The Color Keyboards of Le Corbusier are a work of genius by one of the masters of Modern architecture. This is a fantastic reprint of his 1931 and 1959 color chords that Le Corbusier created for the Swiss company Salubra. This is the second reprint and Ruegg was certain to get the colors as close as possible to the originals (the first reprint was a bit "off" in it's colors).
What makes this work so pertinent and important is this is an incredible tool for putting colors together that make our homes (offices, schools, shops, workplaces, etc) look absolutely fantastic. By using the color keyboards and the cutout viewers supplied by Le Corbusier you have a new world of colors opened up to you - colors combinations most people would never have thought of. Le Corbusier supples palletes of blues for Space, blues for the Sea, tans for the Beach or Desert, greens for the country, Browns for the Forest, two palletes for Masonry and several others. Wherever you plan to build there is a pallete of colors that will compliment your site. This gives you the main body of the house color and two secondary colors to choose from. Along with these primary and secondary colors you now have a wide choice of trim colors that come into selection using the cutout viewers. You may now choose one, two, or three trim colors (depending on the viewer you use and how large and complex you want your color "chord" to be.) Once you sit down with the color chords and begin playing with them it will soon become obvious just what a genius Le Corbusier was. His choice of color chords is incredible in its ability to make architectural features seem very human and personal and alive all at the same time. The inventor of the Modulator thought of architecture on very human terms.
Once you have picked your color chord you have full sheets of each color you've chosen (supplied in a second book) to take to your paint store for them to make exact duplications. Choose what architectural features you want painted what color and off you go. The results are absolutely incredible. This is the book that Eichler used to pick colors that made his neighborhoods "fit together" as an organic whole.
This book is well worth the price if you want to make your home stand out as unique, beautiful and fully human. You will see why originals of this book sell for $5,000.