27 August marks the anniversary of Le Corbusier’s death in 1965. Born Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris in Switzerland in 1887, he became one of the key figures in modern architecture—changing not only how buildings looked, but how architects thought homes and cities should work.
Le Corbusier believed a home should make everyday life easier. His famous line, “a house is a machine for living in”, may sound severe today, but the idea was practical: rooms should be well planned, filled with natural light and free from clutter. Architecture, in his view, should support the people using it.
This approach is clear in Villa Savoye, completed near Paris in 1931. Raised on slim columns, the white house allows the landscape to continue beneath it. Long horizontal windows bring daylight into the interior, while an open plan gives the rooms a sense of flow. Its roof terrace was designed as an outdoor living space—an idea that still feels relevant in dense cities, where private outdoor space is a luxury.
The project also demonstrated Le Corbusier’s “Five Points of Architecture”: pilotis, or supporting columns; an open floor plan; a façade independent of the structure; ribbon windows; and a roof garden. These were not merely visual gestures. They came from new construction methods and offered architects more freedom to arrange space around modern lifestyles.
His impact went beyond buildings. With Pierre Jeanneret and Charlotte Perriand, he designed furniture that remains familiar in design-minded homes today. The LC4 chaise longue, with its adjustable reclining frame, was made to follow the natural shape of the body. It captured a central part of his thinking: useful objects could also be beautiful.
“I prefer drawing to talking. Drawing allows less room for lies,” he told an audience at Columbia University in 1961.
Not all of Le Corbusier’s ideas have aged equally well. His grand plans for cities often prioritised tall buildings, traffic routes and open land over the messier qualities that make neighbourhoods lively. The Plan Voisin, for instance, proposed clearing a large part of central Paris for a new city of towers. It remains an important reminder that improving a city is not only about efficiency; it also means protecting its history, communities and street life.
Yet drawing remained central to Le Corbusier’s way of thinking. For him, sketches were not simply a way to present a finished idea, but a means of working through one—testing proportion, movement, light and the relationship between a building and its surroundings. His quick, expressive lines reveal an architect who used the page to consider how people might live.
Still, his influence is hard to overstate. UNESCO’s World Heritage listing covers 17 of his works across seven countries, recognising their role in the development of the Modern Movement. Whether seen in a sunlit apartment, an open-plan home or a roof garden, traces of Le Corbusier’s thinking remain part of everyday design.
