Biography of Le Corbusier

MODERN LIFE DEMANDS, AND

IS WAITING FOR, A NEW KIND
OF A PLAN, BOTH FOR THE
HOUSE & THE CITY.

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 Biography of Le Corbusier

INDEX
Le Corbusier,
01
a Swiss Urbanist &
Architect
02
Earlly Life

Career & Works 05

Controversies & 07
Critisisms

Awards, Honors &

08
Achievements

Death 08

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 Biography of Le Corbusier

Le Corbusier, a Swiss Urbanist & Architect

A Swiss architect and city planner, whose designs combine the functionalism of the modern
movement with valiant, sculptural expressionism, Le Corbusier formulated the ideas behind a truly
modern, avant-garde architecture during the interwar
period. He is an internationally influential urbanist
whose ideas about prodigious, rationalized, zoned, and
industrially-constructed cities both shocked and seduced
a global audience, and while they never came to fruition
as a cohesive vision, his disciples put many of their
pieces into place around the world, both during and after
his lifetime. He was the first architect to make a studied
use of rough-cast concrete, a technique that satisfied his
taste for asceticism and for sculptural forms. This Swiss
mastermind was not only an urban planner but also an
architect, painter, writer and designer par excellence.

He is contemplated as one of the pioneers of the Modern

Architecture movement and he has been acclaimed and
also criticized. Dedicated to providing better living Quick Facts
conditions for the residents of crowded cities, Le Birthday: October 6, 1887
Corbusier was influential in urban planning and was a Nationality: French, Swiss
founding member of the Congrès International Born Country: Switzerland
d’Architecture Moderne (CIAM). Le Corbusier prepared Born In: La Chaux-De-Fonds
the master plan for the city of Chandigarh in India and Famous As: Architect &
contributed specific designs for several buildings there. Urbanist
17 of his architectural works were named World Heritage Famous: Quotes By Le
sites by UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Corbusier
Scientific and Cultural Organization) in 2016. Died: 27 August 1965 (aged
Le Corbusier was very famous for his use of elemental 77),Roquebrune-Cap-Martin,
geometric forms in building construction. This versatile France
architect’s works are characterized by understandable Awards: AIA Gold Medal
structures and forms. He introduced the five points of (1961), Grand Officiers of the
architecture in his books and followed them closely to Légion d'honneur (1964)
create wonderful pieces of architecture that are still Buildings: Villa Savoye, Poissy,
revered as masterpieces today. In addition, he devised a Villa La Roche, Paris, Unité
scale of proportions known as the ‘Modulor’. It is based d'habitation, Marseille Notre
on the famed golden ratio and human measurements. Dame du Haut, Ronchamp,
Buildings in Chandigarh, India
Seventeen of his architectural works in seven Projects: Ville Radieuse
countries were named World Heritage sites by UNESCO Originally: Charles-Edouard
(United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Jeanneret-Gris
Organization) as The Architectural Work of Le Founded: Congrès International
Corbusier, an Outstanding Contribution to the Modern d'Architecture Modernee
Movement, on 17th July 2016.

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 Biography of Le Corbusier

Early Life (1887-1904)

Childhood & Family:
Le Corbusier, byname of Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, was born
on 6th October 1887 to Edouard Jeanneret and Madame
Jeannerct-Perrct in the French-speaking part of
Switzerland, La Chaux-de-Fonds. Named Charles-Edouard
Jeanneret-Gris at birth, he was the couple’s second son. La
Chaux-de-Fonds was a small town in the mountainous Swiss
Jura region, since the 18th century the world’s centre of
precision watchmaking. All his life he was marked by the
harshness of these surroundings and the puritanism of a
Protestant environment. His father was an artisan who
enameled boxes and watches, while his mother gave piano
lessons. His elder brother Albert was an amateur violinist. This
great architect reinvented himself by altering his maternal
grandfather’s name and adopting it as his pseudonym. His
family's Calvinism, love of the arts and enthusiasm for the Jura
Mountains, where his family fled during the Albigensian Wars
of the 12th century, were all formative influences on the young
Le Corbusier.

Education:
Le Corbusier attended a kindergarten that used Frobelian methods. Le Corbusier left primary
school at the age of 13 to learn the enameling and engraving of watch faces, his father’s trade, at
the École des Arts Décoratifs at La Chaux-de-Fonds. There,
Charles L’Eplattenier, whom Le Corbusier later called his only
teacher, taught him art history, drawing, and the naturalist
aesthetics of Art Nouveau. Naturally, he opted for art over
watchmaking, with the intention of becoming a painter. His teacher
also insisted that he study architecture.
Three years later Le Corbusier attended the higher course of
decoration, founded by the painter Charles L’Eplattenier, who had
studied in Budapest and Paris. L’Eplattenier decided that Le Still Life Art by Le
Corbusier should complete three years of studies, become an Corbusier
architect and gave him his first practice on local projects. Le
Corbusier wrote later that L’Eplattenier had made him “a man of the woods” and taught him
painting from nature.

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 Biography of Le Corbusier

Travels (1905-1917):
Le Corbusier undertook a series of trips which played a decisive role in the education for being a
self-taught architect. He made three major architectural discoveries during these years of travel
through central Europe and the Mediterranean. The Charterhouse of Ema at Galluzzo, in Tuscany,
provided a contrast between vast collective spaces and “individual living cells” that formed the
basis for his conception of residential buildings. In 1910, he met Walter Gropius and Mies Van
der Rohe, other two pioneers of modern architecture.
When he returned to La Chaux-de-Fonds, he built a house for his parents and got his certificate of
competency for teaching art in 1913. He moved to Paris and opened his first architecture studio,
in 1917. During the following years, he dedicated a lot of time to painting. He met Picasso and
other influential artists of the time.

Personal Life

Le Corbusier got married to the dressmaker-model, Yvonne

Gallis in 1930 whom he met in 1922. The couple remains married
till Yvonne’s death in 1957. They had no child. He is also said to
have an extramarital relationship with the heiress, Marguerite
Tjader Harris.

Career & Works

In 1912, Le Corbusier began his most ambitious project; a new house for his
parents also located on the forested hillside near La-Chaux-de-Fonds. In
1916 Le Corbusier built villa Schwob and the Scala cinema in La Chaux-de-
Fonds. After moving to Paris he worked as consultant to the SABA (Société
d’application du béton armé) from April 1917 to January 19.
Le Corbusier’s Greatest Contributions:
Le Corbusier met the renowned painter Amedee Ozenfant, in 1918. They
both came out with a book ‘Apres Les cubisme’ in which they dealt with a
new anti-cubism artistic movement called, ‘Purism’. In 1920, with the poet Paul
Dermée, they founded a polemic avant-garde review, L’Esprit Nouveau. It
presented ideas in architecture and city planning already expressed by Adolf
Loos and Henri van de Velde, fought against the “styles” of the past and against
elaborate nonstructural decoration, and defended functionalism.
Le Corbusier worked on a number of unexecuted architectural projects. He
published the book ‘Towards a New Architecture’ in 1923, which included his
five points of architecture or what he considered to be the pillars of any
architectural design. Those were constructions guidelines for buildings, such as
the use of pillars, the horizontal windows, and the roof garden, among others.

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 Biography of Le Corbusier

[Famous declarations: “A house is a machine for living in” and “A curved street is a donkey
track, a straight street, a road for men”]

Le Corbusier built two houses for the exhibition at

Weissenhof, Stuttgart, Germany, in 1927. In 1928, he forayed
into the field of furniture designing too. This was a showcase
for architects from the Modern movement. In 1928, he
became a founding member of the International Congress of
Modern Architecture in Switzerland. Le Corbusier built
several houses during the next few years based on his views
on urbanism. One of his most famous houses was the Villa
Savoye in Poissy, France, completed in 1931. Here he applied Villa Savoye, Possy,
the five points of architecture France

Famous Books: Urbanisme (1925; The City of Tomorrow, 1929), Quand Les cathédrales
étaient blanches (1937; When the Cathedrals Were White, 1947), La Charte d’Athènes (1943),
Propos d’urbanisme (1946), Les Trois
Établissements humains (1945), and Le Modular I
(1948; The Modular, 1954) etc. He expanded his
ideas on urbanism and brought out a book titled, ‘La
Ville radieuse’, in 1935 and published his book
Architecture of the Machine Age in 1936.
In 1945-1948, he worked on his system of
proportion, the Modulor. This system provided a
reference for better adapting architecture to the human dimensions.

Last Works & Influence:

The end of the 1930s saw such especially famous projects as the masterplans for Algiers (1938-
42) and Buenos Aires (1938); the building for the Ministry of Education and Health in Rio de
Janeiro (1936); and an infinitely expandable museum for Philippeville (1938), in French North
Africa. There was also a trip to the United States (1935), where Le Corbusier was already
famous.In the 1950s, the gifted architect planned and
constructed a number of administrative buildings in the then-
newly formed Union Territory of Chandigarh, in India. He
also built several buildings in the Indian city of Ahmedabad.
Back in Europe, the Unité d’Habitation in Marseilles, France
was inaugurated in 1952. In 1954, Le Corbusier did a project
in Japan for the Museum of Western Art in Tokyo. The
Chapel of Ronchamp and the High Court building in
Chandigarh were completed in 1955. He built the National Architecture by Le Corbusier in
India
Museum of Western Art in Tokyo (1960), the Carpenter
Visual Art Center at Harvard University (1964), and
designed an Exposition Pavilion in Zürich that was constructed posthumously (1964).

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 Biography of Le Corbusier

Major Works:
 The gifted designer built ‘Villa Savoye’ in the French capital
Paris, between 1929 and 1931. This work of art is the best
example to elucidate his famed five points of architecture.
 The Open Hand Monument that he designed to signify peace can
be found in Chandigarh, India. It is the largest one that he
constructed and is 28 m high.
 He also constructed Villa Jeanneret in Paris, where the Fondation

Controversies & Criticisms:

 Le Corbusier has been accused of anti-semitism. He was also accused of belittling the
Muslim population of Algeria, then part of France. When Le Corbusier proposed a plan
for the rebuilding of Algiers, he condemned the existing housing for European Algerians,
complaining that it was inferior to that inhabited by indigenous Algerians.
 In his eulogy to Le Corbusier at the memorial ceremony for the architect in the courtyard
of the Louvre on 1 September 1965, French Culture Minister André Malraux declared,
"Le Corbusier had some great rivals, but none of them had the same significance in the
revolution of architecture, because none bore insults so patiently and for so long."
 The public housing projects influenced by his ideas have been criticized for isolating poor
communities in monolithic high-rises and breaking the social
ties integral to a community's development.
 One of his most influential detractors has been Jane Jacobs,
who delivered a scathing critique of Le Corbusier's urban
design theories in her seminal work The Death and Life of Great
American Cities.
Memorials:
The place that carries Le Corbusier’s name:
 Le Corbusier's portrait was featured on the 10 Swiss francs
banknote, pictured with his distinctive eyeglasses.

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 Biography of Le Corbusier

 Place Le Corbusier, Paris, near the site of his atelier on the Rue de Sèvres.
 Le Corbusier Boulevard, Laval, Quebec, Canada.
 Place Le Corbusier in his hometown of La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland.
 Le Corbusier Street in Le Village Parisien of Brossard, Quebec, Canada.
 Le Corbusier Museum, Sector- 19 Chandigarh, India.
 Le Corbusier Museum in Stuttgart am Weissenhof.
 Le Corbusier Promenade, a promenade along the water at Roquebrune-Cap-Martin.
 Le Corbusier Street in the partido of Malvinas Argentinas, Buenos Aires Province,
Argentina.

Awards, Honors & Achievements:

 In 1937, Le Corbusier received the title of Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur by the French
government.
 He received the Frank P. Brown Medal and AIA Gold Medal in 1961.
 In 1939, Awarded a foreign national’s Diploma at the Royal Fine Arts Academy in
Stockholm.
 Receives the title of Commandeur de la Légion d'Honneur in 1952.
 In 1955, he received an honorary doctoral degree from the Swiss Federal Institute of
Technology in Zurich.
 Received the title of Commandeur des Arts et Lettres in 1957.
 ‘Fondation Le Corbusier’ was established in 1968 to honour the life and works of this great
architect. It is a private foundation housing a huge collection of his drawings, plans and
studies.

Death:
Le Corbusier died when he went for a swim in the Mediterranean Sea against the advice of his
doctor on 27th August 1965. It was
assumed that he may have suffered a
heart attack. His funeral took place in
the courtyard of the Louvre Palace on
1st September 1965, under the direction
of writer and thinker André Malraux,
who was at the time France’s Minister
of Culture. He was buried alongside his
wife in the grave he had designated at
Roquebrune. His grave is in the
cemetery above Roquebrune-Cap-
Martin, between Menton and Monaco in
southern France.

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