Machine à Amuser

The Life and Death of the Beistegui Penthouse Apartment

Wim van den Bergh

$130

Hardback

Not in-store but you can order this
How long will it take?

Availability Information

We source books from suppliers in Australia and overseas. For books we don't currently have in stock, the time it takes to get them from our suppliers can vary widely - from a few days to a few months - so we check each book with each supplier to determine the expected time it will take to be supplied to us.

We then advise you accordingly. If the time taken to get any book is too long for you, you can let us know and we will cancel or adjust your order, and refund as required.

To find out the anticipated arrival time for specific items prior to ordering, please contact us by phone or email:

Phone +61 2 9264 3111, or 1800 4 BOOKS (1800 4 26657) if outside Sydney:
option 1 Abbey's Bookshop (Crime, History, Science, Kids & more) • info@abbeys.com.au
option 2 Language Book Centre (ESL & Foreign Languages) • language@abbeys.com.au
option 3 Galaxy Bookshop (Sci-fi, Fantasy, Romance, Graphic Novels) • sf@galaxybooks.com.au

QTY:

English

MIT Press
14 May 2024

Architecture

A richly illustrated history of a single building, the celebrated and yet enigmatic penthouse of the wealthy playboy Charles de Beistegui, designed by Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret in late 1920s Paris.

A richly illustrated history of a single building, the celebrated and yet enigmatic penthouse of the wealthy playboy Charles de Beistegui, designed by Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret in late 1920s Paris.

What does it take to build not only a house but a machine for amusement? In Machine

Amuser, Wim van den Bergh chronicles the genesis of the famous penthouse of French-born Mexican millionaire bachelor Charles de Beistegui. The penthouse was planned and constructed by Le Corbusier & Pierre Jeanneret and built on a rooftop site on the Champs- lysees between 1929-1932. Retracing the evolution of this icon of modern architecture from the initial competition between Gabriel Guevrekian, Andre Lurçat, and Le Corbusier & Pierre Jeanneret up to the executed version, van den Bergh tells the story of a client's ambition to build a house devoted to entertaining on one of the most well-heeled streets of Paris.

Machine

Amuser also examines the cultural milieu of artists and patrons that surrounded Beistegui and which ultimately determined the apartment's conception and use, including its rococo and surrealist-inspired interior decor. Drawing on a panoply of archival material, van den Bergh narrates the tensions that arose between client and architects as each vied for creative control of the project. As the book shows, while Le Corbusier, with his cousin Pierre Jeanneret, remained the official architects of the penthouse, its famed interior was ultimately designed by the client, Charles de Beistegui.

An account of a single building beloved by architects and architectural historians, Machine

Amuser tells a story that has never been told before. Van den Bergh redresses this lacuna in rich detail, revealing the history of the Beistegui penthouse, the evolution of the project, and its eventual erasure from the roofscapes of Paris.

By: Wim van den Bergh
Imprint: MIT Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 279mm, Width: 216mm,
Weight: 567g
ISBN: 9780262048774
ISBN 10: 0262048779
Pages: 372
Publication Date: 14 May 2024
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Wim van den Bergh is Emeritus Professor of Housing and Design at the RWTH Aachen University, Germany.