Le Corbusier: Biography from Answers.com Mobile

Le Corbusier

(born Oct. 6, 1887, La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switz. — died Aug. 27, 1965, Cap Martin, France) Swiss-born French architect and city planner. Born in a small town, he left home as a young man and developed many of his ideas during his travels through Europe (1907 – 11). After settling in Paris, Le Corbusier (his assumed name, from the surname of an ancestor) and the painter Amédée Ozenfant (1886 – 1966) formulated the ideas of Purism, an aesthetic based on the pure, simple geometric forms of everyday objects. His early work included theoretical plans for skyscraper cities and mass-produced housing; in one of his many essays on architecture from the period, he declared that "a house is a machine for living in." Works from the 1920s such as the Villa Savoye at Poissy, France (1929 – 31), with its structure raised on slender concrete pillars, open floor plan, long strip windows, and roof terrace, established him as a major proponent of the International Style. He and other architects working in this style aspired to clean, Modernist lines, yet Le Corbusier was the first architect to make a studied use of rough-cast concrete, a technique that gave his work a distinctly sculptural, expressive quality. His later works include the Unité d'Habitation and the lyrical chapel of Notre-Dame-du-Haut at Ronchamp, France (1950 – 55). His government buildings at Chandigarh, India (begun 1950), with their enormous concrete sunshades, sculptural facades, and swooping rooflines, represent the first large-scale application of his city-planning principles. Le Corbusier's many works, plans, and writings inspired later avant-garde architectural experiments throughout the world.

For more information on Le Corbusier, visit Britannica.com.