Philips Pavilion, Expo 58

Philips, keen to show what it could do with sound and light, commissioned Le Corbusier's studio to design its pavilion for the 1958 World's Fair in Brussels. Throughout the fair it housed a multimedia audiovisual show celebrating the technical advances of the post-war years.

Le Corbusier came up with a "Poème électronique", an immersive programme drawing on architecture, film and music. He handled the montage of images and light himself and entrusted the electronic soundtrack to Edgard Varèse. Between performances the audience heard Concret PH, an electronic piece Iannis Xenakis composed from the mathematical data of the construction. The pavilion, which represented the Netherlands, was one of the most noticed attractions of the fair: 1.5 million visitors attended 3,013 eight-minute performances. Meant to be short-lived, it was demolished on 30 January 1959.

Le Corbusier worked out the architecture with Iannis Xenakis, among his closest collaborators in the 1950s. The plan is shaped like a "stomach"; on it rise cylindrical reinforced-concrete portals set as inverted Vs, and curved walls made of sheets of cables. From outside, the pavilion looked like a vast tent with three points spreading apart. Its 325 recessed loudspeakers were meant to lead the spectator along "sound paths".

The pavilion was demolished after the fair; the films of the show are kept in the collections of the Eye Filmmuseum.