Le Corbusier and the Birth of Trends in Contemporary Architecture
Select a single architect covered in the lecture and/or the readings from lectures #18, 19, 20,
21. Discuss their work and their position within the history of modern architecture. Do they belong to a school? Is their work associated with an artistic movement? What is the social context in which they are working? How do they relate to larger themes of the course?
Please refer to two architectural examples (buildings, structures, architectural drawings) to make your case, providing the name of the architect and the date of its construction. Also incorporate direct citations from three different sources from the readings listed in the syllabus. Citations, like architectural examples, should be used to bolster your argument, not stand in for it.
Your paper should be a well thought-out presentation and analysis of a single architect and two of his/her works–NOT a collection of disparate facts and quotations.
EXPRESSIVE CULTURE: MODERN ARCHITECTURE: LE CORBUSIER
Student's Name
Subject
Date
Le Corbusier
Charles-Edouard Jeanneret was born in the mountainous Swiss Jura region in 1887 in la Chaux-de-fonds. He was an influential architect whose work comprised the contemporary movement's functionalism with sculptural expressionism. Jeanneret rebranded himself as Le Corbusier after a long apprenticeship in 1920. He pioneered the first generation of the international school of architecture (Flint, 2014). Le Corbusier learned about engraving and enameling under the tutelage of LEplattenier at Arts Decoratifs in La Chaux-de- Fonds. Additionally, he was a designer, urban planner, painter, writer, and one of the pioneers of modern architecture. In this regard, the work of Le Corbusier revolutionized architecture, for it marks the birth of several significant trends in contemporary architecture, including sculptural, purism, and brutalism architecture (UNESCO World Heritage Centre, 2022). His work has an outstanding universal value, for they are directly associated with the ideas of the modern movement.
In 1907 after designing his first building, he took trips through Europe and the Mediterranean, where he made various architectural discoveries; where he absorbed classical proportion through renaissance architecture and the importance of using landscape and geometric forms as architectural tools. Additionally, Le Corbusier gained an understanding of the contrast between individualized compartmentalized spaces and large collective spaces that acted as a foundation for his vision of residential buildings. In Vienna, he studied radical decorative arts, whereas, in France, he learned from Auguste Perret about building with reinforced concrete (Gans et al., 2006). Along with other architects such as Walter Gropius and Mies Van der Rohe, Le Corbusier created the international movement characterized by open interiors, rectilinear forms, and lightweight structures.
In 1927, Le Corbusier outlined several new architectural principles whereby he advocated for free floor plans characterized by malleable living spaces that could withstand rad...