ABSTRACT
This chapter observes how Jeanneret’s understanding of urban design develops through the years after he wrote the bulk of his Manuscript. Reading Laugier’s 1753 Essai sur l’architecture in early 1911 was a partial turning point for his understanding of urban design. It supported Jeanneret’s growing interest in monumental urban design, while still allowing elements of earlier picturesque design ideas to survive. Jeanneret’s interest in the unpublished Manuscript La Construction des villes was re-awakened in 1915, during the First World War. He travelled to Paris, planning to finalise his studies in the Bibliothèque Nationale, only to find that it was impossible to simply translate the German-language debate on urban design circa 1900 into a French debate, particularly during the War. Hence Urbanisme, published in 1925 under the name of Le Corbusier, contains elements of his earlier studies of urban design, but was instead focused on the ‘grand plan’.
