Little work has focused on Le Corbusier's interest in diverse forms of primitive art even though his career has been constantly accompanied by certain works, from the drawings produced at the Musée d’ethnographie du Trocadéro in 1908-1909 to the multimedia installation of the Poème électronique ('Electronic Poem') in Brussels in 1958. For Le Corbusier, all of these objects are forms of primitive art, corresponding "to more fertile eras of invention".

The symposium will set out to document Le Corbusier's relationship to so-called 'primitive arts'. The presentations will look at the sources of his interest in non-European works of art during his formative years, his stays in Paris, London and Berlin, the role of primitive arts in purist publications, his relationships with gallery owners (Paul Guillaume and Louis Carré in particular), the 1935 exhibition 'Les arts dits primitifs dans la maison d’aujourd’hui' ('Primitive arts in today's home'), his relationship with Paul Rivet and Georges-Henri Rivière, his role in the presentation of the selection of arts at the Salon de la France d’outre-mer (an exhibition devoted to France's overseas possessions) at the Grand Palais in 1940, his interest in ethnomusicology, and the presence of these objects in his publications and his personal collections, among other subjects.