Luckett & Farley, the innovative firm behind some of Kentucky’s most iconic structures, hosted award-winning French architect and designer José Oubrerie, who sketched and discussed his groundbreaking designs with a crowd of more than 50 architects at the firm’s headquarters.
The 87-year-old Oubrerie, known for his modernist structures, is one of the last living protégés of the late Le Corbusier, a Swiss-French architect, designer and painter who was one of the pioneers of modern architecture and influential in urban planning. Le Corbusier designed buildings around the world and was dedicated to providing better living conditions for residents of crowded cities.
“Inviting José to talk with us at Luckett & Farley fits in with our mission of designing structures that inspire and making our city and others better places to live,” said Nathan Smith, design director for the firm, which offers architecture, engineering and interior design and is behind the design of the Twin Spires at Churchill Downs.
“Many of us have trained under the world’s top architects and we are always looking for new ways to inspire our designs.”
Oubrerie, who once taught and served as dean at the University of Kentucky College of Design (formerly the College of Architecture), designed the groundbreaking Miller House in Lexington, considered a masterpiece of residential architecture.
While teaching at UK, Oubrerie designed the home as an “exploded cube” that integrates three dwellings in one. It is described as a model for communal life and rejection of an unsustainable suburban lifestyle.
Oubrerie’s work has received numerous awards, and he is the author of the book “Architecture With and Without Le Corbusier.”
Oubrerie collaborated with his mentor during the final years of his life, working on projects such as the Firminy Church, which Oubrerie completed after Le Corbusier’s death. The church was listed by the 2010 World Architecture Survey as the second most important structure built in the 21st century.
The two also collaborated on the Brazil Pavilion, Hotel d’Orsay, the Strasbourg Convention Center, the Olivetti Offices and Factories in Milan, the Venice Hospital and the Zurichhorn Pavillion.
In 1970, Oubrerie started his own office in Paris with several commissions: to establish the final project for the Firminy Church, to rebuild the Esprit Nouveau Pavilion in Bologna in collaboration with Giuliano Gresleri, to build a Computer and Research Center in Fontainebleau for the École des Mines de Paris, and to realize the French Cultural Center in Damascus, Syria.
Oubrerie has influenced generations of architects with his teaching and is now a professor emeritus at Austin E. Knowlton School of Architecture at Ohio State University. He has also taught at several other schools, including Cornell and Columbia universities in the U.S. and the Architecture School of Beaux-arts in Paris.
