Inside Le Corbusier’s Philips Pavilion
A Multimedia Space at the 1958 Brussels World’s Fair.
Peter Wever
Le Corbusier designed the Philips Pavilion for the 1958 Brussels World’s Fair. It is his only building for a Dutch client. The unconventional pavilion was the setting for the experimental performance Le poème électronique. Using film, light, colour, space and music, and seen by one and a half million visitors, this event is regarded as the first multimedia performance for a mass audience. After its demolition in 1959, the pavilion became an icon of the twentieth century.
This book is the complete overview of the Philips Pavilion. It also reproduces the total experience produced by Le poème électronique. One visitor to the performance eloquently described the experience as feeling ‘like an ant in a hurricane’.