Le Corbusier

Le Corbusier

Le Corbusier lived between 1887 and 1965.  His real name was Charles-Edouard Jeanneret-Gris.  He was a Swiss, French architect, designer, painter and writer who was most active in France.  He was on of the pioneers of the Modernist Movement.  Most of his works are found in Europe, America and India.  He was mostly influential when it came to urban planning and later in his career became a member of the CIAM (Congres International d'Architecture Moderne).

Plan for the Domino House

The Domino House

During the first world war, Le Corbusier taught in Switzerland at his old school.  During the years he spent in Switzerland he studies architectural theories using Modern techniques.  His early works were many times related to nature.  His first major work was his project for the Domino house (1914-1915).  With this project, Le Corbusier created an open floor plan structure which was a basic building prototype for mass production.  It consisted of free standing pillars and ridged floors.  For the next ten years, this model acted as a foundation plan for many of his other projects.

In the 1920's, Le Corbusier noticed the increase in housing issues in urban areas.  Using his modern architectural principles, he set out to create a solution to this problem.  His solution provided a better standard of living for the lower classes.

Urban Planning

His Immeubles Villas (1922) was one of his projects where he designed apartments stacked onto of each other.  Le Corbusier however was not happy with just designing a few blocks of apartments.  Because of this he moved on to creating plans for entire cities.  He designed a plan for a city that could house 3 million inhabitance by building large sky scrapers using steel rods and glass.

Immeubles Villas (1922)

In 1925, Le Corbusier exhibited his "Plan Voisin".  He proposal was to bulldoze the most part of central paris and replace it with his six-story towers.  Due to his principles,  the housing situation changed.  Houses was now assigned according to family size and not to economic status.