Le Corbusier (1887-1965), a Swiss architect, city planner, and painter who practiced in France, was one of the most influential architects of the 20th century.

Le Corbusier, the pseudonym for Charles Édouard Jeanneret-Gris, was born on October 6, 1887, at La-Chaux-de-Fonds, where he attended the School of Fine Art until the age of 18 and was then apprenticed to an engraver. He studied architecture in Vienna with Josef Hoffmann (1908), in Paris with Auguste Perret (1908-1909), and in Berlin with Peter Behrens (1910-1911). In 1911 Le Corbusier traveled in the Balkans, Greece, Asia Minor, and Italy. The Acropolis in Athens and the sculpture of the 5th century B.C. by Phidias on the Parthenon made a great impression on him, as did Michelangelo's contributions to St. Peter's in Rome.

In 1904 Le Corbusier designed and built a small house at La-Chaux-de-Fonds, a building so picturesque that it would have fitted into the 18th-century...