Abstract
Le Corbusier's apprenticeship began in the mountains and countryside of Switzerland, where he learned to observe nature, before embarking on an exploration of Europe in 1907, which he later described as a " voyage utile ", and which introduced him to culture, folklore and industry.
While he surveyed the modern capitals of Vienna, Berlin and Paris, and spent a long time in Munich, where he familiarized himself with the city's nascent urbanism, it was the historic cities of Istanbul, Athens and Rome that attracted his attention. His correspondence, sketches and photographs reveal his interest in the silhouette of urban ensembles and his fascination with certain sites - the Acropolis or Villa Adriana. These early observations were to be a constant feature of his thinking, recurring cyclically in his articles and books, and inspiring the notion of " landscape type ", to which he would refer in many of his projects.
