This broad survey of modernism—the most scintillating creative era in Paris—spans all domains: architecture, art, design, entertainment, fashion, film, literature, photography.

The lives and works of artists in every creative discipline transformed Paris into a crucible of modernity in the first half of the twentieth century. Profiles of eighty-eight influential artists, designers, photographers, architects, writers, and personalities—including Gabrielle Chanel, Eileen Gray, Jean Prouvé, Pablo Picasso, Tamara de Lempicka, Sonia and Robert Delaunay, Brassaï, Man Ray, Robert Mallet-Stevens, Charlotte Perriand, Le Corbusier, Adolf Loos, Walter Benjamin, Josephine Baker, Jean Renoir, Gertrude Stein, and more—highlight the boundless creative energy and optimism that permeated the City of Light at this key historical juncture. Richly illustrated alphabetical entries with cross-references to related topics are complemented by six thematic essays on cinema, fashion, graphic design, habitation, painting, and urban planning. A portfolio of original contemporary photographs—from the historic center to the suburbs of Paris—reveals traces of modernism in dozens of buildings and their interiors that are rarely open to the public. This catalog—published to accompany an exhibition at the Power Station of Art in Shanghai in summer 2023—sketches a panorama of human invention across the vast creative landscape of Paris from 1914 to 1945.

About The Author

Jean-Louis Cohen is France’s most authoritative historian of twentieth-century architecture. He has published more than forty books, including Frank Gehry: The Masterpieces (Flammarion, 2021), and curated numerous architectural expositions. He is the Sheldon H. Solow Professor in the History of Architecture department at NYU’s Institute of Fine Arts and holds a chair at the Collège de France. Guillemette Morel Journel is an architect and urbanist; she has published several books on Le Corbusier including Villa Savoye.