Le Corbusier (1887-1965)
Le Corbusier was an architect, urban planner, sculptor and painter of Swiss origin, naturalized French in 1930. He was born on October 6, 1887, in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland. He entered art school at 13 and, at 15, received a prize from the School of Decorative Arts in Turin for a watch design. His first project was built in 1906: the house of a watch manufacturer. The following year he set off on a journey through Europe to broaden his knowledge, and in 1908 he began working in the office of Auguste Perret, a pioneer of reinforced concrete, whose influence was decisive in his professional training. He later founded the Atelier des Arts Réunis.
In 1910 he traveled to Germany and worked as a draftsman in the studio of Peter Behrens, another pioneer of modern architecture. The following year he traveled through Central Europe and Greece, producing drawings later collected in the book Le Voyage d'Orient [Journey to the East].
Between 1912 and 1914 he taught in a new section of the school in La Chaux-de-Fonds, created along the lines of the Bauhaus, and designed houses for local industrialists. In 1914 he drew up a garden-city project for his hometown and a system for rebuilding the French cities destroyed in the First World War.
In 1917 he settled in Paris and began working for the Société d'Application du Béton Armé [Society for the Application of Reinforced Concrete]. The following year, together with the painter Amédée Ozenfant, he published Après le cubisme, a work that criticized the Cubist movement and proposed a return to rigor in the drawing of the object. From then on he took up painting, already using the pseudonym Le Corbusier, and exhibited regularly until 1924.
With Ozenfant he founded the magazine L'Esprit Nouveau, which had contributions from intellectuals such as Louis Aragon and Jean Cocteau. The publication became his main platform, allowing him to disseminate innovative architectural proposals even before he had a significant body of built work. This visibility brought him his first commissions, mainly country houses on the outskirts of Paris.
His plan to develop large-scale public housing remained on hold, since decisions in France were still strongly influenced by the academics of the École des Beaux-Arts. Le Corbusier therefore turned to a private clientele made up of admirers of modern art and of new conceptions of housing.
Between 1927 and the mid-1930s his office went through a period of intense activity. He gave lectures and drew up urban plans for several countries in Europe, North Africa and Latin America, including Brazil, which he visited for the first time in 1929. That same year he helped organize the first International Congress of Modern Architecture (CIAM), whose resolutions defined the principles of the modern movement in architecture.
In 1930 he married the Parisian Yvonne Gallis and became a French citizen. In 1936 he returned to Brazil to collaborate on the design of the Ministry of Education and Health building. As one of the founders of CIAM, he deeply influenced Brazilian modern architecture with his ideas.
During the German occupation of Paris in 1940 he closed his office and took refuge in the south of France. In the following years he stepped up his international activity, consolidating his reputation as a theorist of the new architecture and promoting the viability of new building methods.
From 1945 to 1949 he served as a consultant for the reconstruction of cities destroyed by the war, and two of his projects were built, among them the Unité d'Habitation in Marseille. In 1946 and 1947 he worked with Oscar Niemeyer on the studies for the UN headquarters in New York.
His definitive international recognition came between 1950 and 1965, the final phase of his career. In 1959 he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Cambridge. He died in 1965.
Solo Exhibitions
2012 - São Paulo - São Paulo - Brazil - Le Corbusier - América do Sul - 1929 [Le Corbusier - South America - 1929] (2012 : São Paulo, SP) - Centro Universitário Maria Antonia (São Paulo, SP)
Group Exhibitions
1998 - Rio de Janeiro - Rio de Janeiro - Brazil - O Rio Jamais Visto [The Never-Seen Rio] (1998 : Rio de Janeiro, RJ) - Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil (Rio de Janeiro, RJ)
2000 - Valencia - Valencia - Spain - De la Antropofagia a Brasília: Brasil 1920-1950 [From Anthropophagy to Brasília: Brazil 1920-1950] (2000 : Valencia, Spain) - IVAM. Centre Julio González (Valencia, Spain)
2000 - Rio de Janeiro - Rio de Janeiro - Brazil - A Paisagem Carioca [The Carioca Landscape] (2000 : Rio de Janeiro, RJ) - Museu de Arte Moderna (Rio de Janeiro, RJ)
2000 - Rio de Janeiro - Rio de Janeiro - Brazil - Quando o Brasil era Moderno: artes plásticas no Rio de Janeiro de 1905 a 1960 [When Brazil Was Modern: Visual Arts in Rio de Janeiro from 1905 to 1960] (2000 : Rio de Janeiro, RJ) - Paço Imperial (Rio de Janeiro, RJ)
2002 - São Paulo - São Paulo - Brazil - Da Antropofagia a Brasília: Brasil 1920-1950 [From Anthropophagy to Brasília: Brazil 1920-1950] (2002 : São Paulo, SP) - Museu de Arte Brasileira (São Paulo, SP)
Source: FGV and Itaú Cultural
