Swiss born Charles Edouard Jeanneret, was a highly skilled, prize winning watch engraver, until he changed his profession and his name to become the renowned architect and designer that we know as Le Corbusier.
In 1910 he apprenticed himself at the acclaimed studios of Peter Behrens in Berlin (where both Mies van der Rohe and Walter Gropius worked and trained). He soon returned to Switzerland to teach and practice architecture.
Le Corbusier's Domino House became his first milestone of innovative and inspirational creation. His use of reinforced concrete (supported by steel pillars) negated the necessity for the usual confining supporting walls, thus creating an early example of the open plan interior.
He published his ideas in a book entitled, Vers une Architecture, in which he refers to the house as a machine for living, an industrial product that should include functional furniture or equipment de l'habitation. In this spirit, Le Corbusier co-designed a system of furniture with his cousin Pierre Jeanneret and Charlotte Perriand. The tubular steel furniture — like the famous chaise and Grand Confort chair — projected a new rationalist aesthetic that came to epitomize the International Style.
