“This is probably the most interesting shot of the Villa Savoye I’ve seen yet.
A quick rundown for those who never studied Modern Architecture 101.
There was once a guy called Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris, but that name was a bit of a mouthful, so he called himself ‘Le Corbuser’ instead, which was a whole lot more awesome, especially in 1920 - though these days, and with those glasses, he’d probably be considered a pretentious hipster.
The guy was fairly ahead of his time and was one of the pioneers of Modern Architecture, which people also like to call ‘The International Style’, but don’t you call it that - it’s a rubbish name. The house above was built on five principles, which ‘Corb’ had been developing - basically, they included:
1: elevating the building off the ground, 2: A roof terrace for sweet parties, 3: ‘A free plan’ (which basically meant not having a plan restricted by those boring load-bearing walls), 4: Horizontal windows and 5: A freely designed facade. (here they all are in his words)
Of course, these days none of that sounds particularly ground breaking, but in 1926 it was out of control - essentially he was proposing that people start building their houses like factories. He even went so far to point out that ‘A house is a machine for living in’ which was certainly a fantastic sentiment, however despite this, once the roof garden on the Villa Savoy began leaking, the owners decided otherwise and wasted no time in setting out to sue Corbusier.
Thankfully for Corbusier (though not for most of Europe) World War II broke out and the matter was never settled. the house was occupied by the Germans, then the Allies and then afterwards the house fell into disrepair, at which point I assume this photo was taken.
At some point (like most early Modern Architecture) the house suddenly transformed from being a weird, ugly, architectural failure to a seminal piece of Architectural History (brutalism is currently going through a similar process) and has since been fully restored and is now looking pretty good and enjoying life being mobbed by traveling architecture students, dragging along their generally disinterested friends who can’t understand how it’s supposed to be better than the Eiffel Tower.
(The image above is from the book “On Weathering: The Life of Buildings in Time” which looks like an interesting read)”
(via smokingcinnamonsticks)
