The pioneering modernist architect, designer, urban planner and painter Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris, aka Le Corbusier, was born on October 6 1887.

In 1920, Jeanneret-Gris reinvented himself as Le Corbusier, using the name when he was active as an architect and later (1930s) as a painter. He was born Switzerland but emigrated to France in 1917, becoming a naturalized citizen in 1930. Le Corbusier studied at École d’Art in Chaux-de-Fonds and at the age of 18, he built his first house. For a short time, Le Corbusier moved to Berlin to study and work with Peter Behrens (1868-1940) who was a leader in modern industrial architecture and design. 

In the 1920s he emerged as the most important architect of the “International Style” in France and a co-founder of the painting style Purism with Amedee Ozenfant. In hs book Vers une Architecture, Le Corbusier states that the house is a “machine for living” — an industrial product that should be functional and include functional furniture or “equipment de l’habitation.” With his cousin Pierre Jeanneret and Charlotte Perriand, Le Corbusier designed furniture that dislayed a new rationalist aesthetic that represents the International Style.