Le Corbusier

We entered directly into the Olympus of architects with Le Corbusier. Born in La Chaux-de-Fonds in 1887, he was a Swiss-born French-naturalised architect, urban planner, painter and designer, who became one of the most influential figures in the history of contemporary architecture. He is in fact counted as a master of the Modern Movement along with other architectural giants such as Mies van der Rohe, Frank Lloyd Wright, Walter Gropius and Alvar Alto.

A great thinker, attentive to the needs of man and spokesman of social architecture. A pioneer in the use of materials such as reinforced concrete that will become one of the predominant materials of all his architectural works, some of which, between 2016 and 2017, have even been included in the list of World Heritage and UNESCO sites, for having been architectures "testimony to the invention of a new architectural language that marks a break with the past".

Immediately after his studies he embarked on a long journey around Europe, visiting countries such as Italy, Hungary, Austria, Greece, Germany and France, snatching the secrets of some of the most famous buildings of the era and that became an inexhaustible source of inspiration for him. Following this trip he left Switzerland in 1917, moving to Paris where he opened his first professional architecture studio.

Also recognised as a skilled urban planner and fine theorist, he wrote what is still one of the most important books dedicated to design: the Versus Architecture of 1922 which earned him invitations to numerous international conferences. But what made him immortal was certainly the construction of the Ville Savoy in Poissy, a 1929 project that represents the culmination of the Le Corbusier's ideas and reflections to date. In fact, the Ville Savoy embodies the 5 fundamental points of what the architect defined as New Architecture, which represented the foundation of the so-called architectural revolution of those years: architecture on stilts, free plan, free façade, ribbon windows and roof garden.

However, there are countless noteworthy projects by Le Corbusier, such as the Unité d'Habitation in Marseilles or the Ronchamp Chapel, the construction of Chadingarh and many others.