LE CORBUSIER, M. (whose family name is Jeanneret) (1887– ), Swiss architect, was born at La Chaux de Fonds, near Neuchatel, in 1887. He built his first house at the age of 17, and shortly afterwards studied for a time under Auguste Perret, who, with his brother was a pioneer of reinforced-concrete con struction. Le Corbusier settled in Paris in 1916 and for some years worked at industrial research and as a painter of the modern school. Both in theory and practice he is one of the most notable of contemporary architects. Associated with him is his cousin, Pierre Jeanneret, a native of Geneva. Le Corbusier explicitly proclaims "engineer-building" as the only form corresponding spiritually no less than economically to the age :—"Styles are a lie"; "the house is a habitable machine"; "beauty will always come when the intention towards it exists, and the means, which are proportion." The stripped economy and exact functional fitness of the steam ship, the automobile and the aeroplane are held up by him as models to builders who have eyes to see. It follows from these indications that he is working for the industrialization of building, since "engineer-building" means reinforced-concrete constructions, and the expense of the moulds for these demands their use in a series of houses. The details of the series, e.g., window-frames, and even built-in furniture are then naturally produced also in mass. Type-houses are the "Citrohan" and the "Monol," while another form has been erected at Pessac, near Bordeaux.
Endless ingenious methods of construction appear to be at Le Corbusier's disposal. The flat roof with roof-garden, which he advocates, is not merely a tribute from architecture to health; but the thick concrete flags laid on sand, with open, grass-sown joints, insulate the house beneath and lessen the considerable reaction of a concrete structure to varying weather conditions. His best known non-series buildings include the Maison Laroche, Auteuil, a private house at Garches ; a contribution to the Werk bund exhibition at Stuttgart in 1927; the Pavillon de l'Esprit Nouveau at the Paris exhibition of 1925, and the design for the Palace of the Nations at Geneva (one of the two chosen for final selection from 377 entries), a magnificent conception which is perhaps most simply described as fulfilling all that is best in the 20th century. Le Corbusier has also devoted considerable time to town-planning. A complete scheme was elaborated in 1922 for a city of three million inhabitants, on a basis of decentralization, communal services and fresh air for everybody.
His publications include : Vers Une Architecture (Paris, 1922), L'Art Decoratif d'Aujourd'hui (1922), Urbanisme (1925).