Villa Savoye is a complete example of a modernist building. Set in the Parisian suburb of Poissy, it was designed by Swiss architect and modernist titan Le Corbusier. But Architecture has always been more than just materials and floor plans.
As one of the forefathers of the International Style, Le Corbusier revolutionised city planning and architecture as we know it. Foundations for his designs, thoughts and processes are undoubtably his sketches and paintings. His intense curiosity and lust for travel helped in his pursuit of becoming a better designer. He discovered connections between contemporary and historic forms from drawing nature and adopting fourteenth-century painting methods which greatly influenced his French painting and architecture and lead to him becoming the Father of Modernism. Corbusier is worshipped by architects across the world for his risk taking and fluidity in his works, whether the canvas is the landscape or a simple sketchbook.
It was his teacher, Charles L’Eplattenier, who taught him the fundamentals of drawing at the art school in his hometown of La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland. He encourages a young Charles-Edouard Jeanneret to leave the bucolic landscapes, and travel around Italy to participate in a drawing tour. The pedagogy likely expanded his mind and his understanding of the world and the built environment. His travels comparable to missions of faith. His faith: Architecture. Jeanneret, now known as Le Corbusier – a name he signed on his artworks and writings derived from his grandmother’s maiden name – studied the essential philosophies of Egyptian, Hindu, Byzantine, and Greek architecture in ‘Vers une architecture’, which is a collection of essays supporting the study of the early concept of modern architecture. Architecture from Egypt and Greece were predominantly important for Le Corbusier’s application of his “Five Points of Architecture”. From Egyptian architecture, Le Corbusier adopted the use of symmetry and repetition. Additionally, Le Corbusier attained the conception of movement from Greek architecture. The example of frequent recurrence from Egyptian architecture, as mentioned previously, provided the concept of using repetition in vertical supports that Le Corbusier would later apply to his architecture as “a constant scale, a rhythm, a restful cadence”. The “Five Points of Architecture” are as follows: pilotis, the roof garden, free plan, free façade, and the horizontal window. Le Corbusier used these points as a fundamental basis for most of his designs up until the 1950’s, which are evident in many of his proposals. The essay ‘Les Cinq points d’une architecture nouvelle’ by Le Corbusier focuses on questions that are raised within architectural design, suggesting an arrangement in it.
“A long time ago, I jumped in where angels feared to tread… a thousand utterances have been produced to bat me for having dared that utterance. But when I say ‘living’ I am not talking of mere material requirements only. I admit certain important extensions which must crown the edifice of man’s daily needs. To be able to think, or meditate, after the day’s work is essential. But in order to become a centre of creative thought, the home must take on an absolutely new character.” - LE CORBUSIER
In his early career, he designed private houses for small clients in and around Paris, the Villa Savoye being the most famous. The villa was used as a weekend home for the Savoyes but the designs and rules given by the architect were intended for fulltime use. It represents Le Corbusier’s interpretation of the elements of functional structure juxtaposed with the human element of a functional plan providing light and space. The interior providing spatial contradictions between open, split-level living space and the cell-like bedrooms. Designs manufactured to give inhabitants a greater and more sophisticated lifestyle. The mansion was designed on the landscape as if it were to be featured in a painting, the ‘promenade architecturale’ precisely calculated to allow the house to gracefully emerge from the trees as if from nowhere.
The Villa Savoye itself is a vivid white. Columns lift the structure from the ground, making the building nonobtrusive to the landscape, encouraging effective air circulation, and creating the opportunity for a secluded garage to house the glorified automobiles of the time. Corbusier’s infatuation with the automobile and transport industry could also be described as an addiction. He identifies them as the “metaphor for Modernity” the theoretical background discussing “Utility and Beauty.” He saw a direct link in their manufacturing processes to the construction to a building:
“If houses were built industrially, mass-produced like chassis, an aesthetic would be formed with surprising precision.”
The ribbon fenestration wrapped around all faces of the villa create select viewpoints across the nearby rolling hills and forest, as well as granting an equal amount of light into the interior, maximising light exposure no matter the time of day. It is constructed with 3 levels connected by both a ramp and spiral staircase – level one acts as an entrance, a garage and servants quarters; the next as the main living level with all resident’s bedrooms; and the third as an extension for a roof top garden and solarium, to give back the space to nature that was taken from the ground. The roof garden itself is sheltered using curved walls containing the afore mentioned horizontal window to frame the surroundings upon approach from the ramp. The stark white walls also providing privacy for exercising and the newly popular sunbathing. Using reinforced concrete columns through the entire square grid of the site allows the floors to be supported withdrawing any need for load bearing walls and so the interior plans could be designed without structural limitations. The same was for the façade, each exterior wall had its construction concealed within which gave scope for a look that was polished and stylized from the outside. Le Corbusier names feature this the ‘free-façade’. There was a separation of both function and class in both society and in architecture with reception rooms being designed in Palladian bays. This is where Le Corbusier follows architectural norms in the Villa Savoye, although it is on the first floor, the reception room and kitchen are situated along the front of the building. In the Savoye’s case, their servants were housed traditionally downstairs along with the car and main entrance. The thresholds are clear, on the ground floor there is a column masking a sink near the entrance before entering the household - as a church or temple would have - as to purify the residents from the outside - a ritualistic cleansing before continuing into the main body of the house.
Here, Le Corbusier also seamlessly demonstrates his Dom-Ino principle and the “Five Points of Architecture”, the commandments he lived and designed by. The Dom-Ino principle so called because the houses could be joined by each end like dominos, then hyphenated to combine “domus” and “innovation”. Slabs of concrete on top of one another supported by columns and a staircase - no walls, no rooms, just a skeleton. An idea so radical, when he looked to getting it patented, he had no backers. If only his patrons had known that one day millions of houses would be built along similar lines, not just in Europe but in the slums of the developing worlds.
Le Corbusier set Madame Savoye rules for living in his “machine for living” – a term he coined for the building as it was inspired by his love for ocean liners and machinery – including automobiles. He perceived ocean liners as the epitome of luxury, a perfect example of floating technology. A harmonious fusion of communal and private spaces designed for purely function and indulgence. Intoxicated by how steamships could both be beautiful and functional, Le Corbusier described them as, “highly-serviced mega structures to provide ideal living conditions.”
“I am possessed of the colour white, the cube, the sphere, the cylinder and the pyramid… Take the whip to those who dissent.” - Le Corbusier
As a man who marketed himself as the one who believed that Architecture had a potential to increase health and well-being – something noble for Architecture to be – Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye, ironically, was the direct cause of Madame Savoye’s Son’s medical conditions due to the damp caused by the materials used unsuccessfully during construction. There is a persistent theme that there were many problems with the infrastructure. But what we see today is concrete expression with inventive points of view on modern life and solace, at the same time a building ahead of its time. The roof’s design did not comply with the climate, leading to water leaks from the ceiling because of the gradient; and the bad temperature comfort inside caused by the horizontal windows on almost every side. The glazing was not only an issue here as it also caused skylights to make excessive noise during rainstorms. This caused the building to deteriorate during its use by the residents and through World War Two, leading the Savoyes to abandon the property in 1940. His building, the Villa Savoye, is now evidently a 1:1 model, to visit, adore and experience, much like a museum. But it is no longer left to crack and fade.
Modernism was a reaction to nineteenth-century historicism. Boiling the ornate down to nothing, simplifying designs and making art inclusive through Dom-Ino. Le Corbusier wanted to create a world where all citizens, regardless of class, were guaranteed the “joys of light, space, and greenery.” Though he never had formal education, his passion to understand the world through drawing, painting, and writing is what made him such a dynamic artist, one from whom we can still learn today.
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