LE CORBUSIER

VISIONARY OF THE MODERN AGE

Painter, draughtsman, sculptor, poet

18.10.2025 - 15.03.2026

Corbusier_Nature_morte_lanterne_1940_01
Le Corbusier, Nature morte à la lanterne, 1940 © F.L.C.;VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2025
FLC-43
Le Corbusier, La cathédrale, 1964 © F.L.C; VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2025

The Kunsthalle Messmer presents the extremely varied work of Le Corbusier (1887-1965), who made a name for himself not only as an architect and urban planner, but also as a furniture designer, painter, draughtsman, printmaker and writer. This “visionary” developed his ideas for a modern society in a wide variety of fields. This comprehensive exhibition brings together the forward-looking visions of an artist who played a decisive role in shaping the new formal language of the 20th century. Abstraction, geometric clarity, dynamism and transparency are the guiding principles of his work, but the study of nature and the human body also find their way into his work.

Michel Sima Le Corbusier Silbergelatineabzug 30,4 x 40,3 cm
Michel Sima, Le Corbusier atelier (Paris), 1953 © F.L.C.; VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2025

Le Corbusier, whose real name was Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, was born in 1887 in La Chaux-de-Fonds, where he initially trained as an engraver and chaser at the local École d’Art. Under the influence of his teacher Charles L’Eplattenier, he then turned to painting and later to architecture. Despite their differences, there was an extremely productive dialog between these disciplines throughout his life: In Le Corbusier’s case, freer painting also became a laboratory for ideas that later found their way into his architectural designs. While his architecture strives for functional rationality, clarity, rigor and order, painting offers him space for intuition, emotion and free artistic play. Le Corbusier’s genius lies in the combination of these opposites.

The exhibition shows paintings, drawings, prints, photographs and architectural models and takes visitors on a journey through the 20th century with its many artistic and social upheavals.

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Impressions

Vernissage
LE CORBUSIER – Visionary of Modernism
18.10.25 – 15.03.2026

From 28.01.2024: Charming (im)finiteness – Zhuang Hong-Yi & Lu Luo