The Cite Radieuse, the Radiant City,
a building that has become mythical, an emblem
of modern architecture.
The inhabitants of Marseille have nicknamed it
La Masion du Fada, The Nutter's House.
It is the work of one of the most famous architects
of the 20th century, Le Corbusier.
A star of contemporary art, Xavier Veilman,
describes this post war construction as a masterpiece.
And, talks about it with a passion rarely bestowed
on social housing.
It was very imposing when you see it in real life,
like a huge ocean liner.
It's pretty spectacular.
The building has an identity so that when you live
in the Cite Radieuse you live in something unique.
So, that's one thing about it that's epic.
And, when you go inside it really makes an impact.
When you're on top of it you really feel
you're on the beach, or on the deck of a ship.
On the roof of the Cite Radieuse
in this environment that the architect wanted
to be symbiotic with nature, the mountains in the
background, the sea, and the sky.
Xavier Veilman pays homage to the creator he admired
with his installation.
The idea was not to start from a neutral point,
like museum hall or a gallery, but to work from somewhere
that already had strong connotations and to use this place
as a starting point around which to construct an exhibition.
And, I like the idea of this sort of inversion
of the architect drawing on the ground of his own
already contructed building.
He is also a very ambiguous person, a person
with a somewhat austere side.
It's tricky to really understand who this character is,
with his many dual aspects.
For example, painter in the morning, architect
in the afternoon.
Both dogmatic and human.
In doing what he did he defined himself as Le Corbusier.
He invented his own role which was to be Le Corbusier,
you might say.
Le Corbusier is so representative of
architecture that he can be thought of as synonymous
with it.
With his large round glasses, his austere clothing,
and his bowtie his geometric appearance was a skillfully
fashioned trademark.
His world famous achievements are true icons,
Like the Villa Savoye, the Cite Radieuse,
or the Ronchamp chapel.
Le Corbusier has left to the world
are some of the most extraordinary buildings
ever constructed in all of time.
Both a builder and an unparalleled theorist
his numerous works have had a lasting influence
on generations of architects.
Le Corbusier was also a great idealist who wanted
to change the world with his architectural works.
In all these terms Cite Radieuse, Villa Radieuse
there is this continual idea of making people happy,
of creating the ideal city, the ideal place.
Le Corbusier is a tale of incredible
ambition, that of a very rational spirit, and a great
uncompromising artist, ready to demonlish entire
neighborhoods of Paris for the good of its inhabitants.
He was also a great seducer who made his mark.
Hungry for recognition he maintained an extensive
correspondence with his mother in which he tried endlessly
to convince her that he was a very great artist.
Marie Jeanneret-Perret was the love
of Le Corbusier's ife.
He never gives up with trying to get his
mother's approval.
He never can really get things right for her.
Le Corbusier, or the story of a life dedicated
to modern architecture.
It was in 1887 in La Chaux-de-Fonds, a town enclosed
in a Swiss valley that Charles-Édouard Jeanneret was born.
He was later to become the great Le Corbusier.
He was the youngest child of a close-knit petite bourgeoisie
Protestant family.
The Jeanneret's had lived in this watch making capitol
for four centuries.
As such, from father to son, they were watch engravers.
They were a family with conservative values,
where it was obligatory to fit the mold.
The values of this family are very clear.
Papa always said,
"What you need to do, do it now."
This was also said to be the motto of the mother's family.
Hard work, no point in complaining although the mother,
we'll discover, complains as much as she wants,
but what she complains about usually is her younger son,
Charles-Édouard.
Charles-Édouard was a rather inattentive
student, his school results were mediocre
and disappointed his parents.
He was a child that didn't particularly flourish,
overshadowed by the perfect image of his brother Albert,
a year and a half his elder and his mother's blue eyed boy.
Charles-Édouard has that sense throughout his childhood
that their mother was always
more aware of Albert.
Albert was a gifted violinist, whom his
mother Marie was proud of.
As a piano teacher she dreamed of a great career
as composer for her eldest son who, advanced
beyond his years, was already giving concerts
at the age of 11.
In an attempt to distinguish himself in his mother's eyes
the young Charles-Édouard would have to carve out
his own path.
But, in the meantime, his parents set him on a well
defined path.
At the age of 13 he was sent to the town's school
of applied art in 1900.
Following in the family tradition he was to become
a watch engraver.
Charles-Édouard proved to be somewhat gifted
at this exercise in precision.
This is one of his watches.
But, he detested this repetitive craft that required
so little creativity.
At school the young man would finally discover a subject
that he found much more exciting than watch making:
drawing.
He assiduously followed the classes of Charles L'Eplattenier
who taut his students to observe nature,
to draw inspiration from it to create new shapes.
The young Jeanneret launched himself passionately
into this exercise.
He drew the surrounding pine forest, scrutinizing
the smallest details of his environment,
like the structure of the branches of the trees
or the pine cones.
Le Corbusier would later write that L'Eplattenier
opened up a new route for him into creativity.
"I don't know what it was but he inspired
something sacred, something great in me, something abstract
and illusive, a thirst for art."
The teacher was impressed by his young
student's watercolor.
The pine trees were reduced to the very essence
of their form.
In a very conceptual way he transformed the forest
into geometric patterns.
L'Eplattenier detected in him a rational mind paired with
an obvious talent, two of the virtues required
to become an architect.
Following his teacher's invaluable advice Charles-Édouard
Jeanneret at the age of 17 enrolled to study architecture.
The young student, who at school had never been excited
by theoretical classes, would achieve a real tour-de-force.
He persuaded one of his teachers Louis Fallet
to entrust the construction of his own house to him.
After a year in design and two years in construction
the house was completed in 1907.
Charles-Édouard was not yet 20 years old,
this is the result.
In principle, it looked like an ordinary chalet.
It was still far from being a Le Corbusier house,
but a closer look reveals certain details which
herald his future style.
In particular, the simplicity of the ornamentation
like these very geometric pine trees.
The apprentice architect had fully taken on board the lesson
about naturalism.
But, above all this first project would set
Charles-Édouard free.
He had found his calling and a real confidence
in his own talent.
"At the age of 17 I was fortunate to meet
"a man free of prejudice who entrusted the construction
"of his house to me.
"I realized then a house was built using materials
"and workers, and it was the plans for it which determine
"whether it is a failure or a success.
"I had a real fear of school education and I was convinced
"of the need to call on my personal judgement."
On the strength of this first experience
Charles-Édouard considered that he was wasting
his time on too academic an education.
He left school without telling his parents,
convinced that he would learn better by himself.
He never goes far enough with architectural training
to recieve a diploma.
He was never a certified architect in his entire life.
Charles-Édouard Jeanneret was a rebel.
He broke the mold.
In 1907 he would read Nietzsche's novel
Thus Spoke Zarathustra, which his teacher, L'Eplattenier,
had given him.
In Zarathustra he greatly identified with the figure
of the Creator, who breaks the tablets of law.
He would then try to do just that, to break from
L'Eplattenier's training and would end up detesting him,
and calling him a liar.
When he was 19 years old he boarded a train
to go to Italy.
His parents were furious, very disappointed in him.
He's supposed to keep up his studies.
Indifferent to his parents recriminations
the young man decided that from then on he would
educate himself through travel.
He wanted to discover the greatest achievements
in the history of architecture, in his search
for perfection.
Charles-Édouard naturally started his quest in Italy
with it's built heritage of inestimable value,
its Roman ruins, its marvelous Renaissance constructions.
He tirelessly drew all these buildings, taking measurements,
scrutinizing them, and examining them in every detail.
In particular, the Duomo in Florence which he exalted.
It's almost impossible to convey
the intensity with which young
Charles-Édouard Jeanneret
responded to certain buildings.
It was like a religious experience to him.
Charles-Édouard Jeanneret did not limit
himself to Italy, he also marvelled at the eastern palaces
of Istanbul.
With an endless thirst for knowledge he would discover
other forms of habitation, particularly in central Europe.
But, it was in Greece that he would have the most
intensely aesthetic experience, finding what came
closest to perfection in Athens: the Acropolis.
For two weeks he goes back and forth to the Acropolis.
At times it's like the most passionate love affair,
at times it's like a battle between him and the building,
and at other moments he feels crushed by it.
He takes in the building from near.
He takes it in from far.
He studies it, but everything penetrates him.
This position of observer, this practice of notation
through writing and sketching led him to break away
from his training and to construct his own world.
And, this world made of sketches, water colors,
and photos would form a sort of well that he would
draw from for the rest of his life.
During his numerous travels across Europe
he put the finishing touches to his training,
working with renowned architects.
In 1909, while working with Perret Brothers in Paris
he discovered a new material, reinforced concrete,
which would later play an essential role.
In the meantime, in 1912 he returned to his hometown
in Switzerland eager to set up on his own.
At 25 and without a degree Charles-Édouard opened
his architect's practice in this house
in the center of town.
On his business cards he wrote Jeanneret,
architect construction of villas and homes in the country.
Among the buildings he worked on at that time
one project above all was important for him.
The house commissioned by his parents:
La Villa Blanche, the White Villa.
Charles-Édouard wanted to impress his mother,
so he built her a mini Parthenon.
Like a Greek temple the house sits majestically
atop a pedestal overlooking the grounds.
A visitor comes upon it by climbing up a winding path
inspired by the one he took up to the Parthenon.
A declaration of love for his mother,
he also totally turned on its head the traditional layout
of an early 20th century home.
In the Villa Blanche he made the center
of the house the music room for his mother.
We could say that Marie Charlotte Amélie Jeanneret-Perret
was the love of Le Corbusier's life.
He constantly looked to her with all his successes,
but also at times when he experienced failure
and disappointments.
We can clearly see that in the Jeanneret's family saga
his brother Albert was meant to be the hero
in this family, which was more focused on music
than on visual arts.
And, he himself was a mere architect, so he would spend
his life for nearly 53 years writing to his mother
to tell her he was the good son.
To show his mother that from then on
he deserved her full attention, that he was a great
architect, he built her an inordinately grand house.
It's elegant, it has terraces, it has reception rooms
for social events.
Its got a kitchen big enough for people who entertain
and have lots of people coming for dinner.
They don't give dinner parties, their idea of a meal
was the four family members together.
They are frugal people.
They live modestly, and suddenly they're spending
their life savings on a very grand house.
This house became a poisoned chalice.
His parents had to go into debt to pay for such
a grand project, too much debt.
The house bankrupts them.
By 1919 they had to sell the house, and they had
to sell the house at a substantial loss.
He has a tremendous sense of culpability.
He knows that his mother and father have been
hard working people without a franc to spare
and yet he has caused them to lose most of their
modest fortune.
Even before his parents experienced
these difficulties Charles-Édouard found that his hometown
was too small a stage for him to show his mother
the extent of his talent since commissions were rare,
only three houses in five years.
He got by doing small jobs and ended up loathing
his hometown which restricted his great ambition.
"La Chaux-de-Fonds is a blot on the landscape.
"I hate this town, the people too.
"I can do nothing but be dragged down here.
"There is little work, they don't undertake major
"projects in this town.
"I have nothing, and will have nothing to do this year.
"My ambition, my vanity, and my pride are pushing me
"towards great works."
Having just turned 30 Charles-Édouard
decided that there was only one place for him to be
recognized as a great artist: Paris,
which was the cultural capital of Europe at that time.
For a young man for a provincial town like
La Chaux-de-Fonds, seducing and conquering Paris
was a massive undertaking, but that is what Jeanneret
was going to try to do.
Charles-Édouard did not arrive in Paris
at the best time, it was 1917 in the middle of the World War
and the capital was subjected to German bombings,
particularly by super heavy mortar Big Bertha.
He was fascinated with the experience of going
into the cave seeking shelter,
but then he would leave the shelters
and feel a palpable excitement from explosions
from fire, from people running.
It's as if he didn't quite fathom the risk
or the pain of death, he's more excited by all the motion.
Charles-Édouard watched history playing
out before his eyes and wanted to be part of it,
to leave his mark on the era.
During the post war period of reconstruction
he opened his architect's practice, but it didn't take off.
He was a nobody from the provinces, newly arrived
from Switzerland.
To get closer to the fashionable artistic circles
he spent time in the cabarets of Montmartre,
started to paint, and like all Bohemian artists
finished his nights in Parisian brothels
drawing prostitutes.
He was not convinced by his own work,
that was not how he was going to make his mark.
"My efforts are deformed, disappointing.
"My women have a bestial, crude, rutting wantoness."
Unemployed, impoverished, depressed
Charles-Édouard was to have an encounter that
would change everything.
Friendship at first site with Amédée Ozenfant,
a trendsetting society painter who opened doors for him.
He would introduce him to modern painting.
This is what Charles-Édouard Jeanneret painted
in 1919, adopting what was called a purist style.
Painting was to play an important role in his life
and strongly influence his architecture.
But in the meantime, this new friend would, above all,
enable Charles-Édouard to enter the very closed circle
of the Parisian artistic avant-garde.
He discovered an environment beyond the business
environment of Swiss immigrants in Paris, with whom
he spent a lot of time, an environment
that would stimulate him.
Ozenfant would introduce him to patrons, collectors,
intellectuals, other painters and so take the role
of a sort of agent or impresario in Charles-Édouard's
conquest of Paris.
Together they created an avant-garde magazine
L'esprit Nouveau, which covered all forms of art.
This magazine became a reference point within the art
world, and attracted great names such as Aragon,
Picabia, and Fernand Leger.
The most notable articles were those dedicated
to architecture.
They were signed by an unknown, Le Corbusier.
Le Corbusier, a curious character.
Round black shell glasses, severe suit and bow tie,
a dress code that would never change.
Le Corbusier was born, he was the character
that Charles-Édouard created for himself in 1920,
his double.
From them on he spoke of himself in the third person
as here in a letter to his mother.
"Le Corbusier is a pseudonym.
"Le Corbusier does architecture alone.
"He is an entity released from the burden of flesh.
"Charles-Édouard Jeanneret is a man of flesh and blood,
"who has experienced all the radiant and desperate
"adventures of a rather turbulent life."
Le Corbusier was extremely aware of his appearance.
When we look at this photograph of him we're aware
that he constructed himself, just as he
constructed buildings.
He also was very deliberate in his choice of eyeglasses
and it's because of his preference for perfectly round ones
that many architects since him
have been wearing the same:
I.M. Pei, Philip Johnson, and so on.
In 1922, Le Corbusier won the heart
of a young woman, Yvonne Gallis, a model who would
give up her career to marry him.
Yvonne, a housewife, would remain in the architect's
shadow for the rest of her life.
They had no children.
Le Corbusier felt that there was no room for them
with his career.
At this time Le Corbusier was no longer just writing
for magazines, but wrote 34 architectural works.
His self taught path gave him total freedom
vis-a-vie the dominant classical ways of thinking.
In this way he established himself as one of the great
theoreticians of modern architecture.
At the start of the 1920s what was so impressive was
the breadth of activities of a man who was just
in his early 30s.
He was at one and the same time an essayist, an editor,
painter, architect, urbanist, lecturer.
So, he was someone who drew on an extraordinary range
of talents and he excelled in all these fields to become
a central figure in Parisian life.
In the 1920s Le Corbusier was encouraged
by a radical change in society's way of thinking.
He was fascinated by the modernity of liners, planes, cars.
He belived in the superiority of new techniques,
the progress being made thanks to machines.
In his landmark work, Vers Une Architecture
he demonstrated that it was necessary to adapt
housing to these profound changes.
So, he invented a revolutionary concept,
the machine for living.
This formula would influence several generations
of architects.
Le Corbusier used a lot of iconography and photomontage
to try and convince others that architecture needed
to be developed away from the 19th century
towards a modern architecture.
And, since he has a great sense of publicity before
this time he didn't hesitate to make montages that
were almost surrealist, by superimposing a car over
the Parthenon, for example.
But, it was motivated by a desire to educate,
to say, "What is it about Parthenon that seduces
"and moves us?"
He applied the notion of a standard to the Parthenon.
He said that a standard is an object that has reached
an extraordinary level of refinement, because it has been
mass produced and is recognized by everyone
and everyone can identify with the symbolism
of this object.
For Le Corbusier the best example of an object
approaching perfection was the Ford T,
mass produced in millions in the United States.
The same model for all, universal and democratic.
This principle must now be applied to housing.
Le Corbusier worked to develop standardized functional
and reproducible housing,
like this individual house or the Immeuble Villas,
apartments stacked high with their private garden.
The problem was that in France at the start of the
20th century architecture was still very academic,
lacking audacity.
The house mansion style inhertited from the 18th century
largely dominated.
But, what most shocked the architect was how dirty
the city was.
Behind the beautiful facades of the bourgeois buildings
on the grand boulevards, the narrow streets
didn't let in any light.
The buildings were unsanitary, the inhabitants sometimes
living in deplorably unhygienic conditions.
"There has been a total collapse.
"Cities have become inhumane, hostile towards men
"and dangerous for their physical and moral health,
"but here we have town planning."
Le Corbusier, then a young man in his 30s
proposed a very radical solution, an electroshock
that would really get the ink flowing.
He wanted to flatten a part of the center of Paris
to build the Plan Voisin there, 18 sky scrapers
each 200 meters tall.
The equivalent of Tour Mountparnasse.
An immense grid of buildings that would house more
than three million inhabitants.
It would be interspersed with roads 100 to 120
meters wide for cars to flow through.
The area that he wanted to clear contained the historic
ward of Le Marais.
It stretched from the Place de la République to
Rue de Rivoli, and up to Saint Lazare station.
For Le Corbusier the old town had its day and it had to
make way for something new.
In Le Corbusier's generation every architect agreed
on the fact that the towns of the past had to be radically
transformed, destroyed even.
They were unhealthy towns, labyrinthine cities.
Modern cities had to be completely new.
"Henceforth, the fundamental principle
"of this architectural and social revolution can be
"distilled into the three elements that since the beginning
"of time have conditioned the life of men:
"sun, space, trees.
"The major reform that will take place in the function
"of architecture is founded on these three factors."
This was the hygienist era, so the old town
was considered to be polluted.
The sun didn't penetrate, the children
suffered from rickets.
The vision of the old town was wholly negative.
The straight line was the way man took,
and the line in the old fashioned quarters,
the zig zag line was the asses way.
So, our heritage was destroyed and just the churces left
because it was thought they couldn't be destroyed
and the idea put forward was for a new city
made up of towers.
In constructing the tall towers he had
to improve the quality of life of every inhabitant.
With this vertical architecture he could free up
space on the ground and in so doing reversed
the relationship between the buildings and green spaces.
"Sports fields, a stadium, a swimming pool,
"tennis courts, basketball courts,
"then paths for pedestrians.
"Pedestrians have fast tracks that pass under the houses,
"pathways for walking.
"Then, parks planted around the paths,
"around stadiums, around tennis courts
"and football pitches.
"And so, the city is covered in greenery.
"It is a green city constructed of 12% build up space
"and 88% park land."
He didn't disregard nature, he worshipped nature.
He gave people a modern building, but its so that they
can look at the sky, they can contemplate the universe,
they can think about those values.
The practical aspect of the Plan Voisin was, of course,
to free up space on the ground to allow nature to penetrate
the city.
You can only increase the density in two ways,
either by constructing horizontally but very densely,
or by building upwards, but with the compensation
of being able to create parks and gardens on the ground.
The idea of contructing towers in Paris and developing
the natural elements is where we're at today.
Today we're thinking that it would be interesting
to construct towers in Paris and to create green spaces
on rooftops and as much park land as possible.
So essentially, maybe there is this sort of return,
of course, we now no longer think of eradicating
our heritage, starting with a clean slate.
But, nonetheless, some of these objectives
could be acceptable today.
Of course, in 1925 the popular press
was outraged and it provoked a national debate.
The Plan Voisin set in place a misunderstanding
that was to continue for the long term.
One part of the public saw Le Corbusier as someone
who wanted to concrete over urban landscapes,
another saw him as inspirational in dealing with
the challenges of housing.
Whichever way it was an incredible publicity coup,
Le Corbusier's career was about to take off.
He would achieve success, but not with towers.
In the 1920s Le Corbusier constructed a dozen individual
villas for friends and rich clients.
Like this one in Paris in the 14th Arrondissement,
which he constructed for his friend the painter
Amédée Ozenfant, with a huge glass wall in his studio.
That same year in Boulogne Billancourt
the Miestchaninoff villa for another painter.
This time the studio is on the ground floor.
In 1925 he created the La Roche Villa for a rich banker
who collected modern art,
with an immense room to display his paintings.
In 1927 he completed the imposing Stein de Monzie Villa.
It's hard to image that all these houses were constructed
almost 90 years ago.
The best known among them has become an icon:
the Savoye Villa.
Today, this construction is considered to be one of the five
major works in the history of 20th century architecture.
Ever since it was constructed it has dazzled through
its purity and harmony.
Its form was inspired by Le Corbusier's purist paintings.
Why is Villa Savoye beautiful?
Because it uses simple shapes.
Le Corbusier wrote that simple shapes are beautiful
because we can read them easily.
The cube, the sphere, the triangle, the pyramid,
it has an obviousness about it.
Stilts, ribbon windows, openings in the walls,
open roof terrace, what made it possible for Le Corbusier
to design a house with such freedom was a material
little used at that time, reinforced concrete.
Since 1914, Le Corbusier had envisioned using a structure
made from reinforced concrete to allow him total freedom
in constructing what he wanted, how he wanted.
As it was made of simple posts with superimposed floors,
supporting walls which obstructed the space could be
done away with.
Le Corbusier thus set down the principles
of modern architecture.
Essentially, a construction is erected on the ground.
Basically, you have posts and then some slabs,
possibly supported by beams,
but they are adjoining elements
placed one on top of another.
This is fundamentally different to previous constructions.
They also have foundations, of course, but you had to build
walls which supported the flooring.
But, we can see that essentially these walls obscure
whereas Le Corbusier's walls offer transparency.
It makes a huge difference.
In Le Corbusier's buildings you can enclose the space
wherever you want to, you can add a partition wall
or a facade here and have a balcony there.
Whereas here in the previous case the structure itself
encloses the space and so you have no freedom.
Everything that he did and everything they did at the time
was a liberation in architecture.
In the mid 1920s a new type of freeform
architecture was born.
It was known as Functionalism, meaning that it adapted
to its inhabitant's way of life.
The Villa Savoye was the emblem of this with its system
of stilts the house floats over the ground and allows,
for example, the garden to continue underneath the villa
creating a space where children can play ball.
Inside, Le Corbusier could freely organize the space
according to however the owner wanted to use the house.
As there were no supporting walls, thanks to the concrete
pillars, the living room could run alongside
an open air terrace.
The architect could make the windows whatever size
and shape he wanted.
He could also highlight the ever-present landscape.
For Le Corbusier architecture was something you lived
and even, as he said, "something you walked".
The theme of architectural promenades that he explored
was linked to his experiences of the countryside.
Travelling within a house as you travel along a mountain
path, viewing the peaks, looking down towards the valleys,
this three dimensional spatial and kinetic experience.
In his quest for perfection Le Corbusier
also imagined the furniture of his purist villas.
Together with Charlotte Perriand he would create
furniture that he named with his initials, L.C.
for Le Corbusier, followed by a number.
This is the famous chaise lounge, the L.C. four
that became a design icon,
or the L.C. two arm chair that everyone now calls
Le Corbusier arm chair.
Designed almost half a century ago this furniture
embodies modernity like little else.
Timeless, they have since been copied many times.
With this architectural totality Le Corbusier secured
a place for himself in the history of art.
In the course of the 1920s Le Corbusier goes from being
an unknown to being one of the best know architects
in the world.
While Le Corbusier was a revered architect
the world over there was still one person who resisted him,
whom he was not yet close to impressing:
Marie Jeanneret, his mother.
Since the death of her husband she lived alone on the edge
of Lake Geneva.
Her son built her a house more suited to her new life.
It was more modest than the White Villa that he had
constructed years before, and that had ruined his parents.
Le Corbusier applied all his architectural know-how to it.
With it's small surface of 64 square meters he rationalized
the space.
It was a real machine for living, very functional
and agreeable.
With ribbon windows it magnified the beauty
of the view of Lake Geneva.
But, Marie Jeanneret, dissatisfied, focused on the small
problem she encountered in this house.
She is very upset because the roof leaks.
She writes to him and complains.
It becomes the dominating issue.
He blames the engineer.
He writes new plans for the engineer.
The roof continues to leak.
He writes to his mother and says,
"If you bothered to pay attention to the world around you,
"you would know that I have become one of
"the most famous architects in the world.
"I have clients here and there and so on."
And, she basically writes back and says, "Very good,
"my roof is still leaking."
It's also really symbolic of their relationship.
He never can really get things right for her.
Le Corbusier did not see himself as a simple
builder of houses, his ambition went far beyond that.
He wanted to construct entire towns, to change lives
through architecture.
From this point on he persued his obsessive goal
to build the Radiant City, his ideal city.
The start of which had been the Plan Viosin in Paris.
If the France of the Third Republic wasn't interested
he would try abroad with bolder emerging powers.
Le Corbusier roamed the planet to try to convince others.
First, in America where in New York the buildings
did not impress him.
Having just arrived he stated brashly to the press,
"The skyscrapers are not big enough."
Welcoming him like a star the most prestigious
universities fought over him for conferences
on the city of the future, which insighted eager curiosity.
After the lecture the women are so in love with him
and with his power that they flock to the drawings
that he's made on big rolls of paper on the wall
and they tear little pieces of the paper
to keep with them as mementos,
like talisman for ever after of the experience
of seeing this passionate, gigantic man
speaking to them about building.
During his travels Le Corbusier would
seduce one of the greatest celebrities of that time,
Josephine Baker.
They met in 1929 on a trans-Atlantic crossing.
She would pose for him in the nude
in his state room on the boat.
He would do drawings of her.
Josephine Baker said of Le Corbusier,
She recognized in him a man of enormous heart.
From then on Le Corbusier was a member
of the elite, frequenting the world's greats.
His clients were very rich.
Yet, he did not divert from his course.
He turned to developing countries,
particularly Latin America where he hoped to construct
a new town.
He was convinced that was where there was the greatest
need, where he would be able to accomplish his true mission
guided by a form of humanism.
In Rio de Janeiro, Le Corbusier spent a long time filming
the people of the Favelas with his personal camera.
He had a real empathy for the poor and disadvantaged.
He wanted to build for them more than for his rich
art enthusiast clients.
"My duty, my goal is to try and take people
"out of unhappiness, out of catastrophe to bring them
"into happiness, daily joy, harmony.
"A home should be the backdrop to life,
"the machine for happiness."
In terms of Le Corbusier's position towards the world
and his contemporaries there was a strong messianic
component.
He identified greatly with the prophets of different
religions and this prophetic, messianic dimension
was strong.
He was a bearer of a message that could save humanity.
To fulfill his almost divine mission the
architect's projects became more and more crazy.
This is what he devised for Algiers in 1931,
a building 10 kilometers long that ran along the coastline
and roof of which was a motorway.
He named it Project Obus because it had to annihilate
every receieved idea.
But, these projects did not get past the drawing board.
Only the second World War offered him new hope.
The modern architects of Le Corbusier's generation
were impatient for war to break out in the 1930s.
They were preparing for it.
His generation thought that the destruction of cities
was a positive thing.
And so, he along with many others actually welcomed
the bombs falling on the cities.
They thought that the work that democracy would not
allow them to do, the destruction of these cities
would be carried out by the bombers.
In 1945, the bombers had done their work.
It was time for reconstruction to begin.
Le Corbusier was not to realize his dream of reconstructing
an entire town, but in 1946 the Ministry of Public
Reconstruction did engage him to work on an ambitious
social housing program.
And, in France we're in the final stages
of construction of a housing block on stilts that will give
part of Marseille an unusual look of integral modernism.
It is the first time that the great architect Le Corbusier
realizes his dream of rational housing in France.
Le Corbusier in Marseille, this may be the foundation stone
for the city of the future.
Le Corbusier was in his 60s when he was
finally able to build his Radiant City.
He wanted to make it the distillation of the principles
that had guided his vision of an Utopian city for
the last twenty years.
His goal was to give happiness through his architecture
to the thousands of inhabitants of this social housing.
Using reinforced concrete he could build on stilts
so that everyone would benefit from an open view
and from the light.
His big idea was to bring the town into the building.
And indeed, the inhabitants of the Radiant City
benefitted from everything on site that you could find
in a city center: shops, a post office, a school,
a restaurant, offices, and even to welcome passing friends
a hotel.
On the huge roof terrace he constructed a vast leisure area.
But, what was of prime importance for the architect
was the quality of the housing.
He wanted to offer the inhabitants what, at that time
in the immediate post war period, was still reserved
for the rich: a comfortable way of living.
For Le Corbusier luxury was achieved by fitting the
apartments out in a modern style, but above all
through the organization of space and light.
The apartments were cleverly organized as duplexes.
Each room had large window letting in lots of light
and breathtaking views.
He realizes the most magnificent creation,
a building where people in a low financial bracket,
this is important to remember, have a chance
to look in one direction at the sea, and in another
direction at the mountains from every apartment,
because they're duplex apartments where above
they look one way, below they look the other way
and they interlock.
The design inside is genius, with places for
milk to be left, with comfortable kitchens and so on.
The nursery on the roof is pure joy.
Le Corbusier had made a major statement.
At the start of the 1950s people rushed to discover
his Utopian building.
Even the great Pablo Picasso came to admire his masterpiece.
With the inauguration of the Radiant City Le Corbusier,
who had already taken on French nationality,
became a significant figure in France's heritage.
The immobile ocean liner contains 347
apartments, many of which are already occupied.
They are all equipped with the most modern comforts.
On the terrace its creator, the architect Le Corbusier
recieves the Legion of Honor decoration of Commander
from Mister Claudius-Petit.
The Radiant City is born.
Le Corbusier was satisfied.
He wrote to his mother the following day.
"Big day yesterday, it was very beautiful.
"The reason: the house is one of the great works
"of architecture of any era and people are living inside
"as in a mirage.
"The kids have already understood this future life
"devoted to happiness, warmth, and heart."
His mother died in 1960 at the age of 99.
A few years earlier he had paid true homage to her
by constructing this chapel at Ronchomp,
one of his greatest works, one of his most personal.
A remarkable building, groundbreaking in its visual shapes.
This concrete construction was like a poem,
a poem to his mother.
He inscribed her name on many of the windows:
Marie.
Ronchomp is a church in honor of the virgin, Marie.
I cannot help but seeing it
as a reference to his mother,
the obsession of his life.
It was a sort of anthology of Le Corbusier's career,
just as the White Villa had been during the first
part of his life.
Many of Le Corbusier's projects were like that,
they were autobiographical documents.
In 1952, the great architect was at the peak
of his career, yet he was leaning more and more
towards a frugal lifestyle, even aestheticism.
He went to the shores of the Mediterranean
near to Roquebrune to construct a simple cabin
where he would spend all his free time.
A small closed world of 16 square meters with just
the bare essentials, spartan in its comforts.
Only his observation of the surrounding nature
seemed to matter.
I've noticed the great creators have a fascination
for the universe of the cabin, this little closed world.
It may have something to do with the Diogenes barrel
or Plato's cave.
In any case, this idea that you can associate genius
with the idea of the cabin.
Robert, a young neighbor, a child at the time
well remembers the very simple old man who spent
all his summers at his cabin.
That's me on Le Corbusier's lap, next to Le Corbusier
Yvonne, his wife and in the background you can see
my father in a vest.
So, that's a little bit of the family scene where
Le Corbusier looks very relaxed.
He's in a place of friendship, peace, and tranquility.
Le Corbusier, who had always observed
nature to inspire his architecture filmed it a lot
with his small camera.
The elderly architect's lessons on nature and the little
secrets he revealed about the nature of his creations
made a deep impression on Robert.
I brought him a petal from the flower of the banana tree
which was on the ground, a large ochre red, brick red petal.
Le Corbusier took out his pen knife and opened it up.
The petal was curved like this and he said to me
this is the shape of the roof of Romchomp.
All his discussions were along these sorts of lines.
On the 27th of August 1965 the elderly man
went bathing outside his cabin just as he did every day.
He would never return.
Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, known as Le Corbusier,
died at the age of 77.