Lucien Hervé (László Elkán, 1910-2007)

Photographer. Hervé was one of the most distinguished figures of 20^th century architectural photography who in his images created visual syntheses of humanist philosophy and architectural thought. He moved to Paris in 1929 where he initially had various different jobs and then started taking photos in 1939 for Marianne Magazine. He started drawing in captivity during the war and after escaping, fought as a member of the resistance under the pseudonym Lucien Hervé. He was a professional photojournalist at France-Illustration and other magazines from 1947. In 1949 he sent his images of Le Corbusier’s Unité d’habitation to the architect who in his reply stated: ‘you have the soul of an architect’. From then on they collaborated for 16 years, Hervé took more than 18 000 photographs of buildings by Le Corbusier but also worked with other notable architects such as Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer, Alvar Aalto and Oscar Niemeyer.