Mural Habiter

The large mural Habiter was designed for Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret’s exhibition pavilion at the Paris World Fair (1937). The Pavillon des Temps Nouveaux promoted modern architecture and urban planning in the spirit of Le Corbusier. It included a group of large murals on the functions of a city, including living (Habiter), work, and recreation. The murals used Le Corbusier’s colour palette and were executed in the style of avant-garde photomontage—a popular image technique in advertising at the time.

Based on historical photographs and colour studies that Le Corbusier created for the piece, the mural was reconstructed in 2012 by design historian Arthur Rüegg and architect Peter Habe as part of the exhibition Construire l'image : Le Corbusier et la photographie (2012) at the Musée des beaux-arts of La Chaux-de-Fonds.