CORBUSIER, LE

born Oct. 6, 1887, La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switz. died Aug. 27, 1965, Cap Martin, Fr. Le Corbusier, photograph by Yousuf Karsh, 1954 byname of Charles-douard Jeanneret internationally influential Swiss architect and city planner, whose designs combine the functionalism of the modern movement with a bold, sculptural expressionism. He belonged to the first generation of the so-called International school of architecture and was their most able propagandist in his numerous writings. In his architecture he joined the functionalist aspirations of his generation with a strong sense of expressionism. He was the first architect to make a studied use of rough-cast concrete, a technique that satisfied his taste for asceticism and for sculptural forms. Additional reading Principal sources on Le Corbusier and his work are The Complete Architectural Works, ed. by Willy Boesiger, O. Stonorov, and Max Bill, 7 vol. (193565), in English, French, and German; and Le Corbusier: Last Works, ed. by Willy Boesiger (1970). Le Corbusier, ed. by Boesiger (1972), is a comprehensive survey, catalog, and guidebook to his projects that is based on the above Works. Writings devoted to Le Corbusier during his lifetime (often distorted by a strong bias either for or against the architect) include Franois de Pierrefeu, Le Corbusier et Pierre Jeanneret (1932), the first book devoted to Le Corbusier; Maximilien Gauthier, Le Corbusier: ou, l'architecture au service de l'homme (1944); Stamo Papadaki (ed.), Le Corbusier: Architect, Painter, Writer (1948), a series of essays by friends and former collaborators; Franoise Choay, Le Corbusier (1960), an attempt at a synthesis; and Peter Blake, Le Corbusier: Architecture and Form (1964). Stanislaus Von Moos, Le Corbusier: Elements of a Synthesis (1979; originally published in German, 1968), is an attempt to decipher the man behind the myth; Maurice Besset, Who Was Le Corbusier? (1968; originally published in French), was written by Le Corbusier's executor; Charles Jencks, Le Corbusier and the Tragic View of Architecture (1974), is a biography more balanced than most; and Russell Walden (ed.), The Open Hand: Essays on Le Corbusier (1977, reissued 1982), is a collection of essays.