RÜEGG, ARTHUR
Le Corbusier designed two collections of colors for the Salubra wallpaper company, the Clavier de couleurs of 1931, with 43 colors, and the 1959 collection, with 20. Not content with the choice of 43 colors drawn from his experience as an architect and painter, he organized the tones on 12 sample cards in such a manner that one could use a slider to isolate or combine different sets of three to five colors.
Each of these cards contained a different chromatic atmosphere, intended, when used, to produce a particular spatial effect. Thus Le Corbusier not only created a useful tool but also a kind of testament of the purist theory of color. In 1959 he created a second collection reflecting the changes in his views, with 20 single colors assembled on a single clavier. In the first volume, Arthur Rüegg, a professor at the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule and a specialist in Le Corbusier, explores the significance of the Salubra collections for the history of modern architecture.
