Le Corbusier, born Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, revolutionized the design world, helping to usher in modern architecture and constructing some of the style’s most iconic buildings. While the Swiss-French talent was known for his architectural work and urban planning projects, he was also a designer, painter, and writer—penning some 50 books, including Vers une architecture (Towards A New Architecture) and Après le cubisme (After Cubism), with cubist painter Amédée Ozenfant, who, along with poet Paul Dermée, he founded the avant-garde magazine L’Esprit nouveau. But he had the largest impact on the fields of modern architecture and city planning, designing iconic buildings and devising influential masterplans, including the urban design of Chandigarh, India, and the never-built, though still influential, Radiant City. Today, the polarizing figure is the subject of a many books, including Le Corbusier: The Built Work ($125, Monacelli Press), a photographic survey by Richard Pare of nearly the entire oeuvre of the architect reflecting the current state of his buildings. “While their inscription on the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites has placed demands for protection on a significant part of the works of a giant of modern culture,” writes author Jean-Louis Cohen in the introduction, “Richard Pare’s investigations capture their present features—from the provisionally immaculate surfaces of buildings that have been so recently repaired, to the wounds inflicted on others, which have been left in a state of abandon, that one hopes is only temporary.” Here, visit 15 of Le Corbusier’s most iconic projects, from France to Japan.
Pavillion Le Corbusier, Zurich, Switzerland, 1967
Église Saint-Pierre, Firminy, France, 2006 (41 years after his death)
Villa Savoye, Poissy, France, 1931
Casa Curutchet, La Plata, Argentina, 1949–53
Immeuble Molitor, Paris, France, 1934
National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo, Japan, 1959
Villa Fallet, La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland, 1905–07
Villa Schwob, La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland, 1916–17
Maison et Atelier Planeix, Paris, 1924–29
Centrosoyuz, Moscow, 1928–36
Unité d’Habitation, Marseille, France,1946–52
Mill Owners' Association building, Ahmadabad, India, 1951–56
Camping Units, Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, France, 1952–57
Palace of the Assembly, Chandigarh, India, 1951–63
Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1959–62
Notre-Dame du Haut, Ronchamp, France, 1955