Le Corbusier, Designer of Modern Architecture
Charles-Edouard Jeanneret, one of the greatest architects of the early 1900’s, was born in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland, on October 6th, 1887. He was known throughout the world as an architect, urban planner, painter, sculptor and author. His "…early work was related to nature, but as his ideas matured, he developed the Maison-Domino, a basic building prototype for mass production with free-standing pillars and rigid floors" ("Charles-Edouard Jeanneret-Gris, Le Corbusier"). His ideas became foundational to the modern approach to architecture.
Jeanneret’s father was an engraver of white enamel dial plates for watches and clocks, but he did not desired to follow in his father’s footsteps as an engraver. At the age of 13, he began studying at the La Chaux-de-Fond’s college of art. It was here that he was introduced to the idea of becoming an architect. At first he hated the idea because he didn’t like what he saw being done in architecture. Despite his initial feelings, he studied architecture under Charles L’Eplattenier from 1900 to 1907. In 1905, he was assigned his first project, later to be called Villa Fallet. The public did not like his design and expressed their displeasure, which was the beginning of many skirmishes he would have with public opinion. But from this project he was able to earn enough money to travel to Italy to see first hand different architecture and to develop a personal perspective that was not molded by the opinion of a school. Between 1907 and 1911, he traveled to northern and central Italy, Budapest, Vienna, Lyon and Paris, Germany, the Balkans, Greece and Constantinople traveling with a backpack containing a few personal belongings and a scratch pad to sketch what architecture he saw along his journey.
For a short time from 1908 to 1909, Jeanneret worked for an architect named Auguste Perret who built with reinforced concrete. Perret was hated by many people in the profession and not considered a true architect. Jeanneret gained much of his architectural experience working for Perret. In 1910, he traveled to Germany where he went to work for Peter Behrens in Berlin, but, in 1912, returned to La Chaux-de-Fonds to become an instructor in the newly founded architecture department at the college of art.
After 1915, Jeanneret’s designs became more radical. But from the beginning he experienced much hostility towards his ideas. Later, though, he became widely recognized and left a permanent mark on the concept of modern architecture and city planning. His design strategy was to use sensible systems that were functional in living with the use of simple modules and spaces. Through his designs, he tended to be extreme. He incorporated industrial forms into his housing and apartment schemes; these concepts of residential building designs came about by his study of the problems in architecture and urban planning during the industrial era. Whether designing a city plan or a building, his main focus was to always place man at the center of his design principles. The architecture was always to support the functions of the person whether working, relaxing, or partaking in other activity.
Jeanneret became the founder and co-publisher of the periodical "L’Esprit Nouveau" (The New Spirit) in 1920 and began signing his articles under the name Le Corbusier, which was his maternal grandmother’s name. Within L’Esprit Nouveau, he wrote articles which supported his theories on architecture, one being the idea of a house as "a machine for living." His style of architecture and writings focused on contemporary needs, modern materials, and engineering achievements.
In 1923, a building was built in Vaucresson, near Paris, according to his design. This was the first of many. Other well known buildings designed by him are the pilgrim church Notre Dame du Haut in Ronchamp (1950-55), the Visual Arts Center at Harvard University (1961-62), the Pavillon Suisse in the Cite Universitaire in Paris (1932), the Ministry of Health and Education in Rio de Janeiro (1936-1945), and the Philips-Pavillon at the Brussels World Fair (1958). In 1934, Le Corbusier received an honorary doctoral degree from the University of Zurich; later, in 1955, he received an honorary doctoral degree from the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich after beginning his studies for "Modulor" in 1941 and designing and building many of his buildings.
After World War II, Le Corbusier "rejected his earlier industrial forms and utilized vernacular materials, brute concrete and articulated structure" ("Charles-Edouard Jeanneret-Gris, Le Corbusier"). Within these architectural designs or town-planning schemes the vehicular, pedestrian and functional zones were always emphasized; as before, the person was the focal point.
He was involved in many city-planning projects but only two of these project implemented his ideas completely; one city was Pessac-Bordeaux and the other Chandigarh, India.
"In this latter project, Le Corbusier received a contract from the government of India in 1950 to build the new capital of the Indian state of Punjab, which was established after the Second World War. Here in Chandigarh, Le Corbusier applied on a grand scale all the disciplines practiced by him. As a planning consultant, he directed the team of architects who were responsible for the project. He himself designed the three major buildings that dominate the government district: The Palace of Justice (1955), the Secretariat (1958), which houses the various ministries, and the Parliament Building (1962)" ("The portrayed personalities/10 franc banknote: Le Corbusier").
Between 1942 and 1955, Le Corbusier founded the Modular, his own scale of measurement of architecture, which measured the standard human height to be 1829 millimeters. "The ‘Modulor’ represents an attempt to combine the English measuring system, which is based on the foot, with the metric decimal system and, at the same time, to establish relationships with human anatomical stature. The ‘Modulor’ is based on the golden section and the proportions of the human body" ("The portrayed personalities/10 franc banknote: Le Corbusier").
Besides his architectural involvement, Le Corbusier was also known for his paintings. Through painting he foresaw the formal elements of architecture. When he painted, he experimented with ideas of design (i.e. space, volume and mass) and later applied many of these ideas to architecture. His art was influenced by his contact with Cubism, Leger and Purism, and with the pre-war Surrealist movement.
Le Corbusier died on August 27, 1965 in France by the Mediterranean at Roquebrune-Cap-Martin.
Some of his ideas of modern architecture were:
- To replace cellars and foundations with upright forms driven in the ground to serve as the foundation.
- To use roof gardens.
- To free internal planning by changing the position of floor supports so that there is not a need to interrupt space with a support beam.
- Having windows run horizontally from wall to wall.
- Creation of walls that would only serve as curtains and would not carry load.
- To separate work and relaxation into separate spaces.
Projects of Charles-Edouard Jeanneret (this list is not complete); pictures of these buildings can be found at http://www.bk.tudelft.nl/d-arch/agram/corbu/. I have indicated (below) the link you will need to click on to see the pictures of the buildings listed:
--Centre Le Corbusier, at Zurich, Switzerland (1963-67); click on the link labeled "Maison d’homme (Heidi Weber)"
--Carpenter Center, At Cambridge, Massachusetts (1961-64); click on the link labeled "Visual Arts Center"
--Philips Pavilion, at Brussels, Belgium (1958); click on the link labeled "Pavillion Philips"
--Convent of La Tourette, at Eveux-sur-Arbresle, near Lyon, France (1957-60)
--Shodan House, at Ahmedabad, India (1956); click on link labeled "Shodan"
--Maisons Jaoul, at Neuilly-sur-Seine, Paris, France (1954-56); click on link labeled "Jaoul (maison B)"
--Palace of Assembly, at Chandigarh, India (1953-63); click on link labeled "Palais de l’Assemblee (Assembly)"
--Museum at Ahmedabad, at Ahmedabad, India (1953-57); click on link labeled "Centre culturel (musee)"
--United Nations Headquarters, at New York, New York (finished 1953)
--Maison Jaoul, Neuille, Paris, France (1952-56); click on link labeled "Jaoul (maison A)"
--The chapel Notre-Dame-du-Haut, Ronchamp, France (1950-54); click on link labeled "Chapelle Notre-Dame-du-Haut"
--The Unite d’habitation, Marseilles, France (1946-52); click on link labeled "Unite d’habitation de Marseille"
--Weekend house by Corbu, at suburb of Paris, France (1935)
--Villa Savoye, at Poissy, France (1928-29); click on link labeled "Pavillion of villa Savoye"
--Villa Stein, at Garches, France (1927); click on link labeled "Villa Stein-de Monzie"
--House at Weissenhof, at Stuttgart, Germany (1927); click on link labeled "Weissenhof"
--Ozenfant House & Studio, at Paris, France (1922); click on link labeled "Ozenfant"
(List taken from "Charles-Edouard Jeanneret-Gris, Le Corbusier".
A good reference site is "Site Reviews" at http://nw1.newsweek.com/nw-srv/inetguide/iguide_4406458.html.
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Architecture Gallery. "Le Corbusier." [http://www2.acs.oakland.edu/~hxu/buildings/person1.html]. January 1995.
"Charles-Edouard Jeanneret-Gris, Le Corbusier." [http://www.geocities.com/Yosemite/9357/archiworld/le_corbusier.html]. July 8, 1999.
"L’Eglise Du Couvent De La Tourette Eveux-sur-l’Arbresle France, 1957-60/Le Corbusier (1887-1965)." [http://destec.mit.edu/archfile02/ioau/public_html/lecorbusier.html].
Peter, John. (1994). The Oral History of Modern Architecture. New York, New York: Harry N. Abrams, Incorporated.
Seidel, Professor Robert W. "Technology and Western Civilization: 19th and 20th Centuries/Charles Edouard Jeanneret (1887-1965)." [http://www.cbi.umn.edu/techwciv/design/tsld010.htm]. Spring 1997.
The Concise Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia. "Le Corbusier." [http://aj.encyclopedia.com/articles/07311.html]. 1994.
"The portrayed personalities/10 franc banknote: Le Corbusier (Charles Edouard Jeanneret), 1887-1965 Architect, town planner and theoretician, painter, sculptor and writer." [http://www.snb.ch/e/banknoten/person/lebenslauf/corbus.html].
Vervoort, Jeff. [Jef.Vervoort@rug.ac.be]. "Le Corbusier, undoubtedly one of the heroes of early modernism (1887-1965)/Le Corbusier." [http://studwww.rug.ac.be/~jvervoor/architects/corbusier/index.html]. March 13, 1996.
Wiliam Weston Gallery. "Charles-Edouard Jeanneret." [http://www.williamweston.co.uk/112/11c4.html].
Fred J. Becker, Architect's E-mail
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