Le Corbusier
Pioneer of modern architecture
Most quoted
"The architect, by his arrangement of forms, realizes an order which is a pure creation of his spirit; by forms and shapes he affects our senses to produce plastic emotions; by the relationships which he creates, he awakens in us profound echoes, he gives us the measure of an order which we feel to be in accordance with that of our world, he determines the various movements of our heart and of our understanding; it is then that we experience the sense of beauty."
— from Towards a New Architecture, 1923
"Architecture is the masterly, correct, and magnificent play of masses brought together in light. Our eyes are made to see forms in light; light and shade reveal these forms; cubes, cones, spheres, cylinders, or pyramids are the great primary forms which light reveals to advantage; the image of these is distinct and without ambiguity. It is for this reason that these are beautiful forms, the most beautiful forms."
— from Towards a New Architecture, 1923
"Architecture is the masterly, correct and magnificent play of masses brought together in light. Our eyes are made to see forms in light; light and shade reveal these forms; cubes, cones, spheres, cylinders or pyramids are the great primary forms which light reveals to advantage; the image of these is distinct and without ambiguity. It is for this reason that these are beautiful forms, the most beautiful forms."
— from Towards a New Architecture, 1923
All quotes by Le Corbusier (365)
The architect must be a humanist.
The dwelling must be a place of warmth and intimacy.
The city must be a place of hope and inspiration.
Architecture is the masterly, correct and magnificent play of masses brought together in light.
The history of architecture is the history of the struggle for the window.
The 'Five Points of a New Architecture' are: 1. Pilotis. 2. The free designing of the ground plan. 3. The free facade. 4. The horizontal window. 5. The roof garden.
You employ stone, wood, and concrete, and with these materials you build houses and palaces. That is construction. Ingenuity is at work. But suddenly you touch my heart, you do me good, I am happy and I say: 'This is beautiful.' That is Architecture.
Modern life demands, and is waiting for, a new kind of plan, both for the house and the city.
The house should be the jewel case of life.
The city of today is a dying thing because it is not geometrical.
To create architecture is to put in order. Put what in order? Function and objects.
The materials of city planning are: sky, space, trees, steel and cement; in that order and that hierarchy.
A hundred times I have thought: New York is a catastrophe, and fifty times: It is a beautiful catastrophe.
The street is a traffic machine; it is in reality a sort of factory for producing speed traffic.
The right angle is the essential and sufficient tool of action because it enables us to determine space with an absolute exactness.
Architecture is the first manifestation of man creating his own universe.
It is a question of building which is at the root of the social unrest of today: architecture or revolution.
Modern architecture is not a style, it is an attitude.
Decoration is always of a sensuous and sensual order, that is to say, it is a matter of surface; but architecture is a matter of plan, which is a matter of the intellect.
The sun is the only dictator the architect should know.
Contemporaries of Le Corbusier
Other Architectures born within 50 years of Le Corbusier (1887–1965).