s. His books, whose essential lines of thought were born of travels and lectures hardly changed at all in 45 years, constituted a bible for succeeding generations of architects. Among the most famous are Urbanisme (1925; The City of Tomorrow, 1929), Quand les cathdrales taient blanches (1937; When the Cathedrals Were White, 1947), La Charte d'Athnes (1943), Propos d'urbanisme (1946), Les Trois tablissements humains (1945), and Le Modular I (1948; The Modular, 1954).L'Esprit Nouveau was the springboard for Le Corbusier's entrance into practice. In 1922 he became associated with his cousin Pierre Jeanneret, and together they opened a studio. The association of the two cousins lasted until 1940. It corresponds to the first of the two main periods, separated by World War II, that can be distinguished in Le Corbusier's work; the second period covers the years from 1944 to the architect's death in 1965.The first periodThe years from 1922 to 1940 were as remarkably rich in architecture as in city planning projects. As was always to be the case with Le Corbusier, unbuilt projects, as soon as they were published and circulated, created as much of a stir as did the finished buildings. In the Salon d'Automne of 1922, Le Corbusier exhibited two projects that expressed his idea of social environment and contained the germ of all the works of this period. The Citrohan House displays the five characteristics by which the architect five years later defined his conception of what was modern in architecture: pillars supporting the structure, thus freeing the ground beneath the building; a roof terrace, transformable into a garden and an essential part of the house; an open floor plan; a facade free of ornamentation; and windows in strips that affirm the independence of the structural frame. The interior provides the typical spatial contrast between open, split-level living space and the cell-like bedrooms. An accompanying diorama of a city illustrated ah...
