Le Corbusier
Early Life and Education
Le Corbusier was born Charles-Édouard Jeanneret on October 6, 1887, in La Chaux-de-Fonds, a small city in the Jura Mountains of Switzerland. The city was a center of the watchmaking industry, and the precision and craftsmanship of this trade would have a lasting influence on his work. His father was an enameler of watch faces, and his mother was a musician and piano teacher.
From a young age, Jeanneret showed a talent for drawing, and at the age of thirteen, he enrolled in the La Chaux-de-Fonds Art School. He initially intended to follow in his father’s footsteps and become a watch engraver, but his teacher, Charles L’Eplattenier, recognized his potential and encouraged him to study architecture. L’Eplattenier was a proponent of the Art Nouveau style and a believer in the importance of drawing inspiration from nature. Under his mentorship, Jeanneret designed his first house, the Villa Fallet, at the age of seventeen.
Between 1907 and 1911, Jeanneret embarked on a series of travels that were crucial to his architectural and intellectual development. He worked briefly in the office of Auguste Perret in Paris, a pioneer in the use of reinforced concrete. This experience gave him a deep understanding of the structural possibilities of this new material. He then traveled to Germany to study the industrial arts and worked for a few months in the office of Peter Behrens, where he met fellow architects Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Walter Gropius.
His travels also took him to Italy, Greece, and Turkey, where he filled sketchbooks with drawings of classical and vernacular architecture. His visit to the Parthenon in Athens was a particularly profound experience, and he was deeply impressed by the mathematical harmony and clarity of its design. These travels exposed him to a wide range of architectural styles and ideas, from the rationalism of the classical world to the functionalism of modern industry. By the time he returned to La Chaux-de-Fonds, he had a clear sense of his own architectural direction and a desire to create a new architecture for the modern age.
In 1917, he moved to Paris, and in 1920, he adopted the pseudonym Le Corbusier, a variation of his maternal grandfather’s name. This marked the beginning of his public persona as a leading figure of the international avant-garde.
Architectural Philosophy and Career
Le Corbusier’s architectural philosophy was one of the most influential of the 20th century, and it was rooted in a belief in the power of architecture to create a better, more rational, and more humane society. He was a pioneer of modernism and a leading figure in the International Style.
His career can be divided into several phases, but his core ideas remained consistent. He believed that a house should be a “machine for living in,” a phrase that has often been misinterpreted as a call for a cold and sterile functionalism. For Le Corbusier, however, it meant that a house should be as efficient, well-designed, and rationally organized as a modern machine, freeing its inhabitants from unnecessary labor and providing them with light, air, and space.
In the 1920s, he developed his “Five Points of a New Architecture,” a set of principles that would become a manifesto for modern architecture. The five points were:
- The pilotis: Reinforced concrete columns that raise the building off the ground, freeing the ground level for gardens or circulation.
- The free ground plan: The separation of the load-bearing columns from the walls, which allowed for a more flexible and open arrangement of interior spaces.
- The free facade: The ability to design the facade without structural constraints, allowing for greater aesthetic freedom.
- The horizontal window: Long strips of windows that provide ample light and panoramic views.
- The roof garden: A flat roof that could be used as an outdoor living space, restoring the green space that the building occupied.
These principles were famously demonstrated in his design for the Villa Savoye (1929).
Le Corbusier was also a highly influential urban planner. He was a fierce critic of the traditional, congested city and proposed a radical new vision for urban life. His “Ville Radieuse” (Radiant City) concept, developed in the 1930s, was a utopian city plan based on a strict separation of functions: living, working, recreation, and circulation. The city would be composed of tall, widely spaced apartment blocks set in a park-like landscape, with a network of elevated highways for transportation. While his urban planning ideas have been criticized for their rigidity and for contributing to the problems of urban renewal in the mid-20th century, they were a powerful and influential response to the challenges of the industrial city.
In his later career, Le Corbusier’s work became more expressive and sculptural. He began to use raw concrete (béton brut) in a more monumental and plastic way, as seen in the Unité d’Habitation in Marseille and the chapel of Notre Dame du Haut in Ronchamp. This later work, often associated with the Brutalist movement, showed a more poetic and spiritual side of his architecture.
Notable and Famous Works
Le Corbusier’s body of work is vast and includes buildings, urban plans, furniture, and paintings.
The Villa Savoye (1929) in Poissy, France, is one of the most iconic houses of the 20th century and the ultimate expression of his “Five Points.” The white, geometric volume of the house is raised on pilotis, with a free-flowing interior and a roof garden. It is a masterpiece of the International Style and a symbol of the machine age.
The Unité d’Habitation (1952) in Marseille, France, is a landmark of post-war social housing. It is a massive, 12-story concrete slab block containing over 300 apartments, as well as shops, a school, and a rooftop terrace with a running track and a wading pool. Le Corbusier envisioned it as a “vertical garden city,” a self-contained community that would provide its residents with all the necessities of modern life.
The Chapel of Notre Dame du Haut (1955) in Ronchamp, France, is a radical departure from his earlier, more rationalist work. The small pilgrimage chapel is a highly sculptural and expressive building, with a massive, curving roof that seems to float above the thick, whitewashed walls. The interior is a dark, contemplative space, illuminated by a series of small, deeply set windows. It is one of the most important examples of religious architecture of the 20th century.
The city of Chandigarh in India, for which Le Corbusier designed the master plan and several major government buildings in the 1950s, is his largest and most ambitious project. The Capitol Complex, which includes the Secretariat, the High Court, and the Palace of Assembly, is a monumental ensemble of raw concrete buildings that is a powerful expression of his later, Brutalist style.
His furniture designs, created in collaboration with his cousin Pierre Jeanneret and Charlotte Perriand, are also iconic. The LC2 Grand Confort armchair and the LC4 chaise lounge are classics of modern design, with their clean lines and industrial materials.
Awards, Honors, and Legacy
Le Corbusier received numerous awards and honors during his lifetime, including the Frank P. Brown Medal in 1961 and the AIA Gold Medal in 1961. However, like many visionary figures, his work was often met with controversy, and he did not always receive the recognition he deserved from the architectural establishment.
His legacy is immense and complex. He was one of the most important and influential architects of the 20th century, and his ideas and buildings have had a profound impact on the built environment around the world. His “Five Points” became a blueprint for modern architecture, and his urban planning theories, for better or worse, shaped the development of cities for decades.
He was a true polymath—an architect, urban planner, painter, writer, and furniture designer—and his work was always driven by a powerful social and intellectual vision. He was a tireless promoter of his own ideas, publishing numerous books and manifestos, and he was a founding member of the Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne (CIAM), an organization that played a key role in the dissemination of modernist ideas.
In 2016, seventeen of his projects across seven countries were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list as an “Outstanding Contribution to the Modern Movement.” This recognition is a testament to the global reach and enduring significance of his work. While some of his ideas, particularly in urban planning, are now viewed critically, his contribution to the development of modern architecture is undisputed. He was a true revolutionary who forever changed the way we think about space, form, and the city. Le Corbusier died on August 27, 1965.