Seventeen buildings designed by Swiss-French architecture pioneer Le Corbusier have become UNESCO world heritage sites, the Swiss government has said, opening up the chance of more funding for conservation.

The structures include the Maison Guiette, in Antwerp, Belgium, the National Museum for Western Art in Tokyo, and other strutures in France, Switzerland, Argentina, Germany and India.

"The work of Le Corbusier is a central contribution to modern architecture," the government said in its statement.

The properties "embody the exceptional architectural and constructive responses to the social challenges of the 20th century," it added.

Le Corbusier - famed for calling a house a machine for living in - was born Charles-Edouard Jeanneret in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland, in 1887. He adopted the alias Le Corbusier - from his maternal grandfather, Lecorbesier - in 1920.

He became a French citizen in 1930 and died in 1965. His image appears on the Swiss 10 franc note.

The National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo’s Ueno Park, designed by Le Corbusier and added to UNESCO's list. Photo: Shutterstock