Hellman APRIL 26, 1947 (ON LE CORBUSIER) Le Corbusier, the Swiss-born French architect who for over twenty-five years has been the world’s most articulate and influential exponent of modern architecture, is rarely satisfied with anything that happens in building circles, but he was delighted, last December, when the East River site was accepted by the United Nations for its headquarters. As a member of the United Nations Headquarters Commission, he delivered a speech to this group’s parent body, the General Assembly’s Headquarters Committee, in which he intimated that he had, in a way, foreseen this decision long before the United Nations came into existence. Le Corbusier, who visited this country on a lecture tour in 1935, bases his claim to prescience on an article he wrote while he was here. Under the title “What Is America’s Problem?” it appeared, in translation, in the American Architect. The passage that he likes to point out reads: Manhattan—great unfilleted sole spread out on a rock—is no good except along the backbone; the edges are slums.… The edges along the East River and the Hudson are inaccessible.
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