Le Corbusier

"Le Corbusier, Philips Pavilion, World's Fair, Brussels (1958)"

Le Corbusier always thought big. He once proposed replacing a large part of the center of Paris with 18 sixty-story towers; that made headlines too. Time 100

Le Corbusier (pseudonym after his grandfather's name) was a visionary. He was an artist who thought big. The new architecture style he brought forth together with his partisans (Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Walter Gropius in Germany, Theo van Doesburg in Holland) came to be known as the International Style. Le Corbusier was a tireless proselytizer, addressing the public incessantly in manifestos, pamphlets, exhibitions and his own magazine. He wrote dozens of bookson interior decoration, painting and architecture.

What is most memorable about the austere, white-walled villas that he built after World War I in and around Paris is their cool beauty and their airy sense of space. "A house is a machine for living in," he wrote. The machines he admired most were ocean liners, and his architecture spoke of sun and wind and the sea.

Le Corbusier was the most important architect of the 20th century, dominating the architectural world, while Lloyed Wright was a prolific maverick. Le Corbusier inspired several generations of architects worldwide and he is called the conscience of modern architecture, for all his publications and marvelous works.

"The convent of la Tourette by le Corbusier"