Le Corbusier

Le Corbusier

Le Corbusier (properly Charles-Edouard Jeanneret) considered by many the most important architect and urban planner of the twentieth century. With his buildings, publications, and lectures Le Corbusier influenced several generations of designers in Europe and around the world. He proposed a radical ideas for healing cities at the beginning of the twentieth century, consisting of removal of non-functional old buildings and leaving only the most valuable ones. He recommended combining residential and recreational functions, thanks to the construction units surrounded by carefully planned greenery. He formulated the concept of the “house as a machine for living”, designed rationally and carefully, like a car or an airplane. He popularized the concept of skyscrapers by using the reinforced concrete and prefabrication.

Le Corbusier was chaired by CIAM (Congrès International d’Architecture Moderne – International Congress of Modern Architecture), whose most important work was the “Charter of Athens” – a set of guidelines for modern urban planning (1933), used in many countries during the post-war reconstruction and expansion of cities. The ideas of Le Corbusier spread around the world also through his books, of which the most famous one is ” Toward an Architecture”.

His most famous works include the dwelling unit in Marseille, a prototype of another one in Berlin, home of the Swiss students in Paris, the church of Notre Dame du Haut in Ronchamp (Alsace), the monastery of La Tourette near Lyon and numerous small houses, such as Villa Savoye near Paris, or a house on the estate Weissenhof in Stuttgart. Le Corbusier is also the author of a large urban assumptions as Chandigarh (capital of Punjab in India) or unrealized concept like La Ville radieuse (The Radiant City) or Plan Voisin.

More information: Wikipedia and Fondation Le Corbusier

1887 La Chaux-de-Fonds -1965 Cap-Martin


Comments are closed.