"In the year 1923 there appeared in Paris a little volume on architecture that seemed written almost entirely in italics and capitals. "There exists a new spirit," it said. "A GREAT EPOCH HAS BEGUN." Its title was sweeping: Towards an Architecture -as though existing architecture did not merit the term. The book was signed by a brilliant, owlish young man who called himself Le Corbusier. Vain as he is, Le Corbusier himself would hardly claim to have invented modern architecture singlehanded, but his slim book and his later work to a large degree plotted its course. "Corbu's" personality and buildings have at times angered, shocked, outraged and offended people, but by the overwhelming vote of his colleagues everywhere, he is at 73 the most influential architect alive."



On May 5, 1961, Le Corbusier appeared on the cover of Time magazine in what was arguably mainstream acceptance, if not embrace, of his impact beyond the realm of architecture. In tribute to, and an extremely unscientific measure of, the architect's enduring influence, the following is a random sample of titles published since Vers une architecture first caused its ruckus in 1923.

Towards a Better understanding of the Consumer Price Index (1980)
Towards a Brave New Arms Industry? (2003)
Towards a Canadian Sport Policy (2001)
Towards a Church Architecture (1962)
Towards a Christian Sociology (1923)
Towards a Definition of Dirty Realism (2002)
Towards a Functional Characterization of the News of the BBC World Service (1986)
Towards a History of Phonetics (1981)
Towards a Liberal Utopia (2005)
Towards a Liberatory Biology (1982)
Towards a More Efficient Beef Chain (1977)
Towards a New Cold War: U.S. Foreign Policy from Vietnam to Reagan (2003)
Towards a New Man (1971)
Towards a rational dynamics of plasmas (1974)
Towards a Quaker View of Sex (1966)
Towards a Semiotics of Ideology (1993)
Towards a Tantric Goal (1989)
Towards a Typology of Opiate Users (1974)
Towards a Visual Culture: Educating Through Television (1969)

The complete 1961 article can be found here.