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Claude Parent Centenary / Reading List

By 25 February 2023April 19th, 2024No Comments

To mark the centenary of architect Claude Parent’s birth, our team has put together a selection of books to help you (re)discover his architectural work!

With the support of our agency partners, the Volume bookshop in Paris and the Rupture & Imbernon bookshop in Marseille.

Claude Parent et Jean-Lucien Bonillo, Gilles Ehrmann photographe
La villa Bloc de Claude Parent. Architecture et sculpture
Rupture & Imbernon
32 pages – 45  €

Dedicated to the Villa Bloc in Cap d’Antibes, this book, published in 2011 by Rupture & Imbernon, brings together documentation that attests to the exceptional character of this residence. Despite its modest size, the Villa Bloc is one of Claude Parent’s major works; not only is it a synthesis of the main architectural utopias of the 50s, it also illustrates the fruitful cohabitation of architecture and sculpture.

This book was one of the 5 nominees for the 2012 Architecture Book Prize organized by the Académie d’Architecture de Paris.

Claude Parent
Errer dans l’illusion
Bernard Chauveau
96 pages – 20 €

This book is essential for understanding the world facing today’s architect. The figure of Claude Parent acts here as that of a non-conformist precursor, openly challenging the principles of the classical orthogonal rule in favor of the oblique function he theorized with Paul Virilio in 1964, advocating the fixation of human life on inclined planes. This reissue, to mark the centenary of 2023, includes an introduction by Mehrad Sarmadi and a preface by Chloé Parent.

Trois textes de Claude Parent

Le déclin – Cuit et archi-cuit – L’architecture
L’œil d’or
96 pages – 12 €

This anthology of three texts by Claude Parent focuses as much on the figure of the architect as on architecture itself. Firstly, Cuit et Archi-Cuit presents architecture as a complex culinary art, like the menu prepared by a Michelin-starred chef: balance from starter to dessert. L’architecture, a long manifesto poem, is dedicated to a discipline that was once described as the mother of all arts. Finally, Le déclin questions the architect’s relationship with his time, power and fashions…

Audrey Jeanroy
Claude Parent, les desseins d’un architecte
Parenthèses
384 pages – 38 €

Audrey Jeanroy’s comprehensive book retraces the architectural career of Claude Parent, highlighting the innovative philosophy that has accompanied him throughout his career. Indeed, throughout his life, he sought to defend his “designs”, inviting everyone to rethink their living environment. His ambition and singularity are highlighted here, particularly in the preface by Dominique Perrault.

Claude Parent
Portraits impressionnistes et véridiques d’architectes
Norma
175 pages – 26 €

Here, Claude Parent paints portraits of his friends and companions from the architectural scene, whom he has met over the course of his “50 years of practice in a disparate, contradictory, passionate and impassioned milieu, but one that is always surprising”. In alphabetical order, the architect paints 69 portraits, always funny, incisive, sometimes tender, accompanied by a drawing if the text requires one. Claude Parent spares no one, not even himself, with the very French pen that a La Rochefoucauld might have used a few centuries before him…

Claude Parent
Les totems de l’atome
B2
96 pages – 12€

In 1974, Claude Parent teamed up with EDF on a large-scale project to integrate nuclear power plants into the landscape. Today decried, nuclear power was at the time the embodiment of clean energy as an alternative to coal and gas. It is against this backdrop that Claude Parent unveils the “totems” of nuclear power, but also its taboos.

Ouvrage Collectif
Claude Parent L’œuvre construite l’œuvre graphique
HYX
400 pages – 45 €

This book retraces the great diversity of Claude Parent’s work. They all reflect a French and international architecture in the throes of change since the 50s. The many projects he completed alone or in collaboration with Paul Virilio, Ionel Schein or André Bloc only serve to underline the radicalism and coherence of Claude Parent’s vast innovative thinking.

Mai Abu Eldahab & Benjamin Seror
Temps Oblique avec Claude Parent
Bom Dia Boa Tarde Boa Noite
184 pages – 26 €

This long-term interview with Claude Parent by curator Mai Abu ElDahab and visual artist Benjamin Seror, conducted between 2013 and 2015, illustrates the architect’s philosophy and vision. The publication also features an extensive selection of Parent’s drawings.

Claude Parent
Vivre à l’oblique
Bernard Chauveau
84 pages – 20 €

Reissued to mark the centenary of Claude Parent’s birth, this book illustrates the founding principle of Claude Parent’s architecture: to live obliquely. Illustrations and texts highlight the infinite possibilities of the oblique as a new way of taking possession of space, making architecture unbalanced, fluid and mobile.

Claude Parent
Demain la terre
Manuella Éditions
96 pages – 49 €

Before it’s too late, Claude Parent invites us all to question our relationship with the earth:  “We must no longer act as proud builders, but as surgeons who, little by little, reconstitute a damaged face…”. This new face develops according to the principle of oblique, V-shaped function, in the image of mountain valleys. In this book, Claude Parent’s drawings imagine the cities of tomorrow, projecting the reader into a utopian future where oblique cities will be conducive to communication, movement and freedom.

Librairie VOLUME

47, rue Notre-Dame de Nazareth, Paris 3e

T : 01 85 08 02 86
contact@librairievolume.fr

Rupture & Imbernon

Unité d’habitation Le Corbusier
280 Boulevard Michelet, 13008 Marseille

T : 04 91 22 56 84
info@librairieimbernon.com