Publications

The Function of the Oblique
The Architecture of Claude Parent and Paul Virilio 1963-1969
Claude Parent, Paul Virilio, Jacques Lucan, Frédéric Migayrou, Mohsen Mostafavi and Irénée Scalbert
72pp, 50 duotone/line ills, 225 x 300 mm, 1996 ISBN 1 870890 71 X Price �17.50

In 1963 Claude Parent and Paul Virilio formed the 'Architecture Principe' group with the aim of investigating a new kind of architectural and urban order. Rejecting the traditional axes of the horizontal and the vertical, they used oblique planes to create an architecture of disequilibrium, in an attempt to bring the habitat into a dynamic era of the body in movement.

This publication provides a vital record of their experimental and provocative research. It contains English translations of key texts in the Architecture Principe manifesto-magazine, and shows the projects that gave concrete form to the theories - a church, a cultural centre and a series of houses. Claude Parent and Paul Virilio give their own retrospective assessments of the collaboration; Jacques Lucan and Frederic Migayrou place the work in the broader context of French post-war archi-tecture and describe the continuing relevance of its dynamics of content and form.