Le Corbusier fue, además de un gran arquitecto y pintor, un eminente teórico de la arquitectura. Escribió varios libros, en los que ejemplificaba sus ideas mediante proyectos propios (a la manera clásica como lo hizo en su momento, por ejemplo, Andrea Palladio en I Quattro Libri dell'Architettura).[12]​ Tuvo muy claro que, aparte de saber crear buenos edificios era necesario saber explicarlos y transmitirlos al resto de los profesionales y a los estudiantes, y ejerció con gran maestría la tarea de publicitar su propia obra.

Como visionario, Le Corbusier veía la posibilidad de cambiar el mundo a través de la arquitectura. Si bien nunca se alió con un grupo político en particular, su postura estaba más cerca de una postura liberal (algunos lo han descrito como un socialista, adjetivo que probablemente se queda corto para caracterizar sus actividades), y como tal, veía todo proceso de diseño con fines utópicos. Esta actitud le permitió contribuir de una forma significativa a la historia de la arquitectura.

The machine à habiter

Le Corbusier is known for his definition of housing as La machine à habiter (the machine for living literally translated). With this, Le Corbusier emphasized not only the functional component of the home, but also that this functionality must be intended for living, the latter being understood from a metaphysical point of view. Le Corbusier believed that the objective of architecture is to generate beauty (his phrase is also very well known: "Architecture is the wise, correct and magnificent play of volumes gathered under light"), and that this should have an impact on the way of life of the occupants of the buildings themselves.

Regarding the criterion of "living machine", Le Corbusier was dazzled by the then new machines: especially automobiles and airplanes, considering those that had practical and functional designs as a model for an architecture whose beauty was based on practicality and functionality; rationalism.

The first test of serial construction was formulated in the Citrohan houses project.

In this sense, we must mention his collaboration with the engineer André Missenard, specialized in the hygrothermal environment, in the years 1937 to 1957, a collaboration that influenced the ideas on ways to air-condition architecture. He also collaborated with Iannis Xenakis, a Greek engineer also dedicated to the air conditioning of buildings (although he is better known as a musical composer).[14]

L'Esprit Nouveau

In order to disseminate his ideas on architecture and painting, Le Corbusier founded in 1920, together with Amédée Ozenfant and Paul Dermée), an artistic magazine that gained great international resonance: L'Esprit Nouveau (The New Spirit; although in French the word esprit usually also has the meaning of consciousness, reason, intelligence) whose first issue dates from October 15, 1920 and the last one in 1925.

Towards an architecture

In 1923 Le Corbusier published a compilation of articles from the magazine L'Esprit Nouveau (1920-1925) in his book Towards an architecture.[2]​.

The five points of a new architecture

In 1927[15] Le Corbusier presented a handwritten document in which he systematically presented his architectural ideas: the so-called "five points of a new architecture" represented an important conceptual innovation for the time, taking advantage of new construction technologies, derived especially from the use of reinforced concrete (until then this material was used in homes and monuments, disguised as sculpted stone with moldings):

And there is one more element that Le Corbusier ponders in the new architectural work, The architectural 'promenade': the building must invite you to walk through it and from that it can be understood in its entirety.

Its architecture turns out to be highly rationalist, refined (with the use of materials without disguising them; note the possible beauty of the refined lines, without ornaments, without superfluous elements) and with an excellent use of light and overall perspectives, giving a sensation of freedom (at least for the movement of the gaze) and ease of movement.

The Modulor

He devised the Modulor, a measurement system based on human proportions, in which each magnitude is related to the previous one by the Golden Number, so that it could serve as a measurement of the parts of architecture. In this way he returned to the ancient ideal of establishing a direct relationship between the proportions of buildings and those of man.

He took as a scale the average French man of that time: 1.75 m tall; and later he added that of the 6-foot (1.8288 m) British police officer, which gave the Modulor II. The results of these investigations were published in a book with the same name as Modulor.

Le Corbusier was one of the founding members of the International Congress of Modern Architecture. In 1930 he adopted French nationality. A few years later he made his first trip to the United States.

Le Corbusier became famous as one of the leaders of the so-called International Style, along with Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Walter Gropius and others. He was a highly admired architect in his time and influenced several generations of architects.

Today, Le Corbusier's work and spatial reasoning remain valid both in practice, in teaching, and in the theory of architecture. As one of the key figures of modern architecture, the continuation of the movement has a direct reference in him and in his works. As one of the precursors of brutalism, his later works have served as a basis for architectural currents supported by tectonics (expression of materials and construction systems) and different regionalist approaches.

While for many figures of contemporary architectural thought, modernity is an obsolete movement, and therefore the works and premises of their architecture should not be continued, there is an important group of architects (called neomoderns or simply moderns) who continue to make architecture in the spirit of Le Corbusier.

He introduced the golden ratio in many of his works, for example it can be seen in the module of the Chapel of Notre Dame du Haut.

Le Corbusier has had a very significant influence on a large number of architects around the world. Among his followers are Mario Pani Darqui in Mexico, Oscar Niemeyer in Brazil, Antonio Bonet, Juan Kurchan, Jorge Ferrari Hardoy, Amancio Williams and Clorindo Testa (in his first creative period) in Argentina, the urban planning teachers and theorists Justino Serralta and Carlos Gómez Gavazzo in Uruguay, Francisco Javier Sáenz de Oiza in Spain, Germán Samper Gnecco, Rogelio Salmona and Dicken Castro in Colombia, Shadrach Woods in United States or Emilio Duhart, Roberto Dávila") and Enrique Gebhard in Chile.

On the other hand, in the current trend of sustainable cities, renowned urban planners and specialists on the subject such as Jane Jacobs, Jeff Speck and Brent Toderian agree with the negative effects that urban architecture, and its urban expression, the industrial city, has on the mobility of cities. Because the model separates the three main functions of the city: residence, work and recreation, it induces an increase in the distance that people must travel. Although the average distance of a person's walking trip is 400 meters, any distance greater than this is impractical to travel on foot. In the case of an urbanization based on modern architecture, the citizen must travel a much greater distance than this, which is why they are induced to use a means of motorized transport. For most cases, as there is no public transportation, the first alternative is a private car. To counteract these effects, the sustainable mobility movement studies ways to improve mobility conditions, with Transportation Oriented Development as its banner.

As Daniel Gitalt Miracle, director of MACBA between 1988 and 1994, writes in his text Art a free praxis: «when evaluating him we cannot do without his extensive plastic work, which includes painting, drawing, engraving, sculpture, collage, etc., especially because as he repeated "it is in the practice of the plastic arts where I have found the intellectual lifeblood of my urbanism and my architecture."[22]​.

Already in 1911, when he began his career in architecture, he painted watercolors with intimate themes influenced by Cubism, but it would not be until 1918, when he met Amédée Ozenfant, when his pictorial vocation was reaffirmed. Together they will lay the foundations of purism with manifestos such as “Après le cubisme” and the magazine L’espirit noveau and will participate in exhibitions in galleries such as L’Effort Moderne. In 1925 he broke up with Ozenfant and met one of his great friends, Fernand Léger, with whom they would influence each other especially in the 20s and 30s.[22]​.

His painting continued to evolve, and in the early 1930s, women would become his main theme, as commented in the book Le Corbusier dipinti e disegni: "they will appear with forms vaguely inspired by Léger, in which the sinuosities of their bodies will recall those of still lifes[...] he will represent them in a thousand ways, but always with a Mediterranean, solar, panicked vision, the primal creative source, of generous and expressive forms, a kind of goddess of the earth."[23]​

At the end of that decade he made his first collages. In 1938 the Kunsthaus of Zurich dedicated its first retrospective of plastic work to him.

In the mid-40s he began sculpture with the help of Joseph Savina, who carried out his projects such as Ozon or Ubu in three dimensions. continuous change and movement and masculinity in the face of the feminine aspects of the cosmos.

In the 1950s, one of his mature themes appeared, the hand. The representation of the open hand, marked by his thought "plain main j'ai reçu plain main je donne" ("I have received with full hands, I give with full hands"). The hand is the point of contact between the architect and the world that allows him to give and receive.[22]​

Before his death, he exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in Paris in 1953 and 1962.

After his death, his gallerist and friend Heidi Webber inaugurated the Heidi Webber Museum – Center Le Corbusier in Zurich in 1967.[25]​.

His work has been exhibited in galleries in Madrid, Barcelona, ​​Paris, museums such as the MNCARS,[24]​ the MOMA,[26]​ the MAXXI or the Moderna Museet among many others.

Le Corbusier fue, además de un gran arquitecto y pintor, un eminente teórico de la arquitectura. Escribió varios libros, en los que ejemplificaba sus ideas mediante proyectos propios (a la manera clásica como lo hizo en su momento, por ejemplo, Andrea Palladio en I Quattro Libri dell'Architettura).[12]​ Tuvo muy claro que, aparte de saber crear buenos edificios era necesario saber explicarlos y transmitirlos al resto de los profesionales y a los estudiantes, y ejerció con gran maestría la tarea de publicitar su propia obra.

Como visionario, Le Corbusier veía la posibilidad de cambiar el mundo a través de la arquitectura. Si bien nunca se alió con un grupo político en particular, su postura estaba más cerca de una postura liberal (algunos lo han descrito como un socialista, adjetivo que probablemente se queda corto para caracterizar sus actividades), y como tal, veía todo proceso de diseño con fines utópicos. Esta actitud le permitió contribuir de una forma significativa a la historia de la arquitectura.

The machine à habiter

Le Corbusier is known for his definition of housing as La machine à habiter (the machine for living literally translated). With this, Le Corbusier emphasized not only the functional component of the home, but also that this functionality must be intended for living, the latter being understood from a metaphysical point of view. Le Corbusier believed that the objective of architecture is to generate beauty (his phrase is also very well known: "Architecture is the wise, correct and magnificent play of volumes gathered under light"), and that this should have an impact on the way of life of the occupants of the buildings themselves.

Regarding the criterion of "living machine", Le Corbusier was dazzled by the then new machines: especially automobiles and airplanes, considering those that had practical and functional designs as a model for an architecture whose beauty was based on practicality and functionality; rationalism.

The first test of serial construction was formulated in the Citrohan houses project.

In this sense, we must mention his collaboration with the engineer André Missenard, specialized in the hygrothermal environment, in the years 1937 to 1957, a collaboration that influenced the ideas on ways to air-condition architecture. He also collaborated with Iannis Xenakis, a Greek engineer also dedicated to the air conditioning of buildings (although he is better known as a musical composer).[14]

L'Esprit Nouveau

In order to disseminate his ideas on architecture and painting, Le Corbusier founded in 1920, together with Amédée Ozenfant and Paul Dermée), an artistic magazine that gained great international resonance: L'Esprit Nouveau (The New Spirit; although in French the word esprit usually also has the meaning of consciousness, reason, intelligence) whose first issue dates from October 15, 1920 and the last one in 1925.

Towards an architecture

In 1923 Le Corbusier published a compilation of articles from the magazine L'Esprit Nouveau (1920-1925) in his book Towards an architecture.[2]​.

The five points of a new architecture

In 1927[15] Le Corbusier presented a handwritten document in which he systematically presented his architectural ideas: the so-called "five points of a new architecture" represented an important conceptual innovation for the time, taking advantage of new construction technologies, derived especially from the use of reinforced concrete (until then this material was used in homes and monuments, disguised as sculpted stone with moldings):

And there is one more element that Le Corbusier ponders in the new architectural work, The architectural 'promenade': the building must invite you to walk through it and from that it can be understood in its entirety.

Its architecture turns out to be highly rationalist, refined (with the use of materials without disguising them; note the possible beauty of the refined lines, without ornaments, without superfluous elements) and with an excellent use of light and overall perspectives, giving a sensation of freedom (at least for the movement of the gaze) and ease of movement.

The Modulor

He devised the Modulor, a measurement system based on human proportions, in which each magnitude is related to the previous one by the Golden Number, so that it could serve as a measurement of the parts of architecture. In this way he returned to the ancient ideal of establishing a direct relationship between the proportions of buildings and those of man.

He took as a scale the average French man of that time: 1.75 m tall; and later he added that of the 6-foot (1.8288 m) British police officer, which gave the Modulor II. The results of these investigations were published in a book with the same name as Modulor.

Le Corbusier was one of the founding members of the International Congress of Modern Architecture. In 1930 he adopted French nationality. A few years later he made his first trip to the United States.

Le Corbusier became famous as one of the leaders of the so-called International Style, along with Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Walter Gropius and others. He was a highly admired architect in his time and influenced several generations of architects.

Today, Le Corbusier's work and spatial reasoning remain valid both in practice, in teaching, and in the theory of architecture. As one of the key figures of modern architecture, the continuation of the movement has a direct reference in him and in his works. As one of the precursors of brutalism, his later works have served as a basis for architectural currents supported by tectonics (expression of materials and construction systems) and different regionalist approaches.

While for many figures of contemporary architectural thought, modernity is an obsolete movement, and therefore the works and premises of their architecture should not be continued, there is an important group of architects (called neomoderns or simply moderns) who continue to make architecture in the spirit of Le Corbusier.

He introduced the golden ratio in many of his works, for example it can be seen in the module of the Chapel of Notre Dame du Haut.

Le Corbusier has had a very significant influence on a large number of architects around the world. Among his followers are Mario Pani Darqui in Mexico, Oscar Niemeyer in Brazil, Antonio Bonet, Juan Kurchan, Jorge Ferrari Hardoy, Amancio Williams and Clorindo Testa (in his first creative period) in Argentina, the urban planning teachers and theorists Justino Serralta and Carlos Gómez Gavazzo in Uruguay, Francisco Javier Sáenz de Oiza in Spain, Germán Samper Gnecco, Rogelio Salmona and Dicken Castro in Colombia, Shadrach Woods in United States or Emilio Duhart, Roberto Dávila") and Enrique Gebhard in Chile.

On the other hand, in the current trend of sustainable cities, renowned urban planners and specialists on the subject such as Jane Jacobs, Jeff Speck and Brent Toderian agree with the negative effects that urban architecture, and its urban expression, the industrial city, has on the mobility of cities. Because the model separates the three main functions of the city: residence, work and recreation, it induces an increase in the distance that people must travel. Although the average distance of a person's walking trip is 400 meters, any distance greater than this is impractical to travel on foot. In the case of an urbanization based on modern architecture, the citizen must travel a much greater distance than this, which is why they are induced to use a means of motorized transport. For most cases, as there is no public transportation, the first alternative is a private car. To counteract these effects, the sustainable mobility movement studies ways to improve mobility conditions, with Transportation Oriented Development as its banner.

As Daniel Gitalt Miracle, director of MACBA between 1988 and 1994, writes in his text Art a free praxis: «when evaluating him we cannot do without his extensive plastic work, which includes painting, drawing, engraving, sculpture, collage, etc., especially because as he repeated "it is in the practice of the plastic arts where I have found the intellectual lifeblood of my urbanism and my architecture."[22]​.

Already in 1911, when he began his career in architecture, he painted watercolors with intimate themes influenced by Cubism, but it would not be until 1918, when he met Amédée Ozenfant, when his pictorial vocation was reaffirmed. Together they will lay the foundations of purism with manifestos such as “Après le cubisme” and the magazine L’espirit noveau and will participate in exhibitions in galleries such as L’Effort Moderne. In 1925 he broke up with Ozenfant and met one of his great friends, Fernand Léger, with whom they would influence each other especially in the 20s and 30s.[22]​.

His painting continued to evolve, and in the early 1930s, women would become his main theme, as commented in the book Le Corbusier dipinti e disegni: "they will appear with forms vaguely inspired by Léger, in which the sinuosities of their bodies will recall those of still lifes[...] he will represent them in a thousand ways, but always with a Mediterranean, solar, panicked vision, the primal creative source, of generous and expressive forms, a kind of goddess of the earth."[23]​

At the end of that decade he made his first collages. In 1938 the Kunsthaus of Zurich dedicated its first retrospective of plastic work to him.

In the mid-40s he began sculpture with the help of Joseph Savina, who carried out his projects such as Ozon or Ubu in three dimensions. continuous change and movement and masculinity in the face of the feminine aspects of the cosmos.

In the 1950s, one of his mature themes appeared, the hand. The representation of the open hand, marked by his thought "plain main j'ai reçu plain main je donne" ("I have received with full hands, I give with full hands"). The hand is the point of contact between the architect and the world that allows him to give and receive.[22]​

Before his death, he exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in Paris in 1953 and 1962.

After his death, his gallerist and friend Heidi Webber inaugurated the Heidi Webber Museum – Center Le Corbusier in Zurich in 1967.[25]​.

His work has been exhibited in galleries in Madrid, Barcelona, ​​Paris, museums such as the MNCARS,[24]​ the MOMA,[26]​ the MAXXI or the Moderna Museet among many others.