If it were not for Lenin, Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot, Le Corbusier would be counted as one of the great monsters of the twentieth century. Certainly he did more to destroy the British townscape than the Luftwaffe ever did; and Sweden, which escaped the war entirely, certainly did not escape the worldwide effect of his destructive megalomania. Look at any of the myriad ruined townscapes of Europe – ruined, that is, by architects and city-planners rather than by bombs or hand-to-hand fighting – and you will detect hovering over them the grinning ghost of the ruination’s tutelary spirit, Le Corbusier.

Of course, no man could have wrought so much destruction single-handed: Le Corbusier would have had little effect had his ideas not resonated with the Zeitgeist. The relation between a Zeitgeist and those who bring it about is always a dialectical one: no age can do without its great men, but no great men can do without their age. It should always been borne...