Villa Savoye in Poissy France by Le Corbusier
An International Style Weekend House in the Paris Countryside
Jun 18, 2009
Le Corbusier's design for the Villa Savoye is a unique work of domestic architecture that forces the visitor to truly rethink the idea of the home. The house was one of a series of villas that Le Corbusier designed in his early career during the 1910s and 20s. It is considered one of the architect's seminal works and is emblematic of Le Corbusier's concept of a "Machine for Living."
Architect Le Corbusier (1887-1965)
Swiss-born Charles-Edouard Jeanneret-Gris, later known as Le Corbusier, was a pioneer of modern architecture and the International Style. In addition to building design, he was a prolific urbanist, painter, sculptor, and writer. Throughout his life, Le Corbusier dedicated much of his work to pioneering studies in high modern design that stripped buildings down to their essence.
In 1926, Le Corbusier embarked on an in-depth exploration of his early structural formats for houses, the Domino type, which resulted in the publication of his "Five Points of a New Architecture" (Les 5 Points d' une Architecture Nouvelle). The five points included:
- Elevating the structure on freestanding posts or pilotis, omitting ground floor walls and liberating the home from the dark, damp first story;
- The use of working flat roofs that doubled as garden terraces and efficiently maximized all space;
- Open plan interior spaces only separated by partition walls between the building supports;
- Free composition of the exterior curtain walls that correlated to the open spaces inside;
- And the use of horizontal, ribbon windows to let light into the open rooms.
Le Corbusier's earliest project to conform to these principles was the Citrohan House (1920-22), which was intended to be a mass-produced dwelling to help alleviate post-war housing shortages. The concept of the Citrohan House evolved over the course of several years and culminated in design and construction of the Villa Savoye just outside of Paris in Poissy, France.
Design and Construction of the Villa Savoye
The Villa Savoy is located just outside of Paris in an open meadow that provides beautiful framed vistas from the house's many ribbon windows. The exterior is stark and spare of ornamentation, but hints at the interior volumes that define the house.
Raised above the ground on pilotis, the villa appears as a floating box that is surmounted by curvilinear volumes. The ground floor is composed of a u-shaped driveway -- designed specifically for the turning radius of the owner's car -- that is tucked between the grid of the house's support columns. In addition to the service area with maid's quarters and a garage, the ground floor contains two means of circulation to the upper (main) floor.
A circular scissor stair for the servants and light-filled ramp leads to the second floor that contains the living room, dining room, kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom. The immense living and dining areas are open in plan and only separated from the outside terraces by large sheets of glass. From the main garden terrace, another ramp leads to the upper level solarium that contains framed vistas of the distant valleys.
Every detail of the Villa Savoye was carefully planned in order to fully experience Le Corbusier's ideal for the home.
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