charles-Édouard jeanneret-gris, who chose to be known as le corbusier (october 6, 1887 – august...

Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris, who chose to be known as Le Corbusier

(October 6, 1887 – August 27, 1965), was a Swiss-French architect,

designer, urbanist, writer and also painter, who is famous for being one of the pioneers of what now is called

Modern architecture or the International Style.

His family proudly traced its ancestry to the Cathars, who fled to the Jura Mountains

during the Albigensian Wars of the twelfth century, and the French Huguenots, who

migrated to Switzerland following the Edict of Nantes (1598). La Chaux-de-Fonds'

tradition of offering refuge includes both Rousseau and Bakunin. His family's

Calvinism, love of the arts, and enthusiasm for the Jura Mountains, were all formative

influences on the young Le Corbusier.

In his early years he would frequently escape the somewhat

provincial atmosphere of his hometown by travelling around

Europe, to Paris, Berlin, the Balkans, Greece and Turkey, filling

sketchbooks with renderings of what he saw.

He was a pioneer in studies of modern high design and was dedicated to

providing better living conditions for the residents of crowded cities. His career

spanned five decades, with his buildings constructed throughout central Europe, India, Russia, and one each in North and

South America. He was also an urban planner, painter, sculptor, writer, and

modern furniture designer.

Le Corbusier envisaged it as an affordable, prefabricated system for the construction of

new housing in the wake of World War I's destruction. His system differed from the then

standard Hennibique frame in its idealization of floors as flat slabs without exposed beams. Its columns were perfectly straight posts without capitals, set in from the edge of the slab. This system freed both exterior and interior walls

from all structural constraints.

House at Weissenhof

Convent of La Tourette

Shodan House

Unite d'Habitation

Villa Savoye · Poissy, France

Villa Savoye · Poissy, France

Villa Savoye · Poissy, France

In a booklet for the exhibition Le Corbusier codified his principles as the Five Points of Modem

Architecture, derived from the potentials of the concrete frame.

•the roof garden on top of the house, the consequence of a flat roof; •the pilotis, or columns, that raise the house above the ground; •the free plan, unencumbered by structural partitions ; •the similarly free facade;•and the strip (continuous, horizontal) windows, which provide maximum illumination to the house.