Le Corbusier: Promoter Of The Modern Age
The contemporaneous work of the Swiss architect Charles Edouard Jeanneret, better known as Le Corbusier, differed in its premises, if not in its outward appearance, from that of the Germans.
His early buildings – the Ozenfant House (1923) in Paris, the Villa Stein (1927-28) in Garches, the Villa Savoye (1929-30) in Poissy – resemble those of Gropius and Mies in their asymmetrical and flowing spatial arrangements, as well as in their unornamented glass and stucco planes.
Le Corbusier’s explanation of his art in his immensely influential book Vers une Architecture ; translated as, Towards a New Architecture, emphasized that a new and purer classical architecture of forms seen in light could be created by following the logical conceptual processes of the engineer.
This organic and somewhat grandiose conception of the new architecture sets Le Corbusier apart from the austere geometricism of the Bauhaus school and indicates that his roots thus lay in the monumental tradition of French architecture as exemplified in the works of his mentors Auguste Perret and Tony Garnier.
Le Corbusier also insisted that the reorganization of the city was the first task of modern architecture. His 1922 exhibition entitled Modern City for Three Million Inhabitants led eventually to a model apartment tower that he called a Unite d’Habitation, the first of which was erected in Marseille in 1946-1952.
An overriding concern for urban planning made him one of the key figures at a 1928 meeting of modern architects that resulted in the formation of the Congres International de l’Architecture Moderne (CIAM). Greatly influenced by Le Corbusier, the CIAM architects overruled the aesthetic goals of the expressionists by setting urbanism, rather than design, as the organization’s chief concern.
Le Corbusier, The Architect and Artist
