A collection of essays by André Wogenscky
Published in 2000 by: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, Cologne

The FSB Edition started with a book about grasping and the handles needed for this purpose. During the preparation of this first volume, which was of fundamental significance to our company, Otl Aicher had suggested that FSB should start collecting famous sculptures of hands. Among others, he had sketched the Open Hand by Le Corbusier.

As a logical consequence, the FSB Edition returned to the hand in the end, this time with André Wogenscky’s thoughts on Le Corbusier’s hands. Wogenscky, a student and assistant of Le Corbusier, allows this great architect’s hands to speak for themselves, showing how grasping in the literal sense precedes grasping with the mind. Otl Aicher would have rejoiced over this book.

During the preparations, Professor Fritz Neumeyer, Berlin brought to our attention that Le Corbusier had found his concept of the open hand while studying Nietzsche. We followed this track and were able to report to Professor Neumeyer, that we had found the note “La main ouverte” in Le Corbusier’s handwriting on the top left corner of page 8 in Le Corbusier’s personal copy of the French translation of “Zarathustra”. The passage of Nietzsche’s text marked on the same page reads: «Je voudrais donner et distribuer, jusqu’à ce que les sages parmi les hommes soient redevenus joyeux de leur folie, et les pauvres, heureux de leur richesse. »