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Jean Badovici

Paris, France
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Jean Badovici was a Romanian architect and architecture critic active in Paris. He studied architecture in Paris after World War I. Since 1923 he edited the important French magazine for avantgarde architecture L'Architecture Vivante. Furthermore, he designed two buildings (residential houses for himself) in Vezelay (1924) and in Paris near Pont de Sevres (1934). In Roquebrune-Cap-Martin he assisted Eileen Gray in designing and constructing a home for them, one of the important buildings of the International style, E-1027. In E 1027 he lived with his lover Eileen Gray, who was openly bisexual.

After World War II Badovici was involved in reconstructing and saving the architectural heritage of France in a board called Batiments civils et palais nationaux et des monuments historiques. There he served as assistant to the chief architect Robert Edouard Camelot (1903-1992).

L'Architecture Vivante

Jean Badovici gained reputation not for constructing buildings but for analyzing and supporting avantgarde architecture. He was an influential critic and mentor of international modern architecture in France since he began editing the magazine L'architecture Vivante in 1923. He convinced the publisher Albert Morance of the importance for such an avantgarde magazine which ran from 1923 till 1933.

L'Architecture Vivante became immediately an influential mouthpiece of the International style (Bauhaus, Constructivism, De Stijl). Le Corbusier - a friend of Badovici - for instance became one of the architects whose ideals were frequently discussed in this magazine. Badovici cultivated relations to European avantgarde magazines like Wendingen (Netherlands) and Cahiers d'Art (France, founded in 1926) of his friend Christian Zervos.

Regularly each issue of L'Architecture Vivante presented a number of architects and their works but there were also some very few dealing with just one artist (Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret and in 1929 Eileen Gray and her home E-1027).

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Paris, France
bostjan, October 23rd, 2018
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