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
In 1928, Le Corbusier was invited to participate in a closed competition, which included Peter Behrens, Max Taut, and the Vesnin brothers, for the new headquarters of the Central Union of Consumer Cooperatives in Moscow. Having been recently humiliated and enraged by the rejection of his proposal for the Headquarters for the League of Nations in Geneva, he welcomed the invitation eagerly. After winning the competition, Le Corbusier in October 1928 traveled to the Soviet Union for the first time in order to inspect the site for the Tsentrosoyuz building, that he had been commissioned to build. Before setting off to Moscow, Le Corbusier had already built a considerable interest in the “New Russia.” Back in Paris, for example, Le Corbusier frequented the “Amis de Spartacus” film club, which projected banned Soviet avant-garde films, like Sergei Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin. On his way to Moscow, Le Corbusier had set his objective in building a movement around his ideas, familiarizing himself with Soviet architectural production, and to test the atmosphere of Moscow, all of which he was able to achieve. Indeed, when he arrived, Pravda heralded his arrival on its front page. On October 13, David Arkin from Pravda announced, “To Moscow has come Le Corbusier, the most brilliant representative of today’s advanced architectural thought in Europe.” In Moscow, Sergei Eisenstein himself met him; at the Polytechnic Museum, Le Corbusier gave a lecture to a packed room of enthusiasts. His fame and influence in the Soviet Union was very much apparent, and this satisfied the Swiss architect. As he wrote in his diary, “My works have passed the blockade. I am very well known, very popular. My lectures are held before a packed assembly." Having met his first objective, he set to familiarize himself with the Russian atmosphere and architecture.