LE CORBUSIER and the publication of “Destin de Paris”. 1940

LE CORBUSIER , Charles-Édouard JEANNERET, known as (1887.1965)

Autograph letter signed to its publisher, Fernand Sorlot.

Two ½ in-8° pages. Ozon. December 19, 1940.

“I entrusted Destin de Paris to you on the formal condition of producing a record print. »

Superb letter relating to the publication of the Destiny of Paris during the occupation.

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“Dear Sir, I have not heard from my previous letter in which I ask your collaborator to hasten the publication of Destin de Paris . I am very disappointed. You could see with the people around me, a brilliant series of notebooks, starting with Giraudoux. But we must follow up and above all respond to the proposals made. I entrusted you with Destin de Paris on the formal condition of producing a record print. I sent the manuscript on October 29. It's 60 pages! I received a letter from Dr. P. Winter asking me to intervene with you. He complains that you never answered his letters from the free zone. He asks for a straightforward situation. He informs me that Mr. Castres has instructions to discuss finances with you and resolve the matter. You will understand that in Mr. Winter's work, as in my little notebook, there is a question of opportunity. You are not dealing with impatient, beginner authors, but with ideas that cannot be kept under wraps. I therefore allow myself to count on your sincere cooperation and I urge you to provide me with details on the two subjects mentioned in this letter. Le Corbusier. »

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In 1941 Le Corbusier published Destin de Paris published by Sorlot.  This 60-page pamphlet, a reflection on the construction and development of Paris, was intended for the Vichy government. He reworked it until mid-1942, the date on which he cautiously left Vichy and his friends from the extreme right: François de Pierrefeu, Hubert Lagardelle, Pierre Winter. He then founded ASCORAL in Paris (assembly of builders for architectural renovation) which operated during the German occupation.

Fernand Sorlot was the founder of Nouvelles Éditions latines in 1928, and the publisher, at the request of Charles Maurras, of an unauthorized French translation of Mein Kampf in 1934. The affair earned him a trial against Hitler in 1936. During the German occupation, like Robert Denoël, his publishing house opened up to German capital. In 1948, he was sentenced to twenty years of national indignity and the confiscation of his property for his activities as a publisher during the German occupation.

Pierre Winter was a member of Georges Valois's Faisceau. After the breakup of the movement in 1928, he was one of the leaders of the Revolutionary Fascist Party. During the Second World War, Winter wrote in the collaborationist press and became, in 1944, Inspector General of Labor of the Vichy government. Friend of Le Corbusier, whose neighbor he is in Paris on rue Jacob, prefaced one of the volumes of his Complete Works.