Charles edouard jeanneret, known as le corbusier, b. la chaux-de-fonds, switzerland, oct. 6, 1887, d. 1965, was a swiss-french architect who played a decisive role in the development of modern architecture. he first studied 1908-10 in paris with august perret, and then worked 1910 for several months in the berlin studio of industrial designer peter behrens, where he met the future bauhaus leaders ludwig mies van der rohe and walter gropius. shortly after world war i, jeanneret turned to painting and founded, with amedee ozenfant, the purist offshoot of cubism. with the publication 1923 of his influential collection of polemical essays, vers une architecture towards a new architecture, eng. repr. 1970, he adopted the name le corbusier and devoted his full energy and talent to creating a radically modern form of architectural expression.
in the 1920s and 30s, le corbusiers most significant work was in urban planning. in such published plans as la ville contemporaine 1922, the plan...