Although Le Corbusier had exhibited his ideas for the ideal city, the Ville contemporaine in the 1920s, during contact with international planners he began work on the Ville radieuse. In 1930 he had become an active member of the syndicalist movement and proposed the Ville radieuse as a blueprint of social reform.
The principles of the Ville radieuse were incorporated into his later publication, the Athens Charter published in 1943.