Le Corbusier le Grand

At the end of August 1965, a man drowned off the beach of Roquebrune. He was none less than Le Corbusier, one of the most influential and controversial architects of the century. Born in 1887, he worked at the Behrens firm, was associated to his cousin Jeanneret, and worked at La Chaux-de-Fonds, his native town, then in Paris where he built apartments and villas and the pavilion of the Esprit nouveau at the World Expo in 1925 before becoming a world figure after World War II. He built the habitat unit in Marseille as well as in Berlin, the Phillips pavilion at Expo 58 in Brussels, government buildings in Pendjab at Chandigarh. Throughout his life he doubled his building activity with a theoretical side (the Charter of Athens, the Modulor), as well as with important written works (letters and diaries) and drawings. This large volume explores a real continent, in depth, through a very rich iconography (that requires very good eyesight).

• Le Corbusier le Grand, by Jean-Louis Cohen, Phaidon, 848 p., €45.