Le Corbusier, << luh kawr byoo ZYAY >> (1887-1965), was the professional name of Charles Edouard Jeanneret-Gris, often considered the most important architect of the 1900’s. He showed his mastery of design in a series of houses during the 1920’s. They included the villa “Les Terraces” (1926-1927) in Garches and the Villa Savoye (1929-1931) in Poissy, both near Paris. Both are examples of what came to be known as the International Style.
The International Style was identified by white cubic shapes and the avoidance of ornament. Such characteristics, however, are not central to Le Corbusier’s work. In his “Five Points” (1927), a series of diagrams, he made an apparently simple but imaginative connection between theory and practice. In 1914 and 1915, he invented the domino system, in which he used certain characteristics of reinforced concrete construction to enclose and use space in new ways.
Le Corbusier’s five points called for the use of (1) pilotis (columns that raise a building above the ground); (2) flat roofs with gardens; (3) the free plan (independence of the structural frame from the internal walls); (4) the free facade (no structural limitation on window placement); and (5) a continuous horizontal window (one aspect of the free facade).
Le Corbusier’s new approach to a structure’s form and use was part of what he called the New Spirit that liberates humanity for its full development. This spirit—especially as it appeared in the arts—was discussed in a magazine called l’Esprit Nouveau (1920-1925), edited by Le Corbusier and the French painter Amedee Ozenfant. Le Corbusier’s essays on architecture were collected in his major book, Vers une Architecture (Towards a New Architecture, 1923).
During the 1930’s and 1940’s, Le Corbusier built few buildings. His interest in city planning became dominant. He proposed the demolition of urban areas and their rebuilding according to his ideas on planning and architecture. His major achievement in city planning was his plan and design for the principal buildings of the new city of Chandigarh, India, in the 1950’s.
In his final buildings, Le Corbusier continued to demonstrate his understanding for architectural form interacting with functional and social conditions. These works include the Unite d’Habitation apartment building in Marseille, France (1947-1952); the pilgrimage chapel in Ronchamp, France (1951-1955); and the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts (1960-1963).
Le Corbusier was born on Oct. 6, 1887, in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland. He settled in Paris in 1917. He received formal training under the architects Auguste Perret in Paris and Peter Behrens in Berlin. He died on Aug. 27, 1965.
