, the book presents an array of sketches, photographs, and correspondences, charting the vast and varied output of Le Corbusier, an artist who continues to fascinate those inside and outside the architectural world. The survey features an introductory essay by the esteemed architectural historian and Le Corbusier expert Jean-Louis Cohen, to whom this edition is dedicated, and chapter introductions by another leading Le Corbusier scholar, Tim Benton.