Le Corbusier was born Charles-Edouard Jeanneret-Gris in 1887 and was an architect and designer as well as being a writer, urbanist and painter. He was a pioneer in modern high design studies and many of his designs are reproduced today with minor changes. He was also very dedicated to providing better living conditions for the residents of crowded cities. As a writer he had a very developed sense of organization in formulating plans for a futuristic city.

As an urbanist he sought efficient ways to house large numbers of people. He believed that his new architectural designs would provide a new and organized solution to the over-crowding of large cities. His design would also improve the quality of life for those in the lower classes because they would have homes of their own and be up from the squalor that they had known before. In order to meet the needs of this, he built blocks of individual apartments for individual families.

When he changed his name and assumed the pseudonym Le Corbusier, which was a rewording of his grandfather’s name, he was able to reflect his belief that anyone was capable of reinventing oneself. As an architect, he always filled his finished work with other furniture that had clean designs and took up very little of his spacious rooms. When he focused his attention on furniture design, he brought with him his sleek tastes in architecture. Many of his designs are molded from tubular steel frames and heavily padded, making the furniture look very square and sleek. He is well known for his modern designs for club chairs, love seats, sofas, chaise lounges, coffee tables, ottomans, corner sectional sofas and sectional sofas with chaises attached.

Le Corbusier was a Swiss pioneer in both architecture and furniture design. His designs were made to be both functional and at the same time take as little space as possible. Because of his penchant for organizational skills he was able to help improve the over-crowding of large cities by coming up with a design for a building that put several floors of apartments together and thereby being able to house several families in their own homes and improving their quality of life. He was always writing and had an eye towards the future, especially when he came up with a plan for an organized city that featured transportation by automobile, which was a relatively new idea during his lifetime.




By: Bill Hinson