Le Corbusier architecture around the world

On the northern shore of Lake Geneva, Le Corbusier built the "Little House" for his parents in 1924. It is the first example of his modern architecture in Switzerland. The 11-meter (36-foot) panoramic running window allows for an uninterrupted view of the lake and the Alps. Since 2010, this building has been a museum, which is open during the summer months.

With the little known "Villa Guiette," which Le Corbusier created in 1926 in the harbor city of Antwerp, he demonstrated his concept of a new aesthetics. His only building in Belgium, it combines a living area with the artist's studio under one roof. To this day privately owned, this building in the southern part of the city would be the third World Heritage Site in Antwerp.

Le Corbusier contributed two buildings to this housing estate created in 1927 for exhibition in Stuttgart. In the Weissenhof Estate, Le Corbusier applied for the first time his five points of new architecture - which includes the use of visible support structures, rows of horizontal windows and a roof terrace. Today, the two-family structure has been meticulously restored and serves as a museum.

In the port city of Marseilles, Le Corbusier built the "cité radieuse" from 1947-52, a high-rise home for 1,500 people. With it, he wanted to solve the modern inner city housing crisis. The concept was to use rough-cast concrete on the outside while the interior would provide minimalist apartments, shops, bars and a school. Parts of the building can be toured after registering with the doorman.

Next to the Marseilles high-rise, the chapel of Notre Dame du Haut in Ronchamp is regarded as one of the finest examples of Le Corbusier's architecture. Built from 1950 - 1955, the building overcomes the weighty plasticity of cement. More of an expressionistic sculpture than a building, this tourist attraction in the Vosges region of France is also a marker in the history of modern architecture.

At the same time as the massive high-rise was being constructed in Marseilles, Le Corbusier returned to his architectural roots in Argentina: light geometric shapes determine the house that Le Corbusier was commissioned to design by surgeon Pedro Curutchet in La Plata in the sprawling metropolitan area of Buenos Aires. The house can be viewed and a museum is planned.

A little noticed highlight of post-war modernism is the 1959 National Museum of Western Art in the center of the Ueno Park in Tokyo. Designed by Le Corbusier, this two-story exhibition building with an atrium based on a cube was constructed by his Japanese students. The museum presents first class European art, ranging from Rubens to Renoir.

In Punjab state, Le Corbusier in 1952 took on the challenge of designing an entire city. Chandigarh is a concrete realization of a modern mobile city dream - with broad roads, enormous roundabouts, and the government quarter at its heart. But it also proved to be a flawed project, because his western urban planning completely ignored the needs of the impoverished majority of the Indian population.