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.

The Early Villas, 1914-1930

Jeanneret moved to Paris permanently at the age of 29 in 1916 and in 1920 adopted "Le Corbusier", slightly altered from his maternal grandfather's name "Le Corbesier", as a pseudonym. Some architectural historians claim that this pseudonym translates as "the crow-like one." Around this time he began to work on theoretical architectural studies using modern techniques. Among these was his project for the "Dom-ino" House (1914-1915). This model proposed an open floor plan consisting of concrete slabs supported by a mimimal number of thin reinforced concrete piers around the edges, with a stairway providing access to each level on one side of the floor plan. The design soon became the foundation for most of his architecture for the next ten years. Soon he would begin his own architectural practice with his cousin, Pierre Jeanneret (1896-1967), a partnership that would last until 1940.

Related Topics:
1916 - Pseudonym - 1914 - 1915 - Pierre Jeanneret - 1896 - 1967 - 1940

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The theoretical studies soon advanced into several different single-family house models. Among these was the Maison "Citrohan," a pun on the name of the French Citroën automaker, for the modern industrial methods and materials Le Corbusier advocated using for the house. Here, Le Corbusier proposed a three-floor structure, with a double-height living room, bedrooms on the second floor, and a kitchen on the third floor. The roof would be occupied by a sun terrace. On the exterior Le Corbusier installed a stairway to provide second-floor access from ground level. Here, as in other projects from this period, he also designed the façades to include large expanses of uninterrupted window space. The house used a rectangular plan, with exterior walls not filled by windows left as white, stuccoed spaces. Le Corbusier and Jeanneret left the interior aesthetic spare, with any movable furniture made of tubular metal frames. Light fixtures usually were comprised of single, bare bulbs. Interior walls were also left white. Between 1922 and 1927 Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret designed many of these private houses for clients around Paris. In Boulogne-sur-Seine and the 16th arrondissement of Paris, Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret deisgned and built the Villa Lipschitz, Maison Cook, Maison Planeix, and the Maison LaRoche/Albert Jeanneret (which now houses the Fondation Le Corbusier).

Related Topics:
1922 - 1927 - Paris - Boulogne-sur-Seine

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It was, however, Le Corbusier's Villa Savoye (1929-1931) that most succinctly summed up his five points of architecture that he had elucidated in the journal L'Esprit Nouveau and his book Vers une architecture (see below), and which he had been developing throughout the 1920s. First, Le Corbusier lifted the bulk of the structure off the ground, supporting it by pilotis--reinforced concrete stilts. These pilotis, in providing the structural support for the house, allowed him to elucidate his next two points: a free façade, meaning non-supporting walls that could be designed as the architect wished, and a open floor plan, meaning that the floor space was free to be configured into rooms without concern for supporting walls. The second floor of the Villa Savoye includes long strips of ribbon windows that allow unencumbered views of the large surrounding yard, and which constitute the fourth point of his system. A ramp rising from the ground level to the third floor roof terrace (the latter is the fifth point) allows for an architectural promenade through the structure. The white tubular railing recalls the industrial "ocean-liner" aesthetic that Le Corbusier much admired. As if to put an exclamation point on Le Corbusier's homage to modern industry, the driveway around the ground floor, with its semicircular path, measures the exact turning radius of a 1929 Voisin automobile.

Related Topics:
Villa Savoye - 1929 - 1931 - L'Esprit Nouveau - Vers une architecture - Façade - Voisin

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