Le Corbusier, both cursed and praised guru of modern architecture

Roquebrune-Cap-Martin – Simple shapes and clean surfaces over which sunlight can pass unhindered, rooftop gardens, and dominant materials of reinforced concrete, steel, and glass – such was the style of Swiss-French architect and painter Le Corbusier, who died at the age of seventy-seven on August 27, 1965. Purism, as he called this style, inspired many other architects, including those from the Czech Republic.

For his austere reinforced concrete buildings and visionary ideas of urban residential complexes, he earned not only admiration but also misunderstanding and condemnation. His theory of "vertical garden cities," in which everything was to be grand – large buildings, large open spaces, large highways – he unsuccessfully attempted to put into practice in India in the city of Chandigarh, and his students tried the same in Brasília. The famous Le Corbusier building in Marseille inspired architect Rudolf Bergr in his design of three experimental eighteen-story buildings in the Březenecká housing estate in Chomutov.

Le Corbusier, who created not only world-famous furniture designs but also a collection of sculptures, paintings, drawings, gouaches, collages, graphics, and tapestries, also lectured several times in Prague. He was enthusiastic about the Veletržní Palace and created a plan for the development of Zlín, which, however, remained unrealized. He then evaluated the appearance of Karlovy Vary as "a swarm of cream cakes." Some local architects also worked in Le Corbusier's studio, the first of whom was Vladimír Karfík.