My Favorite House - Part II

Okay, so after the last post on my favorite house, Fallingwater, several close colleagues and family members have asked “I thought Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye was your favorite house?” I wasn’t expecting to be challenged but now that I have, I feel compelled to respond. Both houses were significant influences during my collegiate days and remain so today. Both have earned their place in Art and Architectural History, and both have fascinating stories. I chose Fallingwater because of the man who designed it -- Frank Lloyd Wright -- and the fact that many consider him the greatest Architect of the twentieth century, if not in history. He also happens to be American which may have tipped the scales for me. However, notwithstanding these reasons, I owe it to Le Corbusier to introduce him and his Villa Savoye, an Architect and prolific home very likely unknown to many of you reading.

Designed in 1928, seven years before Wright designed Fallingwater, and commissioned by Pierre Savoye, director of a French insurance company who made a substantial fortune post WWI selling contracts to large industrial groups in the textile, mining and chemical sectors. His wife Eugenie had requested a weekend house and Pierre commissioned Le Corbusier, an Architect based in Paris whose fame was firmly established following publication of his manifesto-works of 1925. The site Pierre purchased was in a town called Poissy approximately 19 miles west of Paris and at the time a somewhat rural setting.

Corbusier was fascinated by industrial advancements and the automobile was one of those fascinations.  He said it embodied a new spirit. The automobile became a driver to the design, accommodating a three-car garage. Imagine 1928, the automobile had barely existed and incorporating a three-car garage into your weekend house 19 miles from Paris! Other technological innovations were requested by the owners and Corbusier embraced them all. 

“Architecture suffocates in routine,” a common expression of his, and it is affirmed in the design of Villa Savoye.
The home was designed based on “five points” – the pilotis (built on columns), the roof garden, the open plan, the free façade and the strip windows. From this point of view the house became a real machine for deconstructing social codes and changing the perception of what a house is. It systematically destabilized the usual sensations of walking into a house. No more porches flanked by columns or imposing perfectly symmetrical entry halls with a dark atmosphere and marble floors. No more ornate staircases or dark compartmentalized rooms with small windows. No more dark utilitarian kitchens. No more hiding the structure of the building under intricate decorations. The house was radically free from social norms of the time and therefore radically modern.

I had the pleasure of touring Villa Savoye a little over a year ago while visiting France. Much like Fallingwater, I gazed in awe as I approached the home. Suspended above the ground plane, this simple rectangular white box with ribbon windows wrapping all sides floated in nature’s palette; lush green trees and lawn and a bright blue sky enveloped the building and became its ornament. Passing through the front door you enter an open foyer greeted by a switch back ramp flanked by a beautifully modern cylindrical stair. The white of the exterior carries through to the interior making the views of nature through the ribbon windows color accents in the space. The living spaces and exterior terraces occupy the second floor ascended by the ramp or stair. Once on that level your perception of indoor/outdoor spaces are not blurred, they are one. I was fascinated by the relationship between the two and how Corbusier’s use of the ramp psychologically skewed the perception of indoor outdoor and up and down. The ramp weaves vertically through the entire house from the first floor to the third level roof terrace and as you move along the ramp you are constantly experiencing the house in new ways.

I think of where we are as an industry today advancing and innovating the face and function of home. I can’t help but marvel in the modern homes of our past and wonder, had the internet and social media platforms existed then would there have been more exposure to these masterpieces worldwide and could it have changed the trajectory of Architecture?