L'Obscurier
A fascinating glimpse of life at the cutting edge of mid-20th Century Modernism.
Here are the diaries of L'Obscurier - hugely influential artist, architect, sculptor, painter and social engineer who revolutionised the way we think about the built environment and then drowned in the Mediterranean.
Translated below by Danvers Couchmere from the original haughty French.
Monday, August 2, 1954
. The holiday month, and in Paris it seems everyone has deserted the city. One cannot procure a hair-cut, say, or visit a Modern Brothel for four weeks!Of course, "people deserve an annual vacation"..."the city is much too hot at the height of summer"...let us examine these propositions.
A. The annual vacation. If, instead of accumulating holiday time throughout the year people instead followed my example (one week working, one week 'resting') they would discover they had approximately 26 weeks of holiday per year!
B. An overheated city. The antique nature of Paris, with its revolting dry crust of historic buildings, acts as a "solar thermbank", making life impossible for its inhabitants. How much more efficient to pulverise and remove the entire city centre (perhaps during August, when no-body is here!) It would be replaced with mathematically exact rows of new buildings - immense clear crystals of glass, rising 80 storeys into an abundance of light and air. At ground level, piazzas would create a continuous gust of gale-force wind, naturally cooling the built environment.
C. Ordinary people deserve a holiday. Really? Most of the ordinary people I have encountered do not even have an oeuvre, let alone a canon! If there are no laurels upon which to rest...
Tuesday. My new eye-glasses have arrived from Zurich. For the last four months a team of opthamological engineers has been converting my precise specifications into The Spectacles Of To-Morrow.
I put them on, and summon Mme. L'Obscurier so that she may admire their functional rationalism. I am initially gratified when she claps her hands with glee and exclaims "Incredible! You have excelled yourself this time! Ha ha ha!"
Her gaiety, however, continues for several minutes and the spontaneous joy soon seems uncontrollable.
The photo-graph shows my prototype Spectacles Of To-Morrow. An hydraulic mechanism in the bridge ensures absolute horizontality, with factored tolerance for the inferred curvature of the Earth. Focus adjustments are achieveable for short-, medium-, long-distance and imaginary landscapes. The lenses are self-cleaning, deploying every two hours tiny jets of soapy water and miniature chamois leathers on retractable arms.Wednesday. A vicious article in Neo-Classicism Quarterly, deriding my theories of urban design.
"M. L'Obscurier's totalitarian vision is as laughable as it is dangerous. In his ludicrous pamphlet, Towards A Sanitary And Cartesian World, he writes: 'Space, light, order, punctuality and personal hygiene. These are the things that men need just as much as they need bread or a place to sleep...'
"We should be very interested to know if M. L'Obscurier has attempted this experiment himself. Starvation and sleep-deprivation would perhaps re-focus the mind of this humourless buffoon..."
An outrage! With shaking hands I pen my reply to these impertinent scoundrels: "Dear Sirs, perhaps I should be writing this response to your unwarranted attack upon my principles in Medieval Latin, as it would appear that in terms of intellectual sophistication..."
Merde! As the clock strikes 11:00, one of the tiny jets of soapy water activated within my Spectacles Of To-Morrow malfunctions, squirting itself directly into my left retina!
I add the so-called Master Opthalmic Engineers Of Zurich to my "agenda of wrathful criticism".
Thursday. A reflection upon nightmares:
- The proper disposition of a nightmare is at night, when one is dreaming.
- The improper disposition of a nightmare is at the breakfast table, when one is wide awake.
This morning, despite unambiguous instructions to Gigi the maid, a croissant was presented - apparently at Mme. L'Obscurier's request. It is maddening!
As I have pointed out in several lectures (and in an essay, Acceptable And Unacceptable Form In Contemporary Baked Goods) the croissant is an abomination which cannot be tolerated in a rational world.
Its absurd "organic" shape is an affront to our senses. Why - when bricks, steel, glass, concrete, all are manufactured according to the principles of geometry - should the croissant be exempt?
Is it simply because society feels this is the "French way of doing things?" Are we therefore to tolerate accordion music, mime artists and inappropriate body hair because it is part of our Nature?
No! Let it all be swept away like the pointless cultural accretion it truly is, and replaced with jazz, properly attired architects and corporeal smoothness!
I took this colour photo-graph of the offending item, shortly before tearing it to shreds. As if to add insult to injury, it was presented on a circular decorated "napkin"! It is time to move on from the Age of Darkness.
Friday. The croissant affair continues to weigh heavily on my mind. I summon the maid Gigi - could an individual be more surly? - and lecture her on the dangers of inappropriate pastry.
"Perhaps Monsieur would enlighten me as to the correct form for an acceptable Modern Croissant" she says, plausibly, "I am anxious to learn". I look at her with suspicion. She is not smiling, but past experience teaches that mischief is almost certainly lurking in her mind.
Very well, let us call her bluff! I produce the sketches which accompany my treatise on pastry. They show my revised paradigm for a construction in "puff" pastry. It is pure form, essentially an ellipsis extruded and neatly seamed in a straight Regulating Line. In section, it suggests that portion of an Achaemenian cupola between the portico and the summit. In plan, it resembles a boogie-woogie harmonica.
"By all means, Gigi" I say, suppressing a smirk, "show these plans to the cook and see what she makes of them!"
A scribbled note from Mme. L'Obscurier, informing me she will not be in for supper as she is "gardening late". Women! Horticulture! Women + Horticulture = Bah!
Saturday. I detect a stifled commotion in the breakfast-room as I approach. Both Mme. L'Obscurier and Gigi wear expressions of innocence. Clearly, something is...what is this? I cannot quite see - my Spectacles of To-Morrow are on their way back to Zurich, and I have temporarily mislaid my Spectacles Of To-Day.
The photo-graph shows a realisation of my pastry paradigm, shortly before I tried a mouthful, only to discover it to be filled with English sausage-meat!
I storm out of Maison L'Obscurier to seek solace at my atelier, where I box the ears of a recalcitrant student.
Sunday. A glorious morning on the beach, brainstorming in a deckchair of my own design (pony hide and aluminium).
All is calm until lunchtime, when I am aroused from my reveries by a large chattering family bearing buckets, spades and a picnic. After an hour or so of unstructured "merriment", the parents inform their scruffy brood that they are "off for a ramble in the direction of the hôtel bar" and that the children are to remain in situ.
Intolerable! And our social commentators wonder why young people to-day lack discipline, and prefer the cinema and foot-ball to fine arts!
The four children, whose ages range from c. 5 years to c. 12 years, begin making their sandcastles. It is unbearable to watch, and after 10 minutes or so I am compelled to intervene. "Morons! These structures are feeble, and nauseating!" I shout, and lecture them on the principles of silicate cohesion, the correct matrix (8 x sand : 1 x water) and an appropriate architectural theory - Modern.
The youngest begins to cry. I warn her, in no uncertain terms, that she is trying my patience, and shake a spade at her. All four urchins run away, screaming. So much for the resolve of youth!
A little later, I see them returning. Leading the way is the father, who is red-faced and shouting something. I cannot quite hear the words, but it is unpleasantly nuanced.
I decide to take a constitutional swim. As I pull further away from the shore his ranting subsides, although I can just make out the word "drown". Oh, the travails of genius! Which, increasingly these days, seem to include a tingling sensation down my left side...