Pen Portraits-25

LE CORBUSIER (French/Swiss born) (1887  –  1965)
Architect.
This master builder,(real name Charles-Edouard Jeanneret) whose contribution in architecture to this century is very vital, started as a painter.
His Domino System of pre-fabricating housing (1914) explored the posibility, in framed concrete, of eliminating the conventional wall. A series of houses in 1920’s established the synthesis of modern architecture known as the International Style. His dictum that ‘the house was a machine to live in’, in lesser hands turned out to be a brutal piece of work. He was never the narrow ‘functionalist’ that he showed his flair and panache in a prize winning design for the League Building, Geneva (1927). This was however not accepted. His massive concrete became a plastic sculptural at the Pilgrimage, Chapel of Ronchamp (1950-’54) and in the rough-texture roof structure of the Unité d’Habitation flats, Marseilles (1947-’52). He revived thick walls of dark brick at the brutalist Maisons Jaoul, Neuilly (1952-’57). His planning dogmas were fulfilled in the Punjab at Chandigarh (from 1950). His masterpiece is probably the monastery of La Tourette (1956-’60), while his single storey hospital for Venice designed 1964-’65 is a continuation of the mediterranean Neo-Classical tradition.
compiler: benny

Read Full Post »