<P>Le Corbusier's first trip to the United States in 1935 is generally considered afailure because it produced no commissions. The experience nevertheless had a profound effect onhim, both personally and professionally. Sponsored by the Museum of Modern Art in New York, LeCorbusier promoted his ideas through a lecture tour, exhibition, and press conferences, as well asin meetings with industrialists, housing reformers, New Deal technocrats, and editors. His lectureswere watershed events that advanced the cause of European modernism. Yet he returned to Franceempty-handed and published a bittersweet account, Quand les cath餲ales 鴡ient blanches:voyage au pays des timides (When the Cathedrals Were White: Journey to the Country of Timid People),which faulted America for lacking the courage to adopt his ideas.In this first major study of LeCorbusier's American tour, Mardges Bacon reconstructs his encounter with America in all itsfascinating detail. Through extensive archival research and interviews, she presents a criticalhistory of the tour as well as a nuanced and intimate portrait of the architect. Drawing on themethods of microhistory, she also considers how small ordinary events affect larger biographical,architectural, and cultural developments.Bacon notes that Le Corbusier's dialogue with America wasdrafted within a spirited European discourse on am鲩canisme. She contends that the tripvalidated his concept of a "second machine age" that would unite standardized industrial methodswith a new humanism. Le Corbusier's subsequent work, she suggests, reflected an "Americanization,"evidenced by the introduction of tension structures and the textured skyscraper conceived as anintegrated system with functions articulated. She also defines Le Corbusier's role in the debateover New York City high-rise public housing.Appearing here in print for the first time are colorreproductions of the pastel drawings that illustrated Le Corbusier's American lectures.</P>