Auguste Perret

French architect Auguste Perret (1874--1954) was a pioneering precursor to the Modern Movement. His career is inextricably linked to the constructional technique of reinforced concrete: in works such as his 1903 apartment building in rue Franklin, Paris, concrete -- a material that previously had been perceived as common and industrial -- was reinvented, handled artistically and given its own idiom. Le Corbusier described this building as