Le Corbusier

Swiss-French architect who defined the house as a machine for living in and set out five points — pilotis, free plan, free façade, ribbon windows, roof garden — that reduced a building to what reinforced concrete made possible. His urban proposals, which involved clearing central Paris for towers in parkland, were never built there but were built everywhere else, and the results remain the strongest argument against them.

• Lived: 1887 CE – 1965 CE
• Nationality: swiss
• Roles: architect, writer