Charles-Eduard Jeanneret-Gris, who was better known as Le Corbusier, is born in 1887 in La Chaux-de-Fonds in Switzerland. He was a Swiss-French architect, designer, urban planner and it is considered as one of the pioneer of what is called “Modern architecture”. He studied under Charles L´Eplattenier first at “Ecole Industrielle” and then at “Ecole d´Art”. After his studies, he travelled around Europe, visiting places as Turkey, Romany, Greece and Italy (especially Rome, Florence and Pompey). 1922 he moved to Paris where he opened his own practice, together with his cousin Pierre Jeanneret. Le Corbusier explicity used the golden ratio in his Modulor system for the scale of architectural proportion, but he also based this system on human measurements, Fibonacci numbers, and the double unit. In other words, his design-system is marked by the use of rational systems, modules and simple forms, according to the principles of “rationalism”. Among the numerous urban planning projects that he developed, we’d like to remember those in Algeri (1930),Sap Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, Barcelona (1933), Geneva, Stockholm, Antwerp and Nemor (1934). In 1946 Le Corbusier moved to New York, where his genius was finally recognized. In these years, he completed the idea “Unitè d’Habitation”, at which he has been working for almost 15 years. In 1951 he had been to India for the first time in order to create the urban plan of the new capital. In 1952 he received the Legion of Honor during the inauguration of the first “Unitè d’Habitation” in Marseille, which was followed by the inauguration of the Chapel of Notre-Dame du Haut and by the famous Capitol of Chandigarh.
