For as long as architects have been architects, designing buildings has been their primary purpose, and as long as there have been buildings, there have been towns. One would naturally think that there would be consideration of the town when designing the buildings. This, however, is not always the case. In An Introduction to Urban Design, Jonathan Barnett states, "If you believe cities can be designed, nothing is more frustrating than to watch the continuous misapplication of the huge sums of money that are spent in rebuilding our cities and developing the countryside."" One man who was very keen on the impact a building has on its surroundings and vice versa was Le Corbusier.
Le Corbusier had such a great love of architecture, and he realized that it does not stop at the concrete slab or at the top of the tower: "Happy towns are those that have an architecture. Architecture can be found in the telephone and in the Parthenon. How easily could it be at home in our houses! Houses make the street and the street makes the town and the town is a personality which takes to itself a soul, which can feel, suffer and wonder. How at home architecture could be in street and town."" Beyond a home, he believed, architecture can be applied in planning an urban environment.
He was, however, quite extreme in his ideas. "Start from zero!- he declared when proposing to tear down the center of Paris and erect huge skyscrapers. In his book Urbanisme, Le Corbusier wrote, "Modern town planning comes to birth with a new architecture by this immense step in evolution, so brutal and so overwhelming, we burn our bridges and break with the past."" There were to be no more congested streets and sidewalks, no more bustling public squares, no more untidy neighborhoods. People would live in hygienic high-rise towers, set apart in a park-like landscape. This rational city would be separated into discrete zones for working, living, and leisure.