Le Corbusier is perhaps the 20th century's most influential architect, responsible for persuading us of the merits of modern design on a grand scale. His work was at points hugely beautiful and accomplished, and at others, terrifying and extremely unhelpful. Our film explores Le Corbusier's mixed legacy, and what we might learn from it for the future.

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“If the idea of being a ‘modern’ person and leading a ‘modern’ life still has an exciting ring to it, it’s at least in part down to the influence of an extraordinary Swiss architect Le Corbusier, who in the first half of the twentieth century wrote books, put up buildings and designed bits of furniture that conveyed the excitement, sleekness and glamour of the modern technological world. Le Corbusier began his career by attacking the architecture of the Victorian age – and contrasting it with what he saw as the beauty and intelligence of engineering. ‘Our engineers are healthy and virile, active and useful, balanced and happy in their work,’ he exclaimed in his polemical book, Towards a New Architecture (1923), while ‘our architects are disillusioned and unemployed, boastful or peevish. This is because there will soon be nothing more for them to do. We no longer have the money to erect historical souvenirs. At the same time, everyone needs to wash! Our engineers provide for these things and so they will be our builders.’...”

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CREDITS

Produced in collaboration with:

Mad Adam Films
https://madadamfilms.co.uk/

Title animation produced in collaboration with

Vale Productions
https://www.valeproductions.co.uk/