Love him or loathe him, few people have changed the world we live in more than Le Corbusier, one of the fathers of modern architecture, whose works were placed on Sunday on UNESCO’s prestigious World Heritage List.
His ideas about utilitarian concrete buildings have altered the face of cities across the planet and have had a profound influence on urban planning.
He left his greatest mark on France, his adopted home, where no less than 10 of the 17 projects which UNESCO classified as world heritage sites are located.
From the La Cite Radieuse housing project in Marseille to the Dominican monastery of La Tourette near Lyon and La Villa Savoye near Paris, it is also where he left some of his greatest masterpieces.
His designs for functional apartment blocks surrounded by parks dominated France’s postwar urban planning until eight years after his death in 1965 when it became clear that many were depressing and anonymous, and blamed for urban alienation.
But some of his ‘vertical cities’ were adored by their residents, particularly his Marseille block built in 1945.
Le Corbusier allowed light to bath the double-aspect duplexes with their open plan kitchens, then a design revolution. — AFP
