Ville Contemporaine / Plan Voisin / Ville Radieuse
What it is
Between 1922 and 1933 the Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier developed a series of radical city visions: the Ville Contemporaine (1922) for three million inhabitants, the Plan Voisin (1925) which proposed demolishing much of central Paris for cruciform towers, and the Ville Radieuse (1933). All shared widely spaced high-rise towers set in parkland, rigid separation of functions, and circulation by elevated and segregated highways. The aim was to combine very high density with abundant light, air and open green space. The plans were presented through drawings, models and polemical texts rather than built schemes.
Why it matters
They became the most influential and most contested model of modernist urbanism, codified through CIAM and the Athens Charter. The tower-in-a-park, zoned, car-served template shaped post-war mass housing, new capitals such as Chandigarh and Brasília, and urban renewal worldwide, later drawing intense criticism.
Plans it shaped
- Plan Obus for Algiers (unbuilt) (1931–1934)
- Rome EUR (Esposizione Universale di Roma) (1937–)
- Lima Plan Piloto (1949)
- Chandigarh (1951–1965)
- Havana Plan Piloto (1955)
- Brasília Pilot Plan (1957–1960)
- Plan for Tokyo 1960 (unbuilt) (1960)
- La Défense masterplans (1960s–)
- Marne-la-Vallée (ville nouvelle) (1965)
- Tehran Master Plan (1968)
- Riyadh MEDSTAR (1996)
- Egypt New Administrative Capital (NAC) (2015–)