Le Corbusier was born Charles-Edouard Jeanneret-Gris in Switzerland on October 6, 1887. In 1917, he moved to Paris and assumed the pseudonym Le Corbusier. In his architecture, he chiefly built with steel and reinforced concrete and worked with elemental geometric forms. His designs were inspired by the automobile, and celebrated modern materials and technologies. Le Corbusier pioneered modernism in architecture and laid the foundation for what became the Bauhaus Movement, or the International Style.

TheoriesIn his 1923 book Vers une architecture, Le Corbusier described "5 points of architecture" that became the guiding principles for many of his designs, most especially Villa Savoye.

1. Freestanding support pillars2. Open floor plan independent from the supports3. Vertical facade that is free from the supports4. Long horizontal sliding windows5. Roof gardens

Buildings and WorksThe earlier buildings by Le Corbusier were smooth, white concrete and glass structures elevated above the ground. He called these works "pure prisms." In the late 1940s, Le Corbusier turned to a style known as "New Brutalism," which used rough, heavy forms of stone, concrete, stucco, and glass.

Chapel of Notre-Dame-du-Haut, in Ronchamp, France (1954) Petit Confort Lounge Chair

The same modernist ideas found in Le Corbusier's architecture were also expressed in his designs for simple, streamlined furniture. Imitations of Le Corbusier's chrome-plated tubular steel chairs are still made today.

1927-1928: Palace for the League of Nations, Geneva

1928-1931: Villa Savoye, Poissy, France

1931-1932: Swiss Building, Cité Universitaire, Paris

1952: The Secretariat at the United Nations Headquarters, New York

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe(1886-1969) is regarded as one of the leading pioneers of Modern Architecture. Believing that less is more, Mies van der Rohe designed rational, minimalist skyscrapers that set the standard for modernist design. The German born American architect also served as the last director of the famous Bauhaus school. Mies used "modern" materials – industrial steel and glass – to create the "bones" of interiors, while emphasizing open spaces and simplicity.

Buildings and Works

Seagram Building Lake Shore Drive Towers, Chicago

Barcelona chair and Lounge Chair

Farnsworth House in Plano, Illinois

IIT College of Architecture

Adolf Loos (December 10, 1870-August 23, 1933) was one of the most influential European architects of the late 19th century and is often noted for his literary discourse that foreshadowed the foundations of the entire modernist movement. Adolf Loos’s minimalist attitudes are reflected in the works of Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, and many other modernists and led to a fundamental shift in the way architects perceived ornamentation.

Theories

Through his writings, Loos desired to establish an intelligent method for designing buildings supported by pragmatic reasoning. Loos believed that reason should determine the way we build, and he opposed the decorative Art Nouveau movement. As a result, his buildings were often composed of pure forms and were justified by their economic practicality and utilitarian qualities. His theories on

ornamentation were first revealed in an essay entitled Ornament and Crime in which he states “The urge to ornament oneself and everything within reach is the ancestor of pictorial art. It is the baby talk of painting…the evolution of culture marches with the elimination of ornament from useful objects.”

Buildings and Works

Goldman & Salatsch Building

Villa Müller, Prague, Czech Republic

Steiner House, Vienna, Austria

Frank Lloyd Wright was born on June 8, 1867, in Richland Center, Wisconsin. He died April 9, 1959. At 91 year old, Frank Lloyd Wright has designed more than 1,100 buildings. Nearly one third of them were designed during his last decade.

After college, he became chief assistant to architect Louis Sullivan. Sullivan, who rejected ornate European styles in favor of a cleaner aesthetic summed up by his maxim "form follows function," had a profound influence on Wright, who would eventually carry to completion Sullivan's dream of defining a uniquely American style of architecture. Wright then founded his own firm and developed a style known as the Prairie school, which strove for an "organic architecture" in designs for homes and commercial buildings. Wright was also developed the concept of the Usonian home, his unique vision for urban planning in the United States.

Buildings and Works

The Fallingwater, Mill Run, Pennsylvania (1935)

William H. Winslow House

Frank Lloyd Wright’s home,Wisconsin

Johnson Wax Headquarters

Charles L. Manson House, Ohio

Bachman Wilson House

In 1943, Wright began a project that consumed the last 16 years of his life—designing the Guggenheim Museum of modern and contemporary art in New York City