Figures and Matchboxes

1928

Founding of CIAM at La Sarraz

Le Corbusier was one of the founders of the International Congresses of Modern Architecture (CIAM), which united architects from many countries around the renewal of architecture. The first congress met at La Sarraz in Switzerland.

1928–1930

Visits to Moscow: Meyerhold, Eisenstein, the Vesnins

For the Tsentrosoyuz project Le Corbusier came to Moscow in 1928, 1929 and 1930. He met Tairov, Meyerhold and Eisenstein, admired the Soviet avant-garde — the Vesnin brothers, Ginzburg, Melnikov — and began a friendly correspondence with Alexander Vesnin.

1929

Lectures in Brazil and a vision for Rio

Le Corbusier lectured on his ideas in Brazil and brought back sketches of Rio de Janeiro: serpentine multi-storey buildings on pylons winding through the city like inhabited highways.

1930

Marries Yvonne Gallis and becomes a French citizen

Le Corbusier officially married Yvonne Gallis of Monaco, whom he had met in Paris in 1922. That same year he became a French citizen.

18 december 1930

Married: Yvonne Le Corbusier

1932

Stalin rejects his Palace of the Soviets

For the international competition for the Palace of the Soviets, planned on the site of the demolished Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, Le Corbusier proposed a complex with an arch from which the main hall's roof was suspended. To his distress, Stalin chose a massive neoclassical tower crowned by a statue of Lenin.