In 1925, Le Corbusier, with the financial backing of automaker Voisin, applied his plan for a "contemporary city of three million people" to Paris. He described the project as follows:

"This plan focuses on the most appalling districts and narrowest streets. It creates a shining communications network at the heart of Paris. At the point where streets 7, 9 and 11 meters in width intersect every 20, 30 or 50 meters, it builds a grid plan of major thoroughfares intersecting every 350-400 meters, with cruciform-shaped skyscrapers at the center of huge blocks, producing an elevated city, a city that has taken housing units squashed against the ground and lifted them up, high above, amid the air and light...

Whereas previously 70-80% of the ground was covered in tightly packed houses, only 5% will now be built upon. The remaining 95% will be given over to major arteries, parking and parks.

I would like the reader to imagine what this new type of elevated city will look like; to see how all this swarming mass, hitherto stuck to the ground like a dry crust, will be scraped off, removed and replaced with pure glass crystals, rising 200 meters, all well spaced, each surrounded at the base by leafy trees. This city, which in the past crawled on its belly, will rise up to follow the natural order of things, momentarily surpassing our imagination so bridled by age-old customs."

Needless to say, Parisian dignitaries were somewhat alarmed by this new idea...

The architect Le Corbusier was born Charles-Edouard Jeanneret-Gris in Switzerland in 1887. After finishing art school, he found work as a designer for the architectural firm Auguste Perret, and met Van der Rohe and Gropius. A proponent of the plan libre, which proposed free façades involving non-supporting walls, he developed a brand-new style, taking into account the lifestyles of his contemporaries. At the Athens congress, he declared that: "The materials of urban planning are sun, space, trees, steel and reinforced concrete, in that order."

He began his career in architecture by designing private villas, but he quickly came to turn his attentions to urban planning. His "plan for a contemporary city of three million people" laid the foundations for modern architecture. His career took off in the post-war period, when he designed a series of collective developments, such as La Cité Radieuse in Marseilles and complete cities such as Chandigarh in India, took part in international competitions (UN building in New York), took stances on a range of issues, and garnered international fame. He died while swimming in 1965.