Le Corbusier: Architect of Modernity

A Comprehensive Analysis of His Life, Works, and Timeless Legacy

Introduction: The Giant Who Designed the 20th Century

Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, known to us as ‘Le Corbusier,’ was more than just an architect; he was a giant who reshaped the intellectual landscape of the 20th century. His influence extended beyond architecture and urban planning to painting, sculpture, design, and writing. All these activities were part of an endless quest toward a comprehensive vision for a new spirit of the age called ‘modernity.’

This article aims to illuminate Le Corbusier not merely as a builder of structures but as a total artist and philosopher who sought to unify seemingly incompatible values—art and industry, individual and collective, order and poetry—into a new synthesis. His work emerged against the turbulent backdrop of World Wars I and II and the rise of industrial society. Therefore, we will trace his evolving ideas through an organic connection of his architecture, urban plans, paintings, and extensive writings within their historical context. An interesting fact is that on his French identity card, he listed his profession as ‘man of letters,’ highlighting that theory and public persuasion were as central to his practice as the buildings themselves.

Part 1: Formation of a Visionary (1887–1920): From Charles-Édouard Jeanneret to Le Corbusier

Chapter 1: Roots in La Chaux-de-Fonds (1887–1907)

The story begins on October 6, 1887, in La Chaux-de-Fonds, a small watchmaking town in the Jura Mountains of Switzerland. Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, the future Le Corbusier, was born into a family of craftsmen who precisely crafted watch cases. Initially enrolled in a craft school to continue the family trade, his teacher Charles L’Eplattenier recognized his extraordinary talent and strongly encouraged him to pursue architecture.

The watch industry environment instilled in him an obsession with ‘precision,’ ‘standardization,’ and perfectly functioning ‘object-types.’ The complex watches made from standardized parts assembled with precision laid the philosophical foundation for his later declaration that “a house is a machine for living in.”

Chapter 2: The Great Journey of Discovery (1907–1911)

Following his mentor’s advice, young Jeanneret embarked on a grand journey to form his architectural worldview. Between 1907 and 1911, he self-studied architecture through his ‘Voyage d’Orient,’ traveling across Italy, Vienna, Greece, and Turkey. The most decisive experience was his encounter with the Parthenon in Athens. He perceived the Parthenon not as a mere relic but as a ‘machine that evokes emotion,’ captivated by its perfect proportions and pure geometric forms interacting with light. Additionally, he discovered honest beauty in the functional vernacular architecture along the Mediterranean coast, seeking an alternative to the ornament-heavy architecture of his time.

Chapter 3: Acquiring a New Language (1908–1911)

His architectural education was not at a university but through practical work in the offices of leading architects. In Paris, under Auguste Perret, a pioneer of reinforced concrete, he learned the possibilities of new materials. In Berlin, at Peter Behrens’ office, he encountered ‘total design’ encompassing architecture and industrial design, along with rationalist aesthetics. There, he crossed paths with future masters like Walter Gropius and Mies van der Rohe.

Chapter 4: The Dom-Ino System (1914–1915)

Developed during World War I, the ‘Dom-Ino system’ is a theoretical prototype embodying his early ideas. This simple structure, where minimal concrete pillars support three floor slabs and a staircase, introduced the innovative idea of completely separating structure from walls, allowing freedom in floor plans and facades. The name ‘Dom-Ino’ combines ‘Domus’ (house) and ‘Domino,’ clearly expressing the concept of a standardized, assemblable system. It was an architectural solution inspired by Henry Ford’s automobile assembly line.

Part 2: The Purist Revolution and the Machine Age (1920–1940)

Chapter 5: L’Esprit Nouveau and the Purism Manifesto (1918–1925)

Settling in Paris in 1917, he began using the pseudonym ‘Le Corbusier’ in 1920 as a branding and communication strategy. Alongside painter Amédée Ozenfant, he criticized Cubism and advocated for clear, geometric ‘Purism.’ He founded the avant-garde magazine 『L’Esprit Nouveau (The New Spirit)』 as a megaphone to spread his radical theories to the public.

Chapter 6: A House Is a Machine for Living In

The statement from 『Towards a New Architecture』, “A house is a machine for living in,” succinctly encapsulates his philosophy. To him, machines like cars and airplanes were ‘object-types’ with pure forms maximizing functional efficiency. Houses, similarly, should be efficient tools optimizing residents’ lives. This was not a call to mechanize humanity but a message of liberation to provide modern comforts like sunlight, space, and greenery to all through technology.

Chapter 7: The Five Points of New Architecture (1926)

In 1926, he formalized the logic of the Dom-Ino system into the ‘Five Points of New Architecture,’ which became a manifesto of modernist architecture and a system declaring a complete break from traditional architecture.

1. Pilotis: Raising the building on columns to free the ground floor.
2. Free Plan: Eliminating load-bearing walls to freely arrange interior spaces.
3. Free Facade: Separating the facade from structural constraints to freely design windows.
4. Horizontal Windows: Ribbon windows across the facade to maximize light and views.
5. Roof Garden: Reclaiming green space lost to the pilotis on the roof.

Chapter 8: Case Study: The White Villas (1922–1931)

His early career is marked by the ‘White Villas’ period, experimenting with the Five Points. The pure white and abstract forms strongly rejected the dark, ornate bourgeois styles of the 19th century.

Among these, ‘Villa Savoye (1928–1931)’ is the masterpiece where the Five Points are most perfectly realized and an icon of the International Style. The house appears as a “box floating in the air,” featuring a ground floor designed for car turning radius and a ramp connecting the interior to the roof. However, this monumental work also faced practical failures, including severe leaks and prolonged legal disputes with the client. Nonetheless, Villa Savoye is recognized as one of the 20th century’s most important architectural achievements and is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Part 3: Postwar Evolution: From Rationalism to Sculptural Expression (1945–1965)

After World War II, his architecture entered a new phase. Alongside the rationalism of the White Villas era, a tendency emerged to reveal the raw materiality and explore human scale, pursuing sculptural and poetic forms.

Chapter 9: The Modulor (Developed in the 1940s)

During the war, he completed the ‘Modulor,’ a unique proportional system based on the ideal male height of 183 cm, applying the golden ratio and Fibonacci sequence to harmonize all architectural dimensions. The Modulor was an attempt to reconcile the abstract logic of machines with the organic reality of the human body and served as his response to criticism that his architecture was inhuman.

Chapter 10: Case Study: Unité d’Habitation (Marseille, 1947–1952)

Proposed as a solution to France’s severe postwar housing shortage, the ‘Unité d’Habitation’ is a monumental work synthesizing his postwar ideas. Also called the ‘Radiant City,’ this massive concrete block housing over 1,600 people integrates residential, commercial, and public functions into a ‘vertical garden city.’

The building extensively used rough, unfinished exposed concrete, known as ‘béton brut,’ which elevated the material’s essential strength and texture into a new aesthetic and became the origin of the architectural movement called Brutalism.

Chapter 11: Case Study: Sacredness and Poetry (1950–1960)

His late work reached its peak in religious architecture. Moving beyond rationalism, he sought to create ‘indescribable spaces’ with sculptural and poetic language. The ‘Chapelle Notre-Dame-du-Haut in Ronchamp (1950–1955)’ radically departed from his earlier style and is regarded as a revolution in 20th-century religious architecture. Its organically curved walls, ’turtle shell’ shaped roof, and dramatic play of light through deep windows create a space imbued with intense spirituality.

Part 4: The Architect as Urban Planner: Reimagining the City

Le Corbusier’s ambition extended beyond individual buildings to the reconstruction of entire cities. Diagnosing the post-Industrial Revolution city as sick, he proposed radical urban plans to reclaim “sun, space, and green forests.”

Chapter 13: Utopian Vision: The Plan Voisin (1925)

The ‘Plan Voisin’ was a provocative proposal to completely demolish Paris’s historic center and replace it with eighteen 60-story cruciform skyscrapers set in park-like greenery. Though never realized, this plan served as an ‘architectural shock therapy’ to challenge the status quo and force debate on the city’s future, cementing his reputation as the era’s most radical urban thinker.

Chapter 15: Case Study: Chandigarh (Planning began 1951)

His only large-scale realized urban project was the new capital of Punjab, India: ‘Chandigarh.’ Symbolizing the modernity of the newly independent nation, the city was designed metaphorically on the human body, hierarchically arranging government institutions and commercial centers, and implementing a road system stratified by speed. However, it has been criticized for its car-centric design and inhuman scale, as well as for strict functional segregation that excluded India’s vibrant street culture.

Part 5: Gesamtkunstwerk: Beyond Architecture

Le Corbusier’s vision was not limited to architecture. He regarded all creative activities—including painting, design, and writing—as part of a total art project. Living a dual life as “a painter in the morning and an architect in the afternoon,” his paintings served as a laboratory for exploring architectural ideas.

In 1928, together with Charlotte Perriand and Pierre Jeanneret, he began furniture design, creating 20th-century design icons like the LC2 Grand Confort armchair and LC4 chaise longue. These pieces were conceived as “equipment for living,” embodying his architectural philosophy.

Part 6: Critical Perspectives and Enduring Legacy

Chapter 19: A Global Legacy in Stone and Concrete

Le Corbusier is regarded as one of the 20th century’s most influential architects. His ideas shaped the International Style, and his use of béton brut in later works directly inspired the global Brutalism movement. Alongside Walter Gropius and Mies van der Rohe, he is counted among the three masters of Modernism, though his architecture was more sculptural than Gropius’s social functionalism and more complex and layered than Mies’s minimalism.

Chapter 20: UNESCO World Heritage Listing

In 2016, seventeen of his buildings scattered across seven countries were inscribed as a single serial UNESCO World Heritage Site titled ‘The Architectural Work of Le Corbusier, an Outstanding Contribution to the Modern Movement.’ This recognition affirms that his legacy is not merely a collection of individual masterpieces but a coherent body of work that fundamentally changed global architectural trends.

Selected UNESCO World Heritage Sites of Le Corbusier

Chapter 21: Counterarguments: Jane Jacobs and Critique of Modernist Planning

The strongest criticism of his urban planning came from writer and activist Jane Jacobs. In her 1961 book 『The Death and Life of Great American Cities』, she argued that Le Corbusier’s functionally segregated city vision was an anti-urban idea that failed to understand the ‘organized complexity’ of real cities. She criticized the demolition of dense mixed-use neighborhoods and the construction of large single-use projects as a “disaster of massive dullness” that killed urban vitality. Jacobs defended the values of the “delicate ballet of sidewalks” and the “eyes on the street” found in diverse, walkable streets destroyed by Le Corbusier’s ’towers in the park’ model.

Conclusion: Reevaluating Le Corbusier in the 21st Century

Le Corbusier was a genius full of contradictions. He was a visionary who proposed solutions to mass housing problems and created some of the most spiritual spaces of the 20th century, aiming to improve human life. At the same time, his authoritarian urban plans contributed to creating dull environments worldwide.

Despite valid criticisms, the core questions he posed—how to accommodate high-density populations, how to find beauty in industrial materials, and how to establish meaningful relationships between architecture and nature—remain highly relevant today. His legacy is not a set of answers to imitate but a powerful and provocative collection of questions we continue to wrestle with.