How to Visit Le Corbusier's Personal Apartment-Studio
With a quick stop at Villa La Roche
Last month I wrote a series of newsletters on one of my favorite cities in the world, Paris (Part 1 here and Part 2 here).
While looking back at my photos, I was reminded of some of the most significant architecture I’ve seen in the city, Le Corbusier's Apartment-Studio and Villa La Roche.
Le Corbusier's Apartment-Studio
The entrance of Le Corbusier's Apartment-Studio is rather unassuming, and I probably wouldn’t have noticed it if I wasn’t specifically looking for it. Modernist architecture has since swept the western world, however, the building itself was actually quite progressive at the time it was originally constructed (1931-1934). In fact, this was the first glass apartment building in the world and is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
As one of the pioneers of the modernist movement, simplicity is actually one of the main criticisms of his work. Some critics have even go as far as to say that Le Corbusier has caused western architecture to become quite bland as a whole. The other common criticism of Le Corbusier are his questionable (at best) politics, but we won’t get into that today.
Le Corbusier designed the whole building, but only lived on the top two floors - which are both currently open to the public. The first thing that surprised me was how small and cramped the space felt. By today’s standards it seems quite outdated, but I can imagine that these smaller spaces were the norm at the time.
The next thing that struck me, were the beautiful bright accent walls in the living and bedrooms. At first these colors are seemingly out-of-place when compared to Le Corbusier’s simple preferences, however, his use of color is quite intentional and has been well documented. Each color has a specific intent and occasion that it was used.
Although quite small, the kitchen has lots of storage space and features a nice look into the courtyard of the building.
One of the highlights of the residence was the top floor, which has an office as well as a patio. Everything within the apartment seemed quite regimented and calculated.
Being that this was Le Corbusier’s personal residence and studio, it was quite inspiring to imagine him drawing, writing, and creating his works from within these walls.
Villa La Roche
I didn’t realize this until I got to Le Corbusier’s studio, but there are a few other Le Corbusier designed buildings within walking distance: Villa La Roche and Villa Jeanneret. There’s even a bundle ticket which provides admission to both Le Corbusier’s studio and Villa La Roche in the same day - which I’d highly recommend.
As I mentioned earlier, the studio felt quite small and cramped, so I was surprised to see these beautiful sprawling buildings. Designed together with his cousin Pierre Jeanneret, the buildings sit next to each other on a generously sized lot with a beautiful garden.
Villa Jeanneret is unfortunately now closed to the public, as it is used to house the Fondation Le Corbusier archives; whereas Villa La Roche is open to the public and is used as a museum for Le Corbusier’s works.
As I wandered through Maison La Roche, I was the most impressed with the curvature of the building and how much natural light was able to enter. Because of the shape of the building and the fact that it was multiple floors, it almost felt as if I was wandering through a maze. One of my favourite rooms was the dining room, which was painted a very relaxing and unique coral-orange hue.
The highlight of the home is undeniably the open living room, which features a shockingly steep curved ramp. There’s also a beautifully pantina’d LC2 chair that I couldn’t stop looking at.
When looking at the curves of the home, the verticality, the open space, and the progressive use of colors, it’s incredibly hard to believe that the home was designed in 1923. Even today, over 100 years later, this home still feels incredibly ahead of its time.
Seeing Le Corbusier’s designs in person has truly allowed me to appreciate the complexities of his work. If you’d like to learn more about his life and works (that span across many more disciplines than just architecture), I’d highly recommend this book by Stephan Gardiner.
It’s more scholarly and analytical than your typical beach read, but it’s still quite approachable and does a great job breaking down why his work is so important.
Here’s a brief excerpt from the preface:
“Le Corbusier’s work illuminates everything around it. The man was huge, like a continent; his art was conceived on such a bewildering number of levels, and from so many associations and images, from such a mass of historical material that it is not at all easy to recognize which door to open in the search for the correct route to the source of his inspiration.”
We touched on it briefly today, but Le Corbusier is such a controversial character. I’d love to hear what your opinions are (positive or negative) in the comments down below.
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-Nick
Years ago I went to Villa Savoye but didn’t have time to head out to it when I went to Paris recently, wish I’d known about these!