Hello My Name Is … Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris

Over the fifty years I spent as a designer, architect, writer and urban planner, I was influential in the development of what is today called modern architecture.

I was born in Switzerland, in a small town in the Jura mountains in 1887. Since I was interested in art from a very early age, I soon started travelling the length and breadth of Europe, meeting influential artists of my day, including Gustav Klimt, Peter Behrens and Josef Hoffmann. We spent many hours discussing the future of design, and how to make beautiful but useful objects. These people influenced me to dedicate my life to design.

My career started off designing villas, mainly using the materials which were fashionable at the time – like reinforced concrete. But it was not only houses which I designed. My furniture – like chairs, sofas, and chaise longues are still best seller designs, more than half a century after they left my drawing board.

Since I worked in several areas of the world, taking influence from the various traditions, I came up with a number of rules which I called the “Five Points of Architecture.” My theories were a driving force in the urban design of many cities which around the globe.

I am on the front of every Swiss 10 Franc note (image courtesy Wikimedia Commons)

In 1997, the Swiss National Bank put my face on the obverse of the 10 Franc note. My bespectacled face is followed by the name everyone knew me by: Le Corbusier.