Life story

Original Name Charles Edouard Jeanneret.

Birth Date October 6, 1887.
Birth Place LaChaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland.
Second son of Edourad Jeanneret (dial painter) and
Madame Jeanneret-Perrct (teacher).
Influence - His family's Calvinism, love of the arts,
and enthusiasm for the Jura Mountains.
His Master - Charles L'Eplattenier, a teacher at the
local art school.
At thirteen, Le Corbusier abandoned matchmaking,
and continued his studies in art and decoration, with
the intention of becoming a painter.
Insisted by his master to study architecture.
Pioneer in studies of modern high design.
Dedicated to providing better living conditions for the
residents of the crowded cities.
1920s adopted his pseudonym.
Architecture teacher in the art school Rene
Chapallaz.

 1907 traveled to Paris found work in the office of

Augeste Perret, the French pioneer of Reinforced
Concrete.
1908 Studied architecture.
Between October 1910 and March 1911 worked for
renowned architect, Peter Behrens near Berlin.
Taught at his old school during World War I.
Worked in theoretical architectural studies using
modern techniques.
Began his own architectural practice in 1922 with his
cousin, Pierre Jeanneret partnership lasting 50
years.
Established a new artistic movement, Purism in
collaboration with Cubist painter, Amedee Ozenfant.
Between 1918 & 1922, no building concentrating
his efforts on Purist theory and painting.
1929 Met entertainer and actress Josephine Baker
while returning from South America to Europe.
Practiced sketches by drawing nude images of Baker.
Married Yvonne Gallis, a dressmaker and fashion
model died in 1957.
Had a long extramarital affair with Swedish-American
heiress Marguerite Tjader Harris.
His first house, Villa Pallet.

 In Switzerland designed a series of villas

&embarked on a more theoretical study for a
structural frame of reinforced concrete.
Envisaged it as an affordable, prefabricatedsystem
for the construction of new housing wake of World
War Is destruction.
Developed with the help of Max Dubois and Perret,
the system differed from the then standard
Hennibique frame in its idealization of floors as flat
slabs without exposed beams.
At the end of war moved to Paris worked on
concrete structures under Government contracts
also ran a small brick manufacturing.
Dedicated most of his efforts to the more influential,
and lucrative, discipline of painting.
Proposed an architecture satisfying both the
demands of industrial and the timeless concerns of
architectural form.
Included the first city plan, the Contemporary city.

ARCHITECTURE CAREER
During 1920s realized his first mature architecture
in a series of villas.
Foundation of architecture Dom-ino House (19141915)

Proposed an open floor plan consisting of

concrete slabs supported by a minimal number

of thin, reinforced concrete columns around the
edges, with a stairway providing access to each
level on one side of the floor plan

DOM-INO HOUSE

Style of Architecture

Mechanical analogy

Linguistic analogy

Five points of Architecture

Use of pilotis i.e. reinforced concrete stilts

Free faade
Open floor plan
Long horizontal ribbon windows
Roof garden

 The Modular:
Use of Golden ratio for the scale of architectural
proportion.
Use of human measurements, Fibonacci series
and the double unit.
E.g..:- 1927 Villa Stein, Graches.
Placed system of harmony and proportion at the
centre of his design philosophy

influence
Most influential in the sphere of urban planning.
City of the future large apartment buildings isolated
in a park like setting on pilotis.
Heavily influenced by problems he saw in industrial
cities at the turn of 19th to 20th century.
Leader of the modernist movement to create better
living conditions & a better society through housing
concepts.
FAMOUS QUOTES BYLE CORBUSIER To create
architecture is to put in order. Put what in order? Function
and objects. Space and light and order. Those are the
things that men need just as much as they need bread or
a place to sleep. A house is a machine for living in

UN Headquarters

Centre Le Corbusier

Villa Savoye
Ratio

Golden

Modernism
the Basics
Modernism was a literary movement between 1915
and 1965 (approximate dates)
The main characteristic of modernism is its rejection of
what came before. Its a rebellious movement, like many
others, that strives to throw the old way on its ear

Experimentation:
Modernists rejected the traditional forms of poetry and
prose. They also rejected the limits of realism and
naturalism
This rejection made modernist writing a hard pill to
swallow for most since it was too far out there, too much
on the cutting edge for the general public.
Modernist writers consciously too traditional forms and
warped them to make them into new creations. One of
the modernist mottos was Make it new.

 These writers also rejected the traditional,

chronological story telling structures. Instead they
experimented with stream of consciousness writing and
non linear progressions.
The images in a modernist piece may be connected,
but not in the traditional sense. Readers can find this
approach fragmentary, but modernist writers used this
technique to challenge readers to make their own
meanings
What is Modernism?

Trying to define modernism can be a frustrating exercise.

As a style, it is less coherent, its boundaries looser, than,
say, classicism. Many critics would argue that modernism
is not even a singular style, that it incorporates a great
variety of aesthetics and sensibilities. And just who were
the modernists? Frank Lloyd Wright vehemently opposed
being grouped with them, but modernist architecture
would not have been the same without him.
Modernism roughly spans the time between World War I
and the early 1970s. What we generally think of as the
modernist ethic evolved first in Europe, among such
architects as Le Corbusier, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and
Walter Gropius, the latter two of the German Bauhaus
school. The European modernists imbued their work with
an inherent morality and social consciousness and were
often associated with left-wing politics. Intrigued by the
emerging technologies of the day, they embraced

concrete, glass, and steel in their revolutionary creations.

They eschewed ornament, rejecting what they saw as the
frivolous strokes of Victorian and art nouveau styles. Their
work was both spare (think of Mies' famous dictum "Less
is more") and lyrical. Perhaps above all, they believed in
function dictating form, though many architects, such as
Le Corbusier, would eventually distance themselves from
that tenet.

Similar examples

Magasins Orosdi Back

LOCALISATION Paris, muse d'Orsay

Les Etablissements
Orosdi-Back en 1908.

 )( :

Design style :Le Corbusier _Modernism

:
:

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5 POINTS OF MODERN ARCHITECTURE

The famous concept of Le Corbusier the 5 Points
of Modern Architecture are tought in architecture
schools throughout the world. It is the list of the

essentials that the architect regarded modern

houses must have to provide their inhabitants
with healthy conditions.

Critical look at the points, compared to

the historicism in architecture at that time will
inevitably bring us to the conclusion, that Le
Corbusier made it. The access to vast amounts
of light and air, as well
as sterility and ergonomy of his designs were the
cornerstone of modernism.

The points are:

1.pilotis
2.roof garden
3.free facade

4.free plan
5.horizontal windows
1. Pilotis are the constructial method of erecting
buildings. The invention of reinforced
concrete frame enabled building in a simple
method of supports and slabs.

Le Corbusier had penchant for organizing pilotis in

a grid, what added order to the buildings. The
architect was under a deep impression of classic
architecture, especially Parthenon and villa
Rotonda. The grid was a mean to bring this classic
qualities to his modern designs.
The impression Pathenon made on the young Le
Corbusier was profound and life-lasting what
especially accentuates Nicholas Fox Weber during
his lecture on the archtiects life.

2. Roof Gardens were a mean of bringing nature to

houses. Le Corbusier was inspired by steamliners,
which superstructure lifted high above the ground
level provided clear views over the site. In the
same way Le Corbusier opened roof of his building
on these views, simultaneously arranging
an arcadian atmosphere on them.
3. Free facade was a consequence of concrete
frame construction. Because walls were then
deprived of their constructional role, their design
became free as well.
4. Free plan was the consequence of the
construction as well. The plan is no longer limited
by construction and its design becomes free also.

In effect, many important figures of modernism

movement came up with idea of open plan
(Frank Lloyd Wright) orcontinuity of space (Mies
van der Rohe), which assumed that archtiecture at
its best doesnt devide space utterly, but rather
allows space to flow among different abstract
compositions of volumes and planes.
Le Corbusier called this idea promenade
architecturale and an important feature of this
concept was building alongside staircase, a ramp.
After all, he claimed that the ramp is something
that links the floors, while staircase divides it.

5. Horizontal windows or ribbon windows are the

effect of free facade. Its an imporant element of Le
Corbusier crusade toward liberating people from
the evil historism.
First of all, they give access to a big amounts
of light, which can evenly lit the interior.
Secondly it also effectively frames
the view outside, bringing outside inside.
Coming up to the points was something Le
Corbusier worked on throughout all 1920s. He built
next and next villas for rich clients from artistic
circles eager to invest their money in the sake of
progress and to possess a house they could show
off before their firends. Ozenfant Atelier in
1922, villa La Roche-Jeanneret in 1923, villa Le
Lac in 1924 were all experiments of putting Le
Corbusier ideas into practice.

The culmination and the realization closest to

perfection turned out to be villa Savoye, which
today is regarded as the architect masterpiece. It is
the first villa which lifted the whole volume to the
air. Moreover, although the atmosphere inside may
seem cold, it is a type of mathematical lyricism
that Le Corbusier sought, which he could only
acheive through total use of the Five Points of
Modern Architecture.

References:
Richard Weston,Key Buildings of the 20th Century
Le Corbusier, Toward an Architecture
Nicholas Fox Weber, Le Corbusier: A Life [lecture
at UCD School of Architecture on the books
substance]

Le Corbusiers quote About the Preliminary

shapes; Preliminary shapes are beautiful
because they are read clearly.Architecture is not
making any Longer simple shapes
Preliminary shapes can be your inspiration and
generate a planning process that enriches your
floors plans design.
Look at next examples .You can get an
impression how the Preliminary
shapes strategy is reflected in le
Corbusirs andHejduks floor plans

Le corbusiers typical floor plan

for the cite the refuge 1929

John Hejduks project for One-half House 1966

From Eliinbars Sketches 2012 learning from le

corbusiers book Towards an
Architecture. the Preliminary shapes
Notice. both floor plans are characterized by
Preliminary shapes, this is Le
Corbusiers Preliminary shapes strategy

Corbu seems to have always paid attention to the

first two items: natural ventilation and natural
lighting, be it at his writings and in his projects (the
images above are a good example). He was
influenced by and a promoter of the hygienist
culture of his time in architecture. But in the other

three points he went beyond the usual and became

the first modern architect really interested in
mixing passive and active methods of energy
control. Regardless the accuracy of his concepts
from a physical point of view, this is a remarcable
feat.

Here are the four Conscious Inspiration steps,

who led Corbusier to high quality and creative
architecture

First step le Corbusier choose the right

Inspiration Sources that empowers his vision,
guiding principles = Outlining guidelines

Second step this is one of Le Corbusiers first

buildings. le Corbusier implements consciously the
principals of the Outlining guidelines in a
building characterized by periodical architectural
characteristics

Third step le Corbusier develops his

own personal design tools=five points of
architecture / Maison Domino

Le Corbusirs five points of architecture Eliinbar

sketches 2011

Fourth step- le Corbusier use his inspiration

sources as the Planning Process Generator,
he combines the tools developed and design high
quality creative architecture, The building shown in
the next image is a completely radical design
compared to buildings which are being built at the
time