Le Corbusier

Le Corbusier (October 6, 1887–August 27, 1965) was a Swiss architect famous for what is now called the International Style, along with Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Walter Gropius, and Theo van Doesburg. He was also an urban planner, painter, sculptor, writer and furniture designer. He is featured on the Swiss ten francs banknote.

Influence

Le Corbusier was at his most influential in the sphere of urban planning, and was a founding member of the Congres Internationaux d'Architecture Moderne (CIAM). One of the first to realize how the automobile would change human agglomerations, Le Corbusier described the city of the future as consisting of large apartment buildings isolated in a park-like setting on pilotis. Le Corbusier's theories were adopted by the builders of public housing in the United States. For the design of the buildings themselves, Le Corbusier said "by law, all buildings should be white" and criticized any effort at ornamentation. The large spartan structures, in cities, but not of cities, have been widely criticized for being boring and unfriendly to pedestrians. The city plan of Brasília was based on his ideas.

Related Topics:
Urban planning - Congres Internationaux d'Architecture Moderne - Automobile - Apartment building - Park - Piloti - Public housing - United States - Law - Building - White - Spartan - Pedestrian - City plan - Brasília

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Le Corbusier was heavily influenced by the problems he saw in the industrial city of the turn of the century. He thought that industrial housing techniques led to crowding, dirtiness, and a lack of a moral landscape. He was a leader of the modernist movement to create better living conditions and a better society through housing concepts.

Related Topics:
Moral landscape - Modernist

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Ebenezer Howard's Garden Cities of To-morrow heavily influenced Le Corbusier and his contemporaries.

Related Topics:
Ebenezer Howard - Garden Cities of To-morrow

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