Le Corbusier

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• Architecture is the masterly, correct and magnificent play of masses brought together in light. Our eyes are made to see forms in light; light and shade reveal these forms; cubes, cones, spheres, cylinders or pyramids are the great primary forms which light reveals to advantage; the image of these is distinct and tangible within us without ambiguity. It is for this reason that these are beautiful forms, the most beautiful forms. Everybody is agreed to that, the child, the savage and the metaphysician.
  • Vers une architecture [Towards an Architecture] (1923)

• The "styles" are a lie.
  • Vers une architecture (1923)

• Une maison est une machine-à-habiter.
  • A house is a machine for living in.
  • Vers une architecture (1923)

• You employ stone, wood and concrete, and with these materials you build houses and palaces. That is construction. Ingenuity is at work.
  But suddenly you touch my heart, you do me good, I am happy and I say: "This is beautiful." That is Architecture. Art enters in.

• It is a question of building which is at the root of the social unrest of today: architecture or revolution.
  • Vers une architecture (1923)

• Modern life demands, and is waiting for, a new kind of plan, both for the house and the city.
  • Vers une architecture (1923)

• The object of this edict is to enlighten the present and future citizens of Chandigarh about the basic concepts of planning of the city so that they become its guardians and save it from whims of individuals.
  • "The Edict of Chandigarh," plaque erected at Chandigarh, India as an abbreviated form of the document The Establishment Statute of the Land (1959-12-17)

• The city of Chandigarh is planned to human scale. It puts us in touch with the infinite cosmos and nature. It provides us with places and buildings for all human activities by which the citizens can live a full and harmonious life. Here the radiance of nature and heart are within our reach.
  • "The Edict of Chandigarh" from The Establishment Statute of the Land (1959-12-17)

• Vehicular traffic is completely forbidden in the green strips, where tranquility shall reign and the curse of noise shall not penetrate.
  • "The Edict of Chandigarh" from The Establishment Statute of the Land (1959-12-17)

• The age of personal statues is gone. No personal statues shall be erected in the city or parks of Chandigarh. The city is planned to breathe the new sublimated spirit of art. Commemoration of persons shall be confined to suitably placed bronze plaques.
  • "The Edict of Chandigarh" from The Establishment Statute of the Land (1959-12-17)

• The truthfulness of materials of constructions, concrete, bricks and stone, shall be maintained in all buildings constructed or to be constructed.
  The seed of Chandigarh is well sown. It is for the citizens to see that the tree flourishes.
  • "The Edict of Chandigarh" from The Establishment Statute of the Land (1959-12-17)

• Space and light and order. Those are the things that men need just as much as they need bread or a place to sleep.
  • The New York Times [obituary] (1965-08-28)

• Vous savez, c'est la vie qui a raison, l'architecte qui a tort.
  • You know, it is life that is right and the architect who is wrong.
  • Le Corbusier's reply upon learning that the housing project he had designed at Pessac had been altered by its inhabitants, quoted by Philippe Boudon, Lived-In Architecture: Pessac Revisited (1969) [trans. Gerald Onn]