UNESCO has added 17 of Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier’s works to the World Heritage List. The sites are located in Argentina, Belgium, France, Germany, India, Japan and Switzerland.
UNESCO said of the works of Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris, or Le Corbusier, as he was commonly known: “[They are a] testimonial to the invention of a new architectural language that made a break with the past.... These masterpieces of creative genius also attest to the internationalization of architectural practice across the planet.” The selected sites were built over 50 years, and include the Complexe du Capitole in Chandigarh, India; the National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo; the House of Dr. Curutchet in La Plata, Argentina; and the Unité d'habitation in Marseille, France.
Of particular note is the architect’s own home, Cabanon de Le Corbusier. Reported Dezeen, “Le Corbusier’s self-designed holiday home is a functionalist log cell containing a single 3.6-by-3.6-meter room. The prefabricated design is based on the Modulor, an anthropometric scale of proportion developed by the architect in response to the movement of the human body. Le Corbusier died in 1965 at the age of 77 while swimming in the sea nearby.”
Le Corbusier’s projects, though located around the world, fell within a single entry on the list. UNESCO named a total of 12 new sites, among them Antigua Naval Dockyard and Related Archaeological Sites in Antigua and Barbuda; the Pampulha Modern Ensemble in Brazil, and the Khangchendzonga National Park in India.
