The most famous buildings of Le Corbusier

Let’s start with the smallest house that was built by Le Corbusier – “Cabanona”. The architect built this hut for his wife, as a summer house, and he sketched the project in just 15 minutes. Corbusier was confident that the 3.66 by 3.66 m house was very comfortable. The roof is flat, the ceiling is 2.26 m high. The hut has a bathroom, a dining room, a work area, and ample storage space. But it was decided to abandon the kitchen – there is a restaurant next to the house.

We have already mentioned the “Village Fruje” in Pessac, near Bordeaux, when we wrote about the typical urban development. This is a truly iconic project by Le Corbusier, which had a social focus – it was planned to create inexpensive, standard, but at the same time comfortable housing for workers. Over 50 houses were built according to seven main projects, and the customer, a sugar industrialist, insisted on painting the buildings in different colors, for whom the village seemed too gloomy. The local authorities did not accept the project, implemented in 1926, the settlement of the buildings began only in 1930..

Villa “Savoy” (Poissy, a suburb of Paris), the architect built on five principles: with a roof terrace, tape windows, concrete columns at the base, open plan and free facade. Le Corbusier used a minimum of decor, the house is very simple but elegant. Unfortunately, the flat roof, which was supposed to be a recreation area, soon began to leak, the building materials used in the 1920s did not allow it to be made more reliable. Because of this, the architect had a dispute with the customer. Now the house is an architectural monument, belongs to the government of France.

Corbusier worked in different countries of the world, there is his significant project in Moscow. This is the office building of Tsentrosoyuz, located between Akademika Sakharov Avenue and Myasnitskaya. Now Rosstat is located here. Construction began in 1928 and was completed eight years later. The Tsentrosoyuz building is considered an example of European modernism at the beginning of the last century and is one of Moscow’s architectural rarities. One of the first complexes with solid glazing. It is not surprising that a monument to the architect himself was erected in front of this building..

House of Kuruchet, 1949 This relatively small private mansion was proposed by the Argentine government to be included in the UNESCO list, because the building is considered the absolute of ultramodernism and an important milestone in Le Corbusier’s work. The house has four levels, outwardly it turned out to be very light, open, simple. The building, located in the province of Buenos Aires, was built by an architect for a doctor, therefore it includes a medical office on the ground floor.

Villa “La Rocha”. The house, built in 1923 in Paris, includes a gallery and a residential wing. All the principles of Le Corbusier are again visible: a flat roof, suitable for use, a minimum of decor on the facade, ribbon windows, pillars. The project was innovative for its time, brought fame to the architect, but the customers – the family of a wealthy collector – were not very happy and soon began an expensive renovation.

Villa Le Lac was built by the architect for his own parents, and he returned to this project more than once, coming to visit the Swiss Soros. A rather simple house that became the basis for Corbusier’s “new architecture” was built in 1923. The three basic principles are strip glazing, flat roof and open plan. The southern facade overlooking the lake is finished with aluminum, and this had to be done to hide a crack in the wall.

Residential unit in Marseille (France). Another social project by Corbusier aimed at creating standard buildings and affordable housing for workers. The house was built in 1945, right after the war. The building has 350 apartments, up to 1.7 thousand people can live at the same time. There is a terrace with a kindergarten, a hotel-restaurant, a shopping street, and the apartments themselves are two-story, facing both sides..

Notre-Dame-du-O, a chapel, the name of which means “Madonna on the Heights”. An unusual project by Corbusier, who created a pilgrimage church made of concrete in the town of Ronchamp (France). The shape of the roof was inspired by the shell that the architect found, and the building itself fits perfectly into the picturesque landscape. The construction was completed in 1955 and belongs to the late period of Corbusier’s work.

One of Corbusier’s most ambitious projects was the development of the city of Chandigarh, the new capital of the state of Punjab (India). In this city, the architect has erected several iconic buildings, including the Secretariat, the Palace of Justice, the Museum and Art Gallery, and the Assembly Building. Corbusier also worked on a plan for the city itself, designed for half a million inhabitants and divided into about 60 rectangular residential sectors. This project was implemented from 1951 to 1962. Since Corbusier himself only outlined the plan of Chandigarh and erected the largest, main buildings in the center, the rest of the work was done by his cousin, also an architect, Pierre Jeanneret.