article_snippet: In her book The Virtual Window, which traces the rectangular frame from Renaissance painting up through Microsoft Windows, media theorist Anne Friedberg offers an example from the history of architecture, centering on a public feud between French builder August Perret and the preeminent modernist architect Le Corbusier.
article_snippet: August Perret was a strong advocate of the traditional French casement window, which was oriented vertically.
article_snippet: Its main function, August Perret said, was to let light into a room.
article_snippet: Le Corbusier, making use of new manufacturing techniques, designed August Perret buildings around long, horizontal windows, which were as much about framing the outside world as illuminating the space within.