Le Corbusier
Charles-Édouard Jeanneret (6 October 1887 – 27 August 1965), known as Le Corbusier (), was a Swiss-French architect, designer, painter, urban planner, writer, and one of the pioneers of what is now called modern architecture. He was born in Switzerland and became a French citizen in 1930. His career spanned five decades, and he designed buildings in Europe, Japan, India, and North and South America.
Le Corbusier in the USSR
Le Corbusier had a short relationship with the Soviet Union, starting with his first trip to Moscow in 1928, and ending with the rejection of his proposal for the Palace of the Soviets in 1932. Nevertheless, the short-lived relationship had consequences that went beyond Le Corbusier’s time in the USSR. Before his trip to Moscow, Le Corbusier was already an influential figure within the Soviet field of architecture. In 1922, Moisei Ginzburg, founder of the Constructivist movement, published materials from Le Corbusier’s “Towards a New Architecture,” and in 1924 published his own book, similar to Le Corbusier’s, titled "Style and Epoch", which became to a central text to the Constructivist movement. Likewise, Corbusier’s projects were frequently published and analyzed as examples for the young generation of Soviet architects to use as inspiration. When Le Corbusier died in 1965, the official newspaper of the Soviet Union, Pravda, stated in its obituary, “Modern architecture has lost its greatest master.” This statement suggests the importance of Le Corbusier’s architecture and urbanism in the Soviet Union.