Le Corbusier and modernism
Between the wars Paris was the meeting place of the new architecture. Le Corbusier, born in Switzerland but working in Paris, formulated its rules and then broke them himself.
Auguste Perret was building in reinforced concrete before the First World War. Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye at Poissy, completed in 1931, demonstrates his five points, and Eileen Gray built the villa E-1027 by the Mediterranean.
After the war Le Corbusier built the Unité d’habitation in Marseille and the chapel at Ronchamp. At the same time the state built large suburban estates, grands ensembles, to relieve the housing shortage.