Introduction
When you ask architects about Villa Savoye, they first think of Le Corbusier, his extraordinary worldwide designs, and his urban plan development. Le Corbusier was famous for developing modern and international architecture. But his popularity started declining because of his political views and how he deals with contemporary urban living. Villa Savoye was built in 1931 it cost around £800,000 to build. It was designed to be a home for the Savoye family. It’s located in Poissy, France. It made a big statement for the modern style of architecture during that time
Description
Villa Savoye is a floating box that has a long window that’s split into parts going all around it the exterior. Its height is 9.4 meters. The Villa Savoye's measurements are as follows: it is roughly 70.5 feet long (21.5 meters), 62 feet broad (19 meters), and 22.6 feet high (or 6.9 meters). Villa Savoye is built on a large area of unframed land. It’s in a form of a parallelepiped with four equal sides, set on Pilotis, with a roof terrace over it that emphasizes the more flowing shapes of a solarium. None of the sides of the Villa Savoye exterior face east or west. The villa was constructed with reinforced concrete and masonry units, Le Corbusier used white plaster to hide the prefabricated pieces that were used on the Villa. The roof is an open garden with a ramp that connects the roof garden to the third floor. Le Corbusier adds a solarium roof to a part of his garden. Le Corbusier uses horizontal ribbon windows. This type of window was used in his previous work before he designed Villa Savoye The ground floor is painted green and white. Le Corbusier focused on the colour white as it made the house cold and more machine-like.
https://www.dezeen.com/2016/07/31/villa-savoye-le-corbusier-poissy-france-modernist-style-unesco-world-heritage/
When designing Villa Savoye Le Corbusier wanted to design something special that can revolve around people’s lives. Le Corbusier designed Villa Savoye as a machine-like house. He wanted a machine as a home for his family to stay in. when describing Villa Savoye’s architectural style, you must understand the meaning of what the architect wanted to achieve and how he styled Villa Savoye to achieve his target. Le Corbusier used international and modernist styles to design Villa Savoye. Le Corbusier painted the exterior of the house white to accomplish his goal of a machine-like design. It uses reinforced concrete, which at the time was unusual because it was often utilized for bridges, factories, warehouses, and highways. The book that describes Villa Savoye the best is (Le Corbusier: La Villa Savoye = The Villa) written in 1999 by Jacques Sbriglio, a French author who has written over 5 books about Le Corbusier and his architectural masterpieces.
Figure 1
Five principles
Le Corbusier placed the kitchen in the northeast and northwest facades. Le Corbusier focused on the five principles to design the kitchen and the rooms in villa Savoye. He cited Pilotis, Free Design of the Ground Plan, Free Design of the Facade, Horizontal Window, and Roof Garden as his five main themes. Le Corbusier applied these five ideas to all his designs. When the house's bottom floor is dedicated to the car, much like the street, this is known as Pilotis. To facilitate the movement of vehicles or the development of a green community, the home is raised on Pilotis. The ground plan should be clear of structural constraints to allow for the organisation of partitions. The structure that separates the façade from its structural purpose is the façade's free design. The façade can have a horizontal window removed along its entire length to enable even lighting throughout the space A building that should replace the area it occupies on the ground with a garden in the sky is the roof garden. These five principles impacted modernism as other architects started following them until this day and will continue to be used and developed. These five principles became a guide for new architecture, other styles started using these principles because of their impact on architecture.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-QlxITf0IKUs/TXBlzMGGpXI/AAAAAAAAAD4/zHtukBw54h4/s1600/le-corbusier-five-points-ofarchitecture0001111.jpg
The author/ book that describes Villa Savoye the best
The book (Le Corbusier: La Villa Savoye = The Villa) described that Le Corbusier placed the kitchen in the northeast and northwest facades. This layout was done to work with the day-to-day activities that are going on in the kitchen. This position of the kitchen allows UV ray light to access it in the morning and during the day. This is because UV ray light would kill bacteria and allow water to stay purified. The kitchen design and style were inspired by Villa Church, but Le Corbusier wanted to have a bigger pantry, but he also wanted space for the electric boiler and other extra things his wife wanted to apply to the kitchen. Le Corbusier designed the kitchen as a “place of social interaction”. This is because the kitchen connects directly to the living room. Le Corbusier used the open kitchen concept. This worked with the idea of social interaction as having the kitchen open to the living room would allow easy interaction between the family members and guests. The kitchen is designed in a square plan and the centre, there is a “large work surface cladding in a white ceramic” the usage of cladding is good for the kitchen as it’s waterproof and it’s easy to clean.
Rooms style analysis
Le Corbusier placed his living room under one of his principles (The roof garden). The living room is made into a rectangular shape that takes up three grids on the side of the entrance The living room area is 14.25m in length by 6m in width. The living room stays with the modern style by having large
Figure 2glass windows and a rectangular form It’s not designed for having more than three people in it as le Corbusier keeps it very clean and open by not having much furniture. It’s designed with the purpose of being in a calm place and allowing the owners to admire space and nature in one place. Le Corbusier makes a perfect example of modern architecture in the living room when he used simplicity and shapes to make it stand out from the rest of the other rooms, instead of focusing on the furniture he used space and the outside garden to allow the living room to come to life which goes back to the idea of him wanting to design a machine like a house.
https://www.rostarchitects.com/articles/2019/1/2/five-things-you-need-to-know-about-villa-savoye
After what event what the style developed
The modern style of architecture was developed in the 20th century after the first world war, and it became popular after the second world war. Architects started using new materials like whitewashed bricks, plastic, steel, glass, stone and concrete. They started rejecting old styles and developing new ones and because of the early success that famous architects such as Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright caused, the style started to be used internationally. People liked that style as it accepted social equality and it brought people together. The style developed because it used a carbon footprint and decreased electricity usage which allowed people to save money.
Architects that had the biggest impact on the style
Architects like Frank Lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier had a massive impact on modern and international, he is known as the father of Modern architecture Frank Lloyd Wright used nature to develop modernism. He showed people that nature and architecture can connect. His most famous work Fallingwater House created a new type of architecture (organic architecture). Falling water is built over a waterfall in Pennsylvania. Frank Lloyd Wright used linear lines and used nature and the surrounding of the location. The way he connected to nature and architecture was different and simply beautiful. He used materials that blended in with nature but still stood out in a way that was memorizing to the eye because of that Fallingwater House is one of the most famous architectural masterpieces to ever be created. Frank Lloyd Wright’s modern and organic architecture is still being used today and it’s the type of architecture that will continue to be taught and developed.
Figure 3https://www.thoughtco.com/frank-lloyd-wright-wit-and-wisdom-175867
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/sep/11/le-corbusier-india-architecture-1965
When and why did this style develop
After the first world war architects found it hard to design new homes after being destroyed by the war. there was a supply of materials that were used before the war, therefore, architects tried to find new ways and new materials to build suitable homes that can restore happiness to people that have been affected by the war. Because of the low material supplies building companies started making prefabricated homes that were made off-site and then transported over to the site These homes were built on steel frames, panelled ceilings and panelled floors. These were designed to last for 60 years. There was an increase in the usage of steel, glass and reinforced concrete. Because of that architects had to use what was available and that was when they developed the style of modernism. They started making homes with bigger glass frames, whitewashed exteriors and they started using natural materials like wood to make homes. These materials allowed the home to be suitable for living in. The large glass windows allowed natural sunlight to enter the houses which saved people money as the materials used allowed the owner to save money on electricity.
Villa Savoye inspiration/ precedence
When people ask architects what the inspiration behind a certain design was, they usually mention other famous architectural masterpieces, but Le Corbusier used a different inspiration when designing Villa Savoye. He had an interest in automobiles and Transatlantic steamships. These two things inspired him to want to create a machine-like home. During the development of modernism, people looked to nature for inspiration instead of machines and technology, but Le Corbusier wanted to find a way to connect machines and modernism together Having two transportation forms that are from different times as an inspiration allowed Le Corbusier to use ideas from different times and take inspiration from the materials used on both forms. Designing something that resembles a 19th-century steam-powered vessel is not a very comfortable idea for a house so Le Corbusier had to cooperate some ideas from the vessel in order to make it work. From the Transatlantic steamships, he liked the idea of the spiral staircase going down in steamships. He implied that as a focal point in Villa Savoye. Le Corbusier originally didn’t want the staircase to be built curved. He wanted the staircase to be parallel with the ramp of the house’s axis.
To make the House float like a steamship liner he developed the spiral staircase in the middle of the Villa Savoye and made it an entry to access the house and the rest of the rooms. He connected the staircase to a ramp, allowing the owner to walk freely through his house. The ramp on the third floor was also designed on the Pilotis which allows the garden to stretch beneath the structure. This is important as Le Corbusier incorporated different ideas and made the ramp connect two floors on the outside which also allowed people that use wheelchairs to take the ramp and excess the
Figure 4 Frank Lloyd Wright figure 5 Le Corbusierpeaceful garden without any trouble. Ideas that Le Corbusier liked from the steamship, the ramp and the spiral staircase helped him build a house that was suitable for people with any kind of disability.
https://earlofcruise.blogspot.com/2017/07/transatlantic-ocean-steam-navigation.html
Why did the architect use this style?
Le Corbusier was considered a Titan in his development and research in modernist architecture he also laid the foundations for the Bauhaus movement. So, when he wanted to design a house for his family to stay in he used all his experience in modernist architecture and Bauhaus art to design Villa Savoye. Le Corbusier designed Villa Savoye to demonstrate the dominance of civilization over nature Therefore, he used modernism to achieve his target, he used modernism because of its brutal materials like concrete and steel Le Corbusier's interior architecture of the Villa Savoye is an example of how modernism employs the principle of less is more. There isn't much furniture in any of the rooms, and they are all very open to let air circulate through each one equally. The use of the flat roof and sharp edges resembles what modernist architecture and Bauhaus art are both about.
https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/592082682259168748/conclusion
From the research and reading I did about Villa Savoye and Le Corbusier I can conclude that Le Corbusier achieved his target of creating a machine-like house in the modernist style He achieved that because he followed certain precedence and developed some ideas from it. Villa Savoye is a perfect example of a modernist masterpiece it follows all the stylistics and uses all the materials that got developed and used for modern architecture Le Corbusier used all his principles to make villa Savoye, the base of modern architectural structures. His principles will continue to be used and developed and his development in modernism will continue to inspire young architects.
Figure 6 Figure 7Bibliography
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