Collecting Cars

On pages 106 and 107 of Vers une architecture (Paris, 1924), Le Corbusier illustrates two pictures of the Parthenon with two other
lateral pictures of contemporary automobiles. It is well known the fascination of the modern master –as well as Frank Lloyd Wright’s–
towards vehicles, planes and ocean liners. The car is also an efficient machine, perfectly design and shaped according to its function.
Thus, when looking at cars, we may think about the coherence of the architectural design. That may be the reason because I like to
look at cars. It has to do has well with the childish emotion of playing and racing cars. As if they would be tin soldiers or trading cards,
collecting cars becomes a type-photographic target in which the collective reading transcends the importance of each single shot.
And then, it turns into a compulsive endeavor, as Walker Evans points out: "You’ve got to collect. Pieces of the anatomy of somebody’s
living… You contrive to ask around. Can you lead me to any material like that?... You know how a collector is. He gets excessively
conscious of a certain object and falls in love with it and then pursues it… And it’s compulsive, and you can hardly stop".
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Iñaki Bergera. Tucson, July 2012