LeCorbusier

LeCorbusier -- Villa Savoye

Color slides copyright Jeffery Howe.

Click on thumbnail image or highlighted text for a larger picture.

One of the most famous houses of the modern movement in architecture, the Villa Savoye is a masterpiece of LeCorbusier's purist design. It is perhaps the best example of LeCorbusier's goal to create a house which would be a "machine a habiter," a machine for living (in). Located in a suburb near Paris, the house is as beautiful and functional as a machine.
The Villa Savoye was the culmination of many years of design, and the basis for much of LeCorbusier's later architure. Although it looks severe in photographs, it is a complex and visually stimulating structure. As with his church of Notre Dame du Haute, Ronchamp, the building looks different from every angle. After falling into disrepair after the war, the house has been restored and is open to the public.
The design features of the Villa Savoye include:

modulor design -- the result of Corbu's researches into mathematics, architecture (the golden section), and human proportion
"pilotis" -- the house is raised on stilts to separate it from the earth, and to use the land efficiently. These also suggest a modernized classicism.
no historical ornament
abstract sculptural design
pure color -- white on the outside, a color with associations of newness, purity, simplicity, and health (LeCorbusier earlier wrote a book entitled, When the Cathedrals were White), and planes of subtle color in the interior living areas
a very open interior plan
dynamic , non-traditional transitions between floors -- spiral staircases and ramps
built-in furniture
ribbon windows (echoing industrial architecture, but also providing openness and light)
roof garden, with both plantings and architectural (sculptural) shapes
integral garage (the curve of the ground floor of the house is based on the turning radius of the 1927 Citroen)

Villa Savoye, Poissy-sur-Seine, 1929-30

Exterior
exterior	exterior
ground floor	garage door

Staircases and Ramps
spiral staircase	spiral staircase	ramp to roof garden

Roof Garden
roof garden	roof garden
roof garden	roof garden

Interior
interior ramp	interior	interior

LeCorbusier: Ronchamp | LeCorbusier: Carpenter Center

Honors Program WWW Art Sources
FA 267 From Saltbox to Skyscraper: Architecture in America