Le Corbusier Ohne Titel 1956

Stadthaus, Gubelstrasse 22, 6301 Zug, 2. OG, Städtebau und Planung

Le Corbusier is born in 1887 in La Chaux-de-Fonds as Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, the son of a pianist and music teacher and a watch enameller. Under Charles l’Eplattenier, he attends the École d’Art, where he takes courses in drawing and engraving, and later the Cours Supérieur de Décoration. L’Eplattenier steers him towards architecture. Together with his colleague René Chapallaz, Jeanneret finally designs his first house, the Villa Fallet, in 1905. The building features elements of the Style Sapin, a variant of Art Nouveau. It provides him with the means and prestige to undertake extensive travels across Europe, which shape his artistic and visual development. His travels take him to Tuscany, Budapest, Vienna and finally Paris. There, he works in Auguste Perret’s studio for a period of 15 months. After a brief return to Switzerland, he sets off for Germany in 1910, where he studies the Kunstgewerbebewegung, and subsequently travels through the Balkans. In 1917 Jeanneret settles in Paris and founds Purism together with Amédée Ozenfant. He also publishes the journal L’Esprit nouveau (1920–1925) with him and Paul Dermée. It is in this journal that Jeanneret first uses the pseudonym ‘Le Corbusier’. Further influential acquaintances and projects follow in Switzerland, Europe, Asia, North Africa, and North and South America. Among other things, Le Corbusier actively contributes to the founding of the Congrès internationaux d’architecture (CIAM). This plays a central role in promoting the exchange of avant-garde ideas among architects, artists, industrialists and politicians in French-speaking Switzerland. The Le Corbusier Pavilion in Zurich is commissioned by Heidi Weber in 1960 and is regarded as Le Corbusier’s last realised architectural design. The Gesamtkunstwerk openes in 1967 and serves as an exhibition space, which is now run by the Museum für Gestaltung on behalf of the City of Zurich. In addition to his significant role in the architectural scene, Le Corbusier is also an urban planner, writer, theorist, furniture designer and artist. His artistic oeuvre encompasses paintings and drawings as well as lithographs, photographs, sculptures, tapestries and enamels. Throughout his career, Jeanneret displays a keen curiosity about his surroundings and a strong desire to engage with them. During his training in the Jura, he is particularly fascinated by nature and the feelings it evokes in him. Natural and cultural-historical objects continue to inspire him during his time in Paris and the vibrant folk art of the Balkans and Mediterranean countries have a profound influence on him. From 1918 onwards he devotes himself to Purism. Here the focus is ultimately on the closeness between art and science, as well as an aesthetic of order, purity, harmony and clarity. The aim is to express the poetry of a manufactured object and the essence of modern humanity. Forms and proportions take centre stage; it is not until 1928 that organic elements begin to reappear more frequently in his works. From then on, Le Corbusier devotes himself to a free and personal art; it features disproportions, tensions and juxtapositions of natural objects such as shells, bones or pebbles with geometric forms and craftsmanship. From the 1930s onwards, the human body also increasingly becomes the focus of Le Corbusier’s work.

Frame dimensions: 92.9 x 72.7 cm

KS 486

• abstract

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• colourful

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• geometrical

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• human

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• figure

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• print