Largest exhibition architect opens in Liverpool

The largest ever exhibition of work by legendary 20th century architect Le Corbusier whose last major work was designing the city of Chandigarh opens in Liverpool today.

The largest ever exhibition of work by legendary 20th century architect Le Corbusier whose last major work was designing the city of Chandigarh opens in Liverpool today.

HT Image

The exhibition showcasing the Arts of Le Corbusier, the man also dubbed the "godfather of modern architecture", will continue till January 18.

Le Corbusier was the pseudonym of Swiss-born architect Charles-Edouard Jeanneret-Gris (1887-1965).

The exhibition has been put together by Germany's Vitra Design Museum, in collaboration with the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) Trust and Netherlands Architecture Institute.

RIBA director Charles Knevitt said: "Le Corbusier was the nearest thing we have to a renaissance man in the 20th century in terms of the prolific output across a number of media.

"He was enormously influential among post-World War II architects and planners in Britain, but never built in this country. What was built were copies of his high rises, which were a social and economic disaster done by lesser talents than Le Corbusier."

The exhibition is divided into three sections - Context, Privacy and Publicity and Built Art - focusing on major themes in his work, including his interest in the Mediterranean and the Orient, his shift towards organic forms in the 1930s, and his exploration of new technologies and media.