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's Five Points of Architecture
It was Le Corbusier's Villa Savoye (1929–1931) that most succinctly summed up his five points of architecture that he had elucidated in the journal "L'Esprit Nouveau" and his book "Vers une architecture", which he had been developing throughout the 1920s. First, Le Corbusier lifted the bulk of the structure off the ground, supporting it by "pilotis" – reinforced concrete stilts. These "pilotis", in providing the structural support for the house, allowed him to elucidate his next two points: a free façade, meaning non-supporting walls that could be designed as the architect wished, and an open floor plan, meaning that the floor space was free to configure into rooms without concern for supporting walls. The second floor of the Villa Savoye includes long strips of ribbon windows that allow unencumbered views of the large surrounding yard, and constitute the fourth point of his system. This is a strength to enjoy panoramic scenery while complementing the climatic weakness of Western Europe, which lacked sunshine. The fifth point was the roof garden to compensate for the green area consumed by the building and replacing it on the roof. A ramp rising from ground level to the third floor roof terrace allows for an architectural promenade through the structure. The white tubular railing recalls the industrial "ocean-liner" aesthetic that Le Corbusier much admired. The driveway around the ground floor, with its semicircular path, measures the exact turning radius of a 1927 Citroën automobile.