J.C. Lebensztejn's 'Transaction' Examines Ledoux's Phallic Oïkema

J.C. Lebensztejn's book 'Transaction' analyzes Claude-Nicolas Ledoux's unrealized Oïkema, a phallus-shaped brothel designed to channel vice into virtue. Ledoux (1736-1806), an architect who believed in the moral function of architecture, faced criticism for overturning established values. His contemporaries' moralizing protests did not shake his conviction in dignity, justice, and equity—principles evident in both built and imagined projects. Lebensztejn focuses on the Oïkema, referencing Ledoux's monumental work 'Architecture Considered in Relation to Art, Morals, and Legislation,' which has a clear social and political agenda. The book argues that Ledoux aimed to level society from above by flattering evil to subjugate it. The Oïkema's plans, reproduced and commented on, show a visionary Ledoux as a precursor to 'architecture parlante,' making visible what seeks to hide. Lebensztejn notes that the brothel would display the names of those who go there to conceal what the building reveals, stating: 'Modesty is the virtue hidden at the heart of vice; it will therefore be the motor of the transaction, turning man from vice to virtue.' Ledoux's audacity and hubris earned him no class's enthusiasm, and architecture itself dealt a decisive blow with Haussmannization. The fundamental weakness of this 'purification of society through architecture,' Lebensztejn reminds us, is that it thinks 'in a time itself purified, apart from the storms and delays of history.'