Le Corbusier, the artist, at the Barbican

THE work of one of the 20th century's most celebrated and criticised architects is to be explored in the Barbican, a building he inspired.

Le Corbusier, the Swiss-born Modernist whose ideas on urban planning were hugely influential in the Fifties and Sixties, is to be celebrated with an exhibition that presents him as a painter, sculptor and writer.

Le Corbusier - real name Charles-Edouard Jeanneret-Gris - was born in Switzerland in 1887 and became a citizen of France, where he died in 1965.

His ideas on living in skyscrapers and bulldozing districts to make way for tower blocks and multi-lane roads took root after the Second World War. He influenced Chamberlin, Powell and Bon, who designed the Barbican.

"The exhibition really shows how he was a polymath. We see his architecture but also his paintings, his sculptures and his books. We see him as a much more rich and diverse figure," said curator Lydia Yee.

Le Corbusier - The Art of Architecture opens at the Barbican Art Gallery tomorrow, with admission charge.