Mysteries of a Communist Cave

Gumshoe is a series of architectural books that offers a new way of writing architectural history. Inspired by detective fiction, it focuses on built works rather than unbuilt projects or abstract theories. Scholarly yet accessible, each volume investigates a building as a historical clue. In Mysteries of a Communist Cave, the second book in the series, Lytle Shaw examines Oscar Niemeyer’s headquarters for the French Communist Party (PCF) in Paris. Designed in 1965, at a moment when political and architectural ideas were being rethought, the building reflects the transformations of the 1960s. Shaw explores its language and context piece by piece, placing its glass curtain wall and cave-like assembly hall in dialogue with film, philosophy, anthropology, and politics. He ultimately asks why the PCF has so rarely used this landmark as a powerful symbol of the world it sought to build.

ISBN : 978-3-03860-447-1