Revered, Reviled. Le Corbusier
Last month, sixty years after he died while taking a dip in the Mediterranean, France 24 shined a spotlight on Le Corbusier, the Swiss-French architect considered by many to be the father of modernist architecture, but whose legacy has been reconsidered in recent years.
France 24's 12-minute documentary in English, embedded below, provides a decent introduction to the theories and architecture of Le Corbusier, who was born (in 1887, as Charles-Édouard Jeanneret) and grew up in Switzerland but would “one day be adopted by France as one of its most important cultural figures.” Yet, even before learning some of his background, viewers are taken inside Cité Radieuse, a social housing project Le Corbusier designed in Marseille; the lasting success of the project is palpable in the remarks of residents. The short documtnary also features commentary by Le Corbusier experts Jacques Sbriglio and Guillemette Morel Journel, whose words are balanced by footage of authors Xavier de Jarcy and François Chaslin promoting their views of Le Corbusier as a fascist, their books released around the time of a 2015 retrospective at the Centre Pompidou, fifty years after the architect's death. Ten years later, Le Corbusier's life and career are both as celebrated and controversial as ever.