rother of the expatriate American writer and patron of Fauvism and Cubism Gertrude Stein; the Savoye House (1929-30), at Poissy, set in a lush, rural landscape on slender concrete pillars.In 1927 Le Corbusier participated in the competition set by the League of Nations for the design of its new centre in Geneva. His project, with its wall of insulating and heating glass, is one of the finest examples of the architect's gift for functional analysis. For the first time anywhere, he proposed an office building for a political organization that was not a Neoclassical temple but corresponded in its structure and design to a strict analysis of function. This plan was to become the prototype of all future United Nations buildings. It probably would have shared a first prize but was eliminated on the grounds of not having been drawn up in India ink as the rules of the competition specified. After the disappointment of Pessac, this disqualification, which was almost certainly the result of a conspiracy on the part of conservative members of the jury, further embittered Le Corbusier in his attitude toward official architectural circles. The scandal accompanying the elimination of his design, however, gave him needed publicity by identifying him with modern avant-garde architecture. An immediate consequence of the Geneva affair was the creation, in La Sarraz, Switz., in1928, of the International Congresses of Modern Architecture (ciam) , intended at first to defend the avant-garde architectural values defeated in Geneva. By 1930 the organization had become oriented toward city planning theory. Le Corbusier, as secretary of the French section, played an influential role in the five prewar congresses and especially in the fourth, which issued in 1933 a declaration that elaborated some of the basic principles of modern architecture.The publicity from the Geneva competition also made possible for Le Corbusier a lecture tour in South America that was t...
