Colonialism, Le Corbusier, and the View from Paris

Abstract

The UNESCO World Heritage List aims to gather everything that has “outstanding universal values.” However, if a person’s oeuvre is included in that list, the issue becomes problematic: can someone enjoy an actual universal value, that is, an absolute one? Furthermore, how is this universal value constructed? Inquiring into the declaration of Le Corbusier as a universal heritage, this text exposes the discourses that supported that idea through a deconstructive critique to highlight the structural failure of architectural value allocation systems.

Keywords

• heritage
• colonialism
• modernity
• essay
• deconstruction