The first major book on the life of Le Corbusier, one of the most influential, admired, and maligned architects of the twentieth century, heralded as a prophet in his lifetime, revered as a god after his death.

He was a leader of the modernist movement who sought to create better living conditions and a better society through housing concepts. He predicted the city of the future with its large, white apartment buildings in parklike settings—a move away from the turn-of-the-century industrial city, which he saw as too fussy and suffocating and believed should be torn down, including most of Paris. Irascible and caustic, tender and enthusiastic, more than a mercurial innovator, Le Corbusier was considered to be the very conscience of modern architecture.

Here revealed is Le Corbusier, the precise, mathematical, practical-minded artist whose idealism—vibrant, poetic, imaginative; discipline; and sensualism are reflected in his iconic designs and pioneering theories of architecture and urban planning.

This single-minded, elusive genius revealed; his extraordinary achievements and the age in which he lived.