Contemporary architecture

Architectures in history

Home » Le Corbusier
Architect

Le Corbusier

"Architecture is the wise, correct and magnificent play of volumes grouped under the light"

Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris was a Swiss-born French architect, urban planner, painter and designer.

Among the most influential figures in the history of contemporary architecture, he is remembered – together with Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Frank Lloyd Wright, Walter Gropius and Alvar Aalto – as a master of the Modern Movement.

A pioneer in the use of reinforced concrete for architecture, he was also one of the fathers of contemporary urban planning. A founding member of the Congrès Internationaux d'Architecture moderne, he fused architecture with the social needs of the average man, revealing himself as a brilliant thinker of the reality of his time.

Between 2016 and 2017, his works were added to the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The motivation states that the buildings chosen are "a testimony to the invention of a new architectural language that marks a break with the past."

The stage name of Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris by which he is universally known today, namely «Le Corbusier", was minted under the indication of Amédée Ozenfant in the autumn of 1920: initially it was adopted only to sign architectural articles on theEsprit nouveau, whose only editors were Ozenfant and Jeanneret, who used many pseudonyms to conceal the fact that the authors were only them.

The origin of this is largely documented. Since Ozenfant had taken inspiration from his mother's surname to create his stage name, he advised Jeanneret to do the same: the latter could not listen to his advice since he had completed his studies in the studio of Auguste Perret, who shared his mother's surname for absolutely fortuitous reasons. He therefore took inspiration from «Le Corbesier», his maternal great-great-grandfather whose portrait, executed by Darjou (painter at the court of Eugenia de Montijo), was placed in the house where he had spent his childhood. The «e» was changed to «u» on Ozenfant's advice: the nickname was appreciated by Jeanneret because it reminded him of his master's (L'Eplattenier).

He is sometimes also known simply as Le Corbu, an abbreviation of his nickname: this distortion, a play on words with the word crow (in French corbeau), led to his habit of signing his informal letters with this initials, or by sketching the outline of a stylised crow; from the abbreviation of the distortion of his nickname comes the form Le Corb, especially widespread in English.
Continue on Wikipedia….>>

The portrait of Le Corbusier is by the French photographer Walter LIMOT, Paris 1934
All works by Le Corbusier are copyrighted by the Le Corbusier Foundation © FLC/ADAGP

Works and projects

Sort by

related articles

The Five Points of Architecture

The Five Points of Architecture

The Five Points of Architecture Published in 1923, Towards an Architecture is the most important theoretical work of the first half of the twentieth century.…

23 April 2019

Image of a vertical garden

The vertical gardens

Classification, species, types of greenery, support structures and advantages A “vertical garden” means a facade or wall of a…

29th June 2023

Japanese garden rome

The Japanese Garden

In Japan, the garden has always been defined as a dialogue between man and nature and niwashi have always been…

29th June 2023

How does the download work?

To download files from the Archweb.com site there are 4 types of download, identified by 4 different colors. Discover the subscriptions

Free
for all

Free
for Archweb users

Subscription
for Premium users

Single purchase
pay 1 and download 1