Le Corbusier was born in Switzerland in 1887. Trained as an artist, he travelled extensively through Germany and the East. In Paris he studied under Auguste Perret and absorbed the cultural and artistic life of the city. During this period he developed a keen interest in the synthesis of the various arts. His invention of :the golden section ratio” in “modulor system” was widely used for the scale of architectural proportion. He saw this system as a continuation of the long tradition of Leonardo da Vinci’s the “Vitruvius”.

Le Corbusier was influenced by the problems he saw in the industrial city. He thought that industrial buildings and housing techniques led to crowding, dirtiness, and a lack of a moral landscape. So he began to take physical form, mainly as houses which he created as “a machine for living in” and which incorporated his trademark five points of architecture. In 1922, he also presented his scheme for a “Contemporary City” for three million inhabitants.

Le Corbusier always thought big. He once proposed replacing a large part of the center of Paris with 18 sixty-story towers. He was also wrote books on interior decoration, painting and architecture. Le Corbusier placed systems of harmony and proportion at the center of his design philosophy, and his interest in the mathematical order was described to “golden section” and “fibonacci” the series. He was a tireless proselytizer, addressing the public in manifestos, pamphlets, exhibitions and his own magazine. Le Corbusier wrotes a new journal called L’Esprit Nouveau. His dictum “Architecture or Revolution”, became his rallying cry for the book Vers une architecture.

His career spanned five decades, with his iconic buildings constructed throughout central Europe, India, Russia, and one structure each in North and South America. Le Corbusier also loved Manhattan. He loved its newness, its Cartesian regularity, and besides all he loved its tall buildings. “His influence was universal and his works are invested with a permanent quality possessed by those of very few artists in our history” (notes from Lyndon B. Johnson, US President). Although he dressed like a bureaucrat, in dark suits, bow ties and round horn-rimmed glasses, he was really an artist. National Museum fo Western art Tokyo, Saddam Hussein Gymnasium, Unite de Habitation, UN Headquarter (project) and Notre Dame du Haunt were some of his creations. © ar-chi-tect.org (article wrote by several editing notes).