Le Corbusier

Authored by:
Gregory Capone
Ryan Caswell
Daniel Loveless
Matthew Perch
Camille
 Biography
The Life of Le Corbusier
• Charles-Edouard Jeanneret-Gris
was born in La Chaux de Fonds,
Switzerland, 1887. Trained as
Early
an artist, he travelled
extensively through Germany Life
and the East. In Paris he studied
under Auguste Perret and
absorbed the cultural and
artistic life of the city. During
this period he developed a keen
interest in the synthesis of the
various arts. Jeanneret-Gris
adopted the name Le Corbusier
in the early 1920s.
• In 1917 he settled in Paris
where he issued his book Vers
une architecture [Towards a
New Architecture], based on his
earlier articles in L'Esprit
Nouveau. . He believed that
architecture had lost its way.
From 1922 Le Corbusier worked
with his cousin Pierre Jeanneret.
During this time, Le Corbusier's
ideas began to take physical
form, mainly as houses which
 War Times
• During World War II, Le Corbusier
produced little beyond some
theories on his utopian ideals and
on his modular building scale. In
1947, he started his Unite
d'habitation. Although relieved with
sculptural roof-lines and highly
colored walls, these massive post-
war dwelling blocks received
justifiable criticism.
• Le Corbusier's post-war buildings
rejected his earlier industrial forms
and utilized vernacular materials,
brute concrete and articulated
structure. Near the end of his
career he worked on several
projects in India, which utilized
brutal materials and sculptural
forms. In these buildings he
readopted the recessed structural
column, the expressive staircase,
1887- October 6, birth to the 38 street of the
Greenhouse, the Lime-of-Bottoms, of Charles-
Edouard Jeanneret (Corbusier) , wire of George
Edouard Jeanneret, engraver and enameller of
Time
watches, and Marie Charlotte Amélie Jeanneret-Perret,
musician.
Line
1891- Primary school of the Lime-of-Bottoms.
1902- Diploma of honor to the International
exhibition of Arts
1913- First exposure of the ten watercolours " the
language of
1916- Construction of the villa Schwob (Lime-of-
Bottoms) and of
1923- Publication of "Worms an Architecture" -
Exposure
1929- Voyages in South America - Cycle of ten
confere
1938- Exposure of painting to Kunsthaus of Zurich
and the Gallery nces
1944- "Discussions with the students of the Schools
of Architecture" and "the Charter of Athens" -
Research on the Housing units .
Villa Savoye

Designed in 1931, is to be considered an

architectural icon. Also said to be one of
the last purest Villas built with a
reinforced concrete frame. This structure
is based on his new architectural five
point system. The Entire volume is
raised on pilotis, sheathed by simple
planes disengaged from the columns
within. A single, elemental window
dominates each side of the facades. The
Free plan culminates in the roof plan. He
consider this to be an object- type villa
Pavillon de l’Esprit Nouveau

Started as an exhibit in the

International Exhibition of Arts
held in Paris in 1925, but not
actually built till 1977. This
pavilion has two parts, one full-
scale mock of the maisonette
dwelling unit, the other is a
rotunda with dioramas of urban
scheme where the apartment
building belongs. Used machine-
Assembly Building
(Parliament)

It was built in 1961 for the Indian

government. The forms for this
building came from both Indian
culture and the conceptualization of
the functions of a government
assembly. In plan, the u-shaped office
blocks and front portico together form
the perimeter of the concourse. The
general assembly room is a circular
space contained inside this volume,
and the governor’s council is two
cubes that rise through the building to
the roof. This he thought would
Chapel of Notre Dame-du-
Haut

Constructed in 1955 in Lure, France.

This chapel is dedicated to the Virgin
Mary and is very sculptural. This
chapel is not given away as a place
of worship but the shapes used to
design this, evoke the earliest for of
ancient deities. Many architects
were shocked and saw this chapel as
an irrational, expressionist
 Le Corbusier and Post
Modernism

Charles-Edouard Jeanneret-Gris was designing his most

powerful work in the 1920’s, after he took on his pseudonym
Le Corbusier. At this time he took his place among one of the
most infamous post-modernist architects in Europe. During the
1930’s and 1940’s Le Corbusier was highly disliked for his
stark forms and radical cubed shapes. Postmodernism was the
return to classical architecture which at the time was very
unpopular with many critics and underwent severe
persecution.
 Le Corbusier as a Purist

Le Corbusier was deeply involved in the purist movement

which focused on seeing objects in the world and rendering them
exactly as they appear in their purest forms. At this time the purist
movement went hand in hand with the post-modern style of
architecture and suited Le Corbusier for a short period of time while
he developed his theories on the layout of urban dwelling known as
Unite d’habitation. This was the architects way of rationalizing his
unique style of housing. Much of his radical design was centered on
the basic shape and form of the cube.
The effects and influences of Le Corbusier’s
work
- Le Corbusier has influenced many by the use of manipulating
light and his concept of Unite d’Habitation, a large housing
complex in Marseille. His influence with light can be found in a
church he designed in Ronchamps and in the work of Joost van
Santen.
The effects and influences of Le Corbusier’s
work

- In the Unite d’Habitation, Le Corbusier designed the apartments

on two floors because of the extremely tight area he had to work
within. The Maisonette Towers is an example of a building who
used a similar concept based on the Unite d’Habitation.
 Technological Innovations
Le Corbusier Revolutionized the
world of Architecture by
applying The Golden Section
into his Work. By using
varieties of vertical and
horizontal planes and
arranging them according to
human proportions, he
brought Architecture closer to
humans . Also all of his work
is mounted on to a flat ground
plane keeping a certain
distance from all nature
elements to emphasize the
significance of human in
Architecture. He also
introduced a technique of
building without using load-
bearing walls but just simple
dividers to created the
separation between spaces.
 Non-Architectural work of
Le Corbusier
Le Corbusier was an artists as well as a sculptor in edition to being an
architect. From a young age, Le Corbusier was involved in the arts, working as a
clock painter in the local clock shop. He soon attended art school where he
developed his own personal styles. Le Corbusier’s ideas expressed in his art are
Purist in nature utilizing geometry and sketch as tools of conveying space and
form. While studying at art school, he permutated ideas of looking to nature
for inspiration into ideas of looking at nature as a source of patterns as well as
utilizing certain governing rules as systems of applying order as well as variety.
Subdividing his work allowed him to organize his work according to the
elements in the subject of the work; a practice he began in in 19191.

La Femme a
Une Biche Nature Morte Images from 35works of Le corbusier
L’Accordeon et le
Furniture of Le Corbusier
Le Corbusier is perhaps some of the most influential work of the
early nine-teen hundreds. Unlike other furniture from the period or prior
to, Le Corbusier designed his furniture with the general framing systems
as metal and on the exterior. The cushions are free of any type of
connection to any other element of the whole. Le Corbusier also
incorporates Golden Section into his armchair and Grand 2 seat sofa, a
practice also evident in his architecture.2

Table
Resting Chair

Images from
www.sunsetsettings.com and
Arm chair www.modernliving.com
 Works Cited
1
35 Works by Le Corbusier. Sotheby. London: 1987. 429. 420, 412,
414

Baker, Geoffery H. Le Corbusier – The Creative Search, The

Formative Years of Charles-Edouard Jeanneret. Van Nostrand
Teinhold, New York: 1996 247 – 263

Gans, Deborah. The Le Corbusier Guide. Princeton

Architectural Press, New York: 1987.

Lyon, Dominique. Le Corbusier Alive. Vilo Publishing, Paris: 1999.

LC10 – P <http://www.modernliving.com/meda/lc10.pdf>
accessed on 3/17/2004

<http://www.sunsetsettings.com/furniture/cassina/corb_grand_armchair.ht
ml> accessed on 3/17/2004
 Work Cited (cont.)

http://westworld.dmu.ac.uk/architecturenew/express/express.
Html accessed on 2/17/04

http://home.wanadoo.nl/~joostvansanten/RONCHAMP/roncha
.htm accessed on 2/17/04

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/audiointerviews/profilepages/l
ecorbusierc2.shtml accessed on 2/17/04

http://www.bwk.tue.nl/architectuur/dmw/group4/le%20corbu
sier%20unite.htm accessed on 2/17/04