LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Le Corbusier: Architecture
built 622 days ago
Le Corbusier was born Charles Edouard Jeanneret-Grin in Switzerland in 1887. In 1912, after working for an architectural firm, in Paris, he taught design in Switzerland. He was a member of the Congres Internationaux ?d Architecture Moderne where he was considered to be the leading architect of that time. His willingness to totally rethink existing conventions resulted in forms which were both functional and aesthetically pleasing. His chairs are now recognized as landmarks in the history of design.
Source:
Le Corbusier (1887-1965) has been one of the dominant forces in twentieth-century architecture and a legendary pioneering figure. Many of the forms he created have become archetypes of modernism. Yet he was ... a social visionary and a writer of powerful polemics whose ideas have generated intense and partisan controversy.
Source:
Swiss Born painter/architect, Le Corbusier played a significant role in the development of minimalist modern art and architecture. After initial training in engraving, he soon turned to architecture and studied under several leading architects throughout Europe. While living in Paris, he met Amédée Ozenfant who encouraged him to begin painting. Together they created "Purism" an offshoot of Cubism. Purism abandoned the complex structures of analytical cubism to focus on pure, pared down geometry and forms. With an exhibition of their work in this new style came the series of commentaries "After Cubism" in which Le Corbusier defined the movement, stressing a combination of art and science, decisiveness and purity.
Source:
Le Corbusier originally trained as a watch engraver in his hometown of La Chaux de Fonds at the vocational arts college. He began a successful career as an engraver, in 1902 he was awarded a prize at the Turin Exhibition for a watch engraving, but he soon turned his attention to architecture. In 1905 he worked on his first project, the Villa Fallet, and in 1907 he left for Italy and Paris to study different architectural styles. He worked at the architectural offices of Auguste Perret in Paris and apprenticed himself to Peter Behrens in Berlin for a year in 1910. In 1912 he returned to close the circle of his training years by working as an architecture teacher in La Chaux de Fonds until 1914.
Source:
French architect Le Corbusier (Charles-Edouard Jeanneret) is renowned as one of the great theoreticians of modern architecture. His radical designs for architecture, town planning, and furniture were based on his theory of functionalism, which rejected outmoded symbols and affirmed practical function. His designs from the 1920s were the basis for the International Style. Most of his furniture designs were developed early in his career, in collaboration with his cousin and architectural partner, Pierre Jeanneret, and Charlotte Perriand. The metal furniture they designed in 1928 quickly became successful worldwide.
Source:
[D]espite his love of the machine aesthetic, Le Corbusier was determined that his architecture would reintroduce nature into people's lives. Victorian cities were chaotic and dark prisons for many of their inhabitants. Le Corbusier was convinced that a rationally planned city, using the standardised housing types he had developed, could offer a healthy, humane alternative.
Source:
MORE ABOUT
Architecture