He redefined architecture for the 20th century, pioneered modernity, made radical urban utopias for the masses – and spent his last years nearly nude in a cabin inspired by human physiology.
Source: Le Corbusier, the man, the modernist, the nudist – in pictures
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| The Modulor, a silhouette of the human body 1.83m tall, defined the harmonious proportions of architecture. This version was cast in concrete at the Unité d’Habitation, Nantes-Rezé, completed in 1955. Photo: J Ach/FLC/ADAGP |
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| Le Bol Rouge (the red bowl), 1919, was painted during Le Corbusier’s purist period. Photo: FLC/ADAGP/Centre Pompidou |
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| The private dwelling as manifesto. Villa Savoye, designed by Le Corbusier and his cousin Pierre Jeanneret, and built 1928-1931 on the outskirts of Paris, defined a new living space – one shared with machines and automobiles. Photo: Paul Koslowski/Centre Pompidou |
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| Le Corbusier in Le Cabanon (little cabin), a minimalist living space that distilled his ideas of a housing unit, based purely on the physiology of the body. It was built in 1951 in the south of France, and he lived there almost naked. In 1965, during one of his daily swims. And in the sea just below the cabin, he drowned. Photo: FLC/ADAGP/Centre Pompidou |
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| A model of Le Corbusier’s Chapelle Notre-Dame-du-Haut, Ronchamp, eastern France, built 1950-55, one of the most important examples of 20th-century religious architecture, with its ‘billowing’ concrete roof that appears to float. Photo: FLC/ADAGP/Centre Pompidou |
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| Maison Planeix in Paris, designed in the international style by Le Corbusier and his cousin Pierre Jeanneret for the sculptor Antonin Planeix, competed in 1928. Photo: G Thiriet/FLC/ADAGP |
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| Still Life, 1920, is one of his purist paintings, in which he purifies the color scheme to include only neutrals. Photog: FLC/ADAGP/Centre Pompidou |
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| A painting from Le Corbusier’s acoustic period, in which he links the concept of acoustics to space and how we sense it. Ubu IV, 1940-1944. Photo: FLC/ADAGP/Centre Pompidou |
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| One of Le Corbusier’s drawings from the Modulor series, 1950, in which he uses the golden rule and mathematical progressions to define the principle of harmonious proportions in architecture. Photo: FLC/ADAGP/Centre Pompidou |
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| Le Corbusier’s theories of the housing unit led to his tower blocks, the unités d’habitation. A sketch of the facade of one of his ‘machines for living in’, 1944. Photo: FLC/ ADAGP/Centre Pompidou |
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| Maison Guiette, designed by Le Corbusier and his cousin Pierre Jeanneret in 1926, is an early work based on the international style, built in 1927 as the residence and studio of the painter René Guiette. Photo: Maury/FLC/ADAGP |
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| Corbusier adjusting his sculpture Femme, 1953, a collaboration with French artist Joseph Savina, some of whose works were influenced by Le Corbusier’s paintings and drawings. Photo: FLC/ADAGP/Centre Pompidou |
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| Purism was an art movement founded in 1918 by Le Corbusier and Amédée Ozenfant, and explained in their manifesto After Cubism. It is characterised by orthogonal compositions, the use of neutral colours and the representation of industrial objects. Le Corbusier’s Guitare Verticale (1ère version), 1920. Photo: FLC/ADAGP/Centre Pompidou |
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| Le Corbusier kept notebooks of sketches he made on his travels. His theories about the architectural unit finally led him to the white cube. La Cheminée, 1918, the cornerstone painting from which developed his ideas on purist architecture. Photo: FLC/ADAGP/Centre Pompidou |
Source: Le Corbusier, the man, the modernist, the nudist – in pictures
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