The Arcades Project - Operi

Ledoux, Temple de Memoire (House of Women): 'The narrative relief on the
triumphal columns at four corners of a country house was intended to celebrate
the glory of the hestowers of life, the mothers, in place of' the customary monuments
consecrated to the bloody victories of' generals . With this unusual work, the
artist wished to render thanks to the women he had come to know in Iris life." Emil
Kaufmann, Von Ledoux bis Le Corbusier (Vienna and Leipzig, 1933), p. 38.
[Ul7,2]
On 'Ledoux: "Once the distinctions of rank within architecture fall by the wayside,
then all architectural orders are of equal value . ... The earlier thematic eclecticism,
which was taken up ahnost exclusively with churches, palaces, the "better'
domiciles, and of course military fortifications, retreats before the new architectural
universalism . ... The revolutionary process of the suhurbanizing of domestic
housing parallels the disappearance of the baroque assemblage as art form . ...
A more extended complex, apparently conceived as a development at the entrance
to the city, consists in a number of two- to four-room dwellings ranged around a
square courtyard; each of these residences possesses the necessary closet space,
while kitchen, pantries, and other utility rooms are located in a building at the
center of the courtyard. We have here, probably, the earliest instance of the type
of dwelling that is current today in the form of the apartment with shared
kitchen." Emil Kaufmann, Von Ledoux bis Le Corbusi-er (Vienna and Leipzig,
1933), p. 38. [Ul7,3]
" The Orient had been discovered, and some journeyed there to seck the Mother­
La Men}--a representative figure of this century, covered with breasts like the
Diana of Ephesus." Adrienne Monnier, "La Gazette des Amis des Livres," La
Gazette des Amis des LiVl'es, 1 (January 1, 1938) (Paris), p. 14. [U17,4]
"'Man remembers the Past; Woman divines the Future; the Couple sees the Present."
Saint-Simonian formula, in Du Camp, Souvenirs litteraires, vol. 2 (Paris,
1906), p. 93. [UI7a,l]
"'La Mere": "She was to he lafe1nme libre . ... This independent woman had to he
a thinking woman, one who, . .. having fathomed the secrets of the feminine psyche,
. .. would make confession for all her sex . ... The quest for . .. the Mother
was not an innovation of Enfantin 's; well hefore him, Saint-Simon himself, during
the period when Augustin Thierry was his secretary, had made an attempt to
discover this . .. wonder . .. and evidently thought to have found her in Madame
de Stael." The latter declined an invitation to beget a messiah for humanity with
Saint-Simon (pp. 91-93).-"The mission to locate La Mere now formed, and was
off. The pilgrims numbered twelve, ineluding Barrault, t.he leader of the expedition.
Their ultimate destination was Constantinople, . . . though they had no
money. Dressed in white (as a sign of the vow of chastity they had taken 011 leaving
Paris), staffs in hand, they begged their way from place to place, in the name of the
Mother. In Burgundy, they hired themselves out to help with the harvest; in Lyons,