Love Letters to Dead Architects: La Roi est Mort, Vive La Republique

Dear Claude Nicolas Ledoux,

Thank you, I haven’t felt this way in forever. “What way?” You may well ask. The answer is fearful. I’m afraid of you and how you make me feel. It’s been a long time since I have not been in control of a situation. But that’s how you roll in Sublime isn’t it?

Though I may not show it, my years are not so long to recite the world-weary sighs I have often taken to. But you! You can see past all the frills and pomp of court to a surreal world of the mind. You are a man of the enlightenment, and I don’t mean that in the sense that you go around quoting Ovid or Martial or whoever, I mean that you understand the world as both a logical system of parts and also a living, breathing animal and it makes my heart cry. You keep calling yourself a moral neo-classicist. You’re not, and you know it.

Now, I know that you know that I know that you know where the money is coming from. You certainly can’t go throwing away a patron, but really? Madame DuBarry? The Dead King’s whore? Man’s got to do, I suppose, just promise that you will always come back to me.

With Love,
Retly Corm

I thought this one was especially vague: So let me clarify Tony Garnier basically invented the system of Zoning we still use today as well as being the inspiration for the famous/infamous CIAM or Congres International d'Architecture Moderne

Dear Tony Garnier,

J’ACCUSE!

That’s RIGHT! I accuse you! Of being too into your hometown of Lyon.

What? You thought it was something else? No.

But seriously, Lyon. I get it, it’s pretty amazing, but do you have to go so far as to compare it to a utopian society? I refuse to believe that Lyon has any less significant problems then Paris, or Chartes for that matter.

Now I know based off the layout of that city, you were able to compartmentalize the elements into what we’ll call…oh what is that word? Oh! Zoning. But to assume that all is well when it most certainly is not is a mark of, if not unflinching affection and patriotism, then foolishness. Just don’t let it go to your head.

In the mean time, why don’t you take care of those young people who have started to follow you around, tell them to start a club. You can call it: Care for an Immensely Amazing Man, or CIAM for short. The amazing man, will, of course, be you.

With Love,
Retly Corm