Le Corbusier – Best Guide in 2023

Art and Culture

Born in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland, on October 6, 1887, and dying in Cap Martin, France, on August 27, 1965, Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, better known by his pen name Le Corbusier, was a well-known Swiss architect and urban planner. In his works, he combines a brazen sculptural expressionism with modernist functionalism. His numerous writings reveal that he was a founding member of the so-called International School of Architecture and their most accomplished propagandist. In his architecture, he successfully merged the functionalist aspirations of his generation with a strong sense of expressionism. His deliberate use of rough-cast concrete, which satisfied his desire for asceticism and sculptural forms, made him the first architect to do so. 17 of his architectural works were designated as World Heritage Sites by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in 2016.

Le Corbusier
Le Corbusier

Young Age

In a small Swiss town in the Jura mountains, long known as the center of high-end watchmaking, Le Corbusier was born. He was influenced throughout his life by the squalor of these conditions as well as the puritanism of a Protestant environment. In order to pursue his father’s trade of watch face engraving and enameling at the École des Arts Décoratifs in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Le Corbusier left elementary school at the age of 13. Charles L’Eplattenier, whom Le Corbusier later described as his sole teacher, taught him there art history, drawing, and the naturalist aesthetics of Art Nouveau.

Le Corbusier’s first opportunity to work on local projects came after three years of study, when L’Eplattenier decided he should pursue a career as an architect. On his recommendation, Le Corbusier traveled widely between 1907 and 1911; these journeys were essential to the self-taught architect’s education. During his travels through central Europe and the Mediterranean, he made three important architectural discoveries. His idea of a residential building was influenced by the contrast between expansive communal areas and “individual living cells” at the Charterhouse of Ema in Galluzzo, Tuscany. In the 16th century, Andrea Palladio’s Late Renaissance architecture in the Veneto region of Italy taught him about classical proportion. Last but not least, he amassed a collection of geometric shapes from popular Balkan and Mediterranean architecture. He also picked up some lighting techniques and environmental backdrop use for architecture.

Initial Decade 

Between 1922 and 1940, there were a remarkably large number of architectural and urban planning projects. As was always the case, Le Corbusier’s unfinished works sparked just as much debate as his completed ones as soon as they were published and circulated. Le Corbusier’s two projects, which he presented at the Salon d’Automne in 1922 and which expressed his idea of the social environment, served as the model for all of the art produced during this time period. The Citrohan House embodies the five characteristics that the architect used five years later to describe his conception of what made architecture modern: pillars supporting the structure, thus freeing the ground beneath the building; a roof terrace, transformable into a garden and an essential part of the house; an open floor plan; a facade free of ornamentation; and windows in strips that support the structural frame’s independence.The bedrooms, which resemble cubicles, and the open, split-level living area create the typical interior spatial contrast. In an accompanying city diorama, the concept of lush parks and gardens at the base of a cluster of skyscrapers was presented in an innovative way.

During the War

In addition to his 20-year friendship with Pierre Jeanneret, who had joined the French Resistance in contrast to Le Corbusier, his career as a builder and traveler was cut short by World War II and the German occupation of France. He was willing to work with the Vichy regime, but his only interests at the time were painting, writing, and introspection.

Following Time Frame.

Le Corbusier thought his planning theories would finally be put to use when France was being rebuilt. For the towns of Saint Dié and La Pallice-Rochelle, he produced two plans in 1945. He suggested moving Saint Dié, a town in the Vosges Mountains, and its 30,000 inhabitants into five active skyscrapers. Despite being rejected, these ideas eventually gained ground and became doctrine. Le Corbusier, however, was dissatisfied and he became even more dissatisfied when he was chosen to serve on the jury of architects for the United Nations building in New York City instead of being asked to create the building himself.

Maxwell Fry

Edwin Maxwell Fry, who was born on August 6, is the real Maxwell Fry. February 2, 1899, Wallasey, Cheshire, England.  died in September. 3, 1987, Cotherstone, Durham), a British architect who, with his wife Jane Drew, had a major impact on contemporary tropical architecture and town planning.

Fry was one of the first Britons to support the modern movement and received his education at the School of Architecture, University of Liverpool. In the town planning division of London, he began working for Adams and Thompson in 1924. He claimed in his writings that he disapproved of classical architecture because he thought it had no place in the technocratic world. His early work amply proves that he was greatly influenced by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, a leading proponent of the International style of architecture.

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