Le Corbusier’s letter to a young, persecuted Jewish architecture student

Le Corbusier (i. e. Charles Edouard Jeanneret), architect (1887-1965).

Typed letter signed to Josef Melier (Incorrect spelling of Le Corbusier; the correct spelling is ‘Josef Meller’), in French.

Paris, 35 rue de Sèvres – VI. Dated 11 Juin 1938

27 x 21 cm. 1 page, with printed letterhead of Le Corbusier.

EUR 1800

The letter to which Le Corbusier is replying here was probably written by hand, which is why the sender’s name was misspelt; from the address, I was able to spot the incorrect spelling of the name and identify the recipient of Le Corbusier’s letter.

This letter bears witness to the European refugee crisis immediately following the Nazi ‘Anschluss’ of Austria in March 1938. The recipient, the Jewish architecture student Josef Meller (born on 1 February 1921), was just 17 years old at the time of the correspondence. He lived at Zirkusgasse 36 in Vienna’s 2nd district (Leopoldstadt), which was then the centre of Jewish life in Vienna. Faced with immediate bans on practising his profession, expropriations and anti-Semitic persecution by the Nazi regime, Meller wrote to one of the most influential figures in modern architecture on 3 June 1938: Le Corbusier.

Le Corbusier’s refusal reflects the reality of the late 1930s in France. The letter documents the restrictive French labour laws (‘protectionist employment bans on foreigners’) as well as the severe recession in the Parisian construction industry at that time. Le Corbusier’s remark that he ‘has to send this reply to many of your colleagues’ attests to the numerous desperate applications from Jewish and other persecuted intellectuals who wrote to the architect’s Paris studio in the summer of 1938.

Although Josef Meller was turned down by Le Corbusier in Paris, he managed to flee to England. He was given one of the coveted places at Kitchener Camp (Richborough, Kent) – a refuge run by British-Jewish aid organisations for men from Germany and Austria who were under threat. In the British registration records of that time (Aliens Department), he was explicitly listed as a ‘student of architecture’.

Translation of the letter written in French: „Dear Sir, I received your letter of June 3 and I understand very well the great anxiety in which you find yourself. But what to do? For four years Paris has been invaded by foreign designers whom we are forbidden to employ without very specific recommendations. Aside from that, the building crisis is complete here; nothing is being constructed and I do not know of any colleagues with work in process. I am therefore distressed to have to give you this bad news, but I am truly unable to do anything and it is a reply that I am obliged to send to many of your colleagues. With my deepest regret, I send my best wishes“

Provenance: Presumably acquired by the previous owner from the New York autograph dealer ‘David Schulson Autographs’.

In very fine condition, with only minimal creases.