Peter Doig Concrete Cabin West Side

Peter Doig Concrete Cabin West Side

Executed on a grand, panoramic scale, the sublimely atmospheric scene of Concrete Cabin West Side represents arguably the greatest example of Peter Doig's most famous and extensive series of paintings of Le Corbusier's master project: Unit d'Habitation de Briey-en- Forêt. A series which Doig began in 1991 and which occupied him for most of the 1990s.

The love affair with this subject began in 1991 during Doig's brief visit to Unit d'Habitation de Briey-en-Fort in northeast France. This seminal and much debated building was one of a small group around Europe completed by Le Corbusier with the collaboration of the painter architect, Nadir Afonso between 1947-1965 and which came to transform the way living quarters were organised in the Post-War period. Based on the Soviet Communal Housing project, the Narkomfin building in Moscow, these buildings, constructed in concrete, incorporated a complex interchange of internalised 'vertical cities' to allow for a complete way of life in one building.

'When I went to see the Le Corbusier building for the first time, I never dreamed that I would end up painting it. I went for walk in the woods on one visit, and as I was walking back I suddenly saw the building anew. I had no desire to paint it on its own, but seeing it through the trees, that is when I found it striking'

Peter Doig