Architectural Misconduct 3 - Le Corbusier
Le Corbusier was a Swiss-French painter, and is commonly known as one of the Fathers of Modernism. His most well-known works include Villa Savoye, Unité d’Habitation, and Notre Dame du Haut, as well as the modernist manifesto Towards a New Architecture.
Corb was born Charles-Edouard Jeanneret in 1887 to a Calvinist family. He developed a deep sense of order and moral rigor due to his Protestant upbringing, features which would eventually inform his architectural and urban planning beliefs. Though later in life he publicly rejected religion, much of his work carries distinct spiritual undertones and functions as a sort of secular temple to the god of modernity.
He rebranded himself as "Le Corbusier" in 1920, crafting a mythological persona intended to boost name recognition and personal branding. He began his career as a watchmaker and never received formal architectural licensure, instead drifting through European studios to gain hands-on experience.
He often flirted with Fascism, contributed to far-right journals in the 1920s, openly praised Mussolini, and believed the Vichy regime might provide fertile ground for his vision of top-down social and architectural control. He was appointed to the Foundation for the Study of Human Problems, a eugenics think-tank active in Vichy France during the 1940s. While entangled with authoritarian politics, he also designed the city of Chandigarh for the newly independent India.
One of the largest personal dramas of Corb's life is the Eileen Gray episode. Gray, another modern architect at the time, had designed Villa E-1027, a remarkably elegant example of modernist thought. Corb took offense at the genius of the house and became increasingly obsessed with it. He once showed up naked and painted cubist murals on its walls. He called it an homage; Gray considered it desecration. After being denied the opportunity to purchase the house, he built a small shack nearby as a summer retreat. He later helped orchestrate its sale and claimed a degree of credit or inspiration for the work. Much later, the house would become the site of a murder during a sexual encounter gone wrong.
In 1938, he was struck by a yacht’s propeller while swimming along the same coastline. His leg was nearly severed, and he had to hold the muscle together with his own hands while awaiting rescue. He later returned to swim the same waters in 1965, against his doctor’s orders, and died in the sea, possibly of a heart attack. His body was found floating by nearby bathers.
In short: renamed self for better clout. Had a strange sense of religious fervor about modernity. Flirted with Fascists and authoritarians, the shared obsession with order inspiring much of his architectural thought. Painted naked in a building he didn’t design, outraged it was better than his. Eventually drowned in the waters near it.
