Van Eesteren’s idea of the Functional City was a strong influence in city planning for 40 years. As a young graduate on a formative year’s travel, he met Schumacher and van Doesburg in Germany — also Gropius, Moholy-Nagy, Richter, Arp, Tzara, Schwitters, and Lissitzky, who was to become a close friend. He met his compatriots Mondrian and Rietveld in Paris. Giedion and Le Corbusier were the dominant figures in the influential organisation CIAM, of which van Eesteren became the more self-effacing long-term president; Léger, Stam and Sert (van Eesteren’s successor) were among other colleagues there.