The hidden Le Corbusier connection in Peter Doig’s landmark painting

As a child, Peter Doig visited the home of Eberhard Zeidler, situated in the wealthy Toronto suburb of Rosedale. This house is the stated inspiration of his masterwork – The Architect’s Home in the Ravine (1991) – which is going under the gavel on 7 March at Sotheby’s in London.
However, it’s commonly thought that the dark undertones of the work come from somewhere else altogether. According to Sotheby’s, ‘The eerie mood and the composition can be better traced to a celebrated Le Corbusier building, the Unité d’Habitation in Briey-en-Fôret in northeast France.’
In the summer of 1991 the Scottish painter visited the Unité d’Habitation (one of five housing projects constructed by Le Corbusier in France between 1947-53) which had been derelict since 1973, as part of a team of artists and architects working on its restoration. He was struck by the view of the modernist building from the thick, surrounding forest.
Doig references its brightly coloured panels that bedeck the front of the house, only just visible through the thickets – something missing from Zeidler’s home, which is typified by its glass and sandstone façade.
Like Zeidler’s ‘architect’s home in the ravine’, which he made for his family, Unité d’Habitation was a home too – on a drastically larger scale. Widespread destruction from the Second World War triggered an urgent need for accommodation in France, and Le Corbusier was commissioned by the government to demonstrate a new art of building to transform housing. Unité d’Habitation redefined high-density living by reimagining a city inside an 18-storey brutalist block.
Doig would refer back to the building repeatedly (and in more explicit terms) in the celebrated Concrete Cabin paintings (1992-1996). This conflation of physical experience and emotive recollection is typical of Doig – he is an artist of oneiric atmosphere whose works are more accurately defined as meditations on the concept of memory itself as they are accurate depictions of what’s in front of them.
Just as Unité d’Habitation has had a varied history so too has Doig’s representation of it. It was one of four works the artist chose to be included in the subsequent show at the Whitechapel Gallery, (where Doig was also named an Art Icon last year). Others include Iron Hill (1991), which became the first work by the artist to sell for over £1 million at a Sotheby’s auction in 2006, and Rosedale (1991), which established a new $28.8 million auction record for any living British artist last year.
On the back of these successes – and thanks to the story behind the subject matter – interest in the work is expected to be overwhelming. It sold for $12 million in 2012, and is predicted to reach £14 – £18 million in next month’s auction, where it will headline Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Evening Auction.
INFORMATION
The Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Evening Auction takes place 7 March. For more information, visit the Sotheby’s website
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox.
Elly Parsons is the Digital Editor of Wallpaper*, where she oversees Wallpaper.com and its social platforms. She has been with the brand since 2015 in various roles, spending time as digital writer – specialising in art, technology and contemporary culture – and as deputy digital editor. She was shortlisted for a PPA Award in 2017, has written extensively for many publications, and has contributed to three books. She is a guest lecturer in digital journalism at Goldsmiths University, London, where she also holds a masters degree in creative writing. Now, her main areas of expertise include content strategy, audience engagement, and social media.
-
The first-ever lava lamp has been reissued, alongside a new giant version
The manufacturer of the 1960s design icon presents a new, 3m-tall lava lamp, as well as a limited-edition take on the first ‘Astro’ lamp, in collaboration with Dutch designer Sabine Marcelis
-
These are the best design exhibitions to see in Paris this week
As Design Miami Paris and Art Basel Paris make their return, we round up the best design exhibitions to discover in the city
-
Spice up the weekly shop at Mallorca’s brutalist supermarket
In this brutalist supermarket, through the use of raw concrete, monolithic forms and modular elements, designer Minimal Studio hints at a critique of consumer culture
-
Spice up the weekly shop at Mallorca’s brutalist supermarket
In this brutalist supermarket, through the use of raw concrete, monolithic forms and modular elements, designer Minimal Studio hints at a critique of consumer culture
-
‘Brutalist Berlin’ is an essential new guide for architectural tourists heading to the city
Blue Crow Media’s ‘Brutalist Berlin’ unveils fifty of the German capital’s most significant concrete structures and places them in their historical context
-
‘You have to be courageous and experimental’: inside Fondation Cartier’s new home
Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain in Paris invites us into its new home, a movable feast expertly designed by Jean Nouvel
-
A wellness retreat in south-west France blends rural charm with contemporary concrete
Bindloss Dawes has completed the Amassa Retreat in Gascony, restoring and upgrading an ancient barn with sensitive modern updates to create a serene yoga studio
-
Celebrate the angular joys of 'Brutal Scotland', a new book from Simon Phipps
'Brutal Scotland' chronicles one country’s relationship with concrete; is brutalism an architectural bogeyman or a monument to a lost era of aspirational community design?
-
The Architecture Edit: Wallpaper’s houses of the month
This September, Wallpaper highlighted a striking mix of architecture – from iconic modernist homes newly up for sale to the dramatic transformation of a crumbling Scottish cottage. These are the projects that caught our eye
-
Explore the new Hermès workshop, a building designed for 'things that are not to be rushed'
In France, a new Hermès workshop for leather goods in the hamlet of L'Isle-d'Espagnac was conceived for taking things slow, flying the flag for the brand's craft-based approach
-
‘Landscape architecture is the queen of science’: Emanuele Coccia in conversation with Bas Smets
Italian philosopher Emanuele Coccia meets Belgian landscape architect Bas Smets to discuss nature, cities and ‘biospheric thinking’