Untitled (les rampes)

Claude Parent was a French architect and theorist who developed an idiosyncratic formal language based on the oblique plane and diagonal geometry. Working primarily in the 1960s and 1970s, he rejected orthogonal conventions, designing buildings and interiors organized around sloped floors and canted walls that disrupted conventional spatial hierarchies. His theoretical writings and built projects, including the Maison Drusch and work with sculptor Paul Virilio, positioned the oblique as a radical departure from modernist rationalism. Parent's approach anticipated later critiques of functionalist design while remaining rooted in postwar European architectural discourse.