“To create architecture is to put in order. Put what in order? Function and objects.”
Without Le Corbusier, there would still be modern art.
There would just be a lot less of it. From 1914 until his death in 1965, the Swiss-French polymath presented the worlds of art, design and architecture with a practical definition of modernism.
From the bold, colorful Cubist paintings of his youth, to his angular, minimalistic furniture designs, to the stark, Brutalist “villas” and municipal buildlings (most of them in his adopted country, France) for which he is best known, his oeuvre represents perhaps the closest thing we have to a blueprint for the Modernist aesthetic.
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of his passing, like-minded French car manufacturer Renault recently added the Coupe C — a concept car paying tribute to the late legend — to their considerable collection of in-house art.
The car’s details reference hallmarks of the artist’s style, from wheelbase cutouts meant to suggest the piloti upon which many Le Corbusier buildings stood to a front grille embellished with angled slats that echo many of his interiors.
The car is currently on display at Le Corbusier’s famous Villa Savoye in Poissy, just outside of Paris.
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