Arjan Hebly

4
..
The 5 Points and form 2 I I I (

The 5 Points of a New Architecture of Le Corbusier and formation that the house designs directly preceding the 5
Pierre Jeanneret we re the result of many years building Points, Maison Cook and Villa Stein de Monzie, are impor-
experience, and we re introduced as "architectural facts tant.
indicating an entirely new manner of building ." The 5 Points themselves also contain references to the
In their most widely known form, the 5 Points appeared in design theme of that periode - the theme of abstract form.
the book published to mark the opening of the Weissenhof Notably the last two points, the Ribbon Window and the
Siedlung in Stuttgart (1927).1 In order of their appearance in Free Facade, point clearly in this direction; the Ribbon Win-
that book they are: dow, for instance, gives no clue either to the various func-
1. The Column (les pilotis); 2;. The Roof-Garden (les toits- tions or to the floor levels behind the facade. The accurate
jardins); 3. The Free Plan (Ie plan libre); 4. The Ribbon detailing of the Ribbon Windows als conceals the differ-
Window (Ia fenêtre en longueur); 5. The Free Facade (Ia ences between the opening and the fixed parts of the
façade libre). window. Finally, the cantilevered floor frees the facade from
The "Free Plan" is usually taken as the focal point of constructional elements (point 5). In short, the facade no
these 5 Points, introducing what was an essentially new long er refers to extraneous elements, but has become a
architecture, one which develops from the inside towards canvas for aesthetic treatment. However, one problem still
the outside. The column and the uninterrupted floor slab are remains , and calls for another look at the 5 Points.
the constructional premisses for th is free plan : it is the Examining them again, and focussing on Point 1, the
function that gives the form to the interior space. Column, and point 3, the Free Plan, we are particularly
.However, although prompted by the 5 Points, the exter- struck by the position of the second point, the Roof-Garden .
nal form of Le Corbusier's building are not solely the result Is th is point not subordinate to theits flanking points? Is the
of this inside-to-outside treatment. His important sketch 2 of Roof-Garden any more than a functional suggestion for the
differing modes of composition (fig. 1) permits an examina- top; a digestion of impressions of the architecture of the
tion of the method he employed both for the functional Middle East?3
programme and for the total organization of the design . And yet the place of the Roof-Garden in the structure of
Four designs, for four different villas, show the construction the 5 Points is understandable if we look at points 1 and 2
of the mass schematically and chronologically. The first is a together, both have a bearing on the position of a building
composite "picturesque" form (Maison La Roche-Jeanne- on its site.
ret, 1923/24), the second a simple box (Villa Meyer, 1925/26 One of the postulations in point 1, the Pilotis, is that they
and Villa Stein de Monzie, 1926/27. The third is a basic form raise the house off the ground, lifting the rooms away from
defined by free floor slabs, with freely placed interior walls the damp ground surface and allowing light and air to circu-
(Villa Baizeau 11, 1929). late freely . The garden passes under the house, and the
Finally, the Villa Savoye (1928/29), is shown as the most same amount of outside space is created on the roof.
sophisticated scheme: the basic organization of this villa is Point 2, the Roof-Garden, goes on to state that "in
formed by regularly disposed pilotis which support a white general the roof-garden means that a city can regain its
box with a projection on two sides. Within this basic form entire built area" .
the outside walls and the curved lines of the roof garden are These first two points thus broach the idea that modern
freely disposed. buildings are siteless objects in a continuous (urban) land-
In this deliberate recognition of a relationship between a scape. The various designs for the Maison Citrohan
free programmatic development on the one hand, and the (1920/1922/1927) clearly illustrate this idea and its develop-
requirements of the external form on the other, Le Corbu- ment. The massproduced automobile stood model for this
sier's early work represents an important con tri but ion to siteless, massproduced house: a concept with far-reaching
arch itectu re. consequences for town planning . However, it also caused
However, the latent danger in Corbusier's own summary, architectural form to undergo a major change.
as expressed in this drawing, is that it tempts us to see the In the elevated house, the focus of the architectural com-
development in too simpie, or in too direct terms; sheer position shifts to a higher level. In a sketch in Précisions, Le
speed preventing us from grasping all the impilications of Corbusier iIIustrates this in a very direct way4 (fig. 2): the
these formal concepts . After all , architectural form is radi- one remaining point of reference of the facade, the door, the
cally transformed here, and it is in demonstrating that trans- entrance, the centre of the classical composition, is no

47
5 6 8

long er the starting-point of the whole organization. Here the bus ier to draw the basic design so quickly. In a sketch of
entrance is in the dark, hidden under the radiant part of the May 1st, three days aftar receiving th e commission, he had
building: what remains is a play of volumes in light. established the main features of the house (fig. 3): the area
Besides demonstrating its Free Plan and pilot is struc- of 10 x 11 metres is divided into four equal rectangles
ture, Maison Cook (MayjJune 1926) displays for the first (5 x 5.5 metres), one of which accommodates the service
time the potentialof the elevated house, with ribbon win- functions, all piled one on top of each other.
dow and free facade integrated in an abstract form . It is no The height is divided into four layers: the ground level
coincidence that th is house was chosen to iIIustrate the 5 through which the garden passes from front to back, a
Points in the Oeuvre Complète 1910-1929. garage, a small ent rance hall and astaircase; the first floor
In the preliminary designs for the next villa, Stein de with the bedrooms; the second floor with kitchen, dining
Monzie (July 1926jJune 1927), we recognize Maison Cook and living rooms , all linked by the device of double-height
features : a house lifted for the greater part oft the ground . with the third floor, with its library and large roof-garden .
For various reasons Le Corbusier had later to place the villa In this preliminary sketch we can al ready see how raising
directlyon the ground . The formal means to which he the house oft the ground aftects the organization of the
resorted had been partly developed earl ier in the villa Meyer functions . In the elevated house the roof-garden is the most
(April 1925j June 1926) and are (almost of necessity) classi- directly accessible outside area. This is why the living func-
cal : a frontal organization of the facade, an emphasis on a tions in Maison Cook are on the top floor, adjoining the
simple basic form and a classical manipulation of the mid- roof-garden , and the bed rooms downstairs. In other words,
die. the vertical organization of the traditional residence is
reversed . In terms of space, th is creates a surprising con-
Maison Cook trast between the compact, continuous staircase and the
top, light, double-height living levels.
The dates of the commissions for the Maison Cook and the During the design process the column grid was changed
Villa Stein de Monzie followed in close succession: Cook on into four quadrants of 5 x 5 metres each , with a 1-metre
April 28 1928 and Stein de Monzie 9 days later, on May 7. overhang at the front. This creates a "Free Facade" (fig. 5).
The Maison Cook site was 10 metres wide, a 10-metre The freedom of the facade is expressed by the two ribbon
deep strip beside the road was retained unbuilt and as a windows running the whole width of the house, by the
result the land availbale for building was only 11 metres sophisticated pattern of recesses and projections on the
deep. The house next door, on the left, was a Maliet- top floor with the roof-garden, and by the independent
Stevens design and the highest point of the Cook house rhythm of the stanchions.
was not permitted to ri se above the balustrade of the neigh- The disposition of the rooms on the two top floors is
bouring roof-garden . In short, the external dimensions of interesting . ln the final design the two single-height rooms -
the house were fixed . the library and dining room - are situated crosswise with
The logic of these restrictions may have helped Le Cor- regard to the double-height living room : the single-height

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48
 1. Le Corbusier, compositional comparison.
2. Le Corbusier, sketch from Précisions.
3. Le Corbusier, Maison Cook, lst draf!.
4. Le Corbusier, Maison Cook, floor plans.
5. Maison Cook, facade.
6. Maison Cook, elevated section.
7. Maison Cook, central perspective, with ro-
tated floor and ceiling of the living storey
(drawn by A.H .).
8. Maison Cook, living room .
9. Le Corbusier, Villa Stein de Monzie, plastic
design, sheet 1.
10. Le Corbusier, Villa Stein de Monzie, plastic
design, sheet 2.
11 . Le Corbusier, Villa Stein de Monzie, July 20
design, 1926. 7

dining room at the front, the single-height library above, at studio window. On the contrary there is a strongly horizon-
the back. This " spiral" of rooms is chiefly indicated by the tal organization, composition of two ribbon windows and
overlapping of the floor (of the second level) and ceiling (of the flat roof, which , together with the ridge beam, extend
the double-height room and the library)(fig. 7). over the entire width of the house. To encounter the double-
This spatial construction is most apparent when the height room in the interior is all the more surprising because
ceiling is not interupted bya beam . In the contract plan no the facade gives no inkling of it. Finally, the principle of
beams are shown. They do however, occur in the construc- lifting the house off the ground at the entrance-Ievel, gives
tion drawings, with the important exception of the living- rise to another possibility: the divisions of the house into an
room ceiling . even number of bays; a column occupies the middle. A
Photographs of the living-room interior, however, show departure from the classical principle in which an odd num-
that one beam was used (fig. 8) . The omission of the be am ber of bays results in an open bay in the centre .
might have had two undesirable effects: the roof floor would Proceeding from the design of Maison Cook itself, one
have become thicker than the other floors (since it would might also say that in a certain sense the logic of the size of
have had to span a space more than twice as wide (10 the site may have generated the principle of an elevated
metres), making the eaves of the flat roof floor (too) thick in building . The 1O-metre site is simply divided into two halves
the rear facade, and lowering the already restricted height of 5 metres each, a unit which Le Corbusier took wherever
of the floors still further. feasible as his point of departure.
Other important expressive elements of this interior are: This did result in a central column, and the entrance,
the colour, the chimney and above all the spherical enlarge- always in the middle of a bay (as in Maison La Roche or the
ment of the roof-garden , a huge formal element suspended Villa Meyer) would affect the equilibrium of the composition
in the double-height space. of the two part facade of the Maison Cook. There was no
way that the entrance could be made part of ｴｨｾ＠ organiza-
The five points and abstract form tion of the facade. The solution adopted was to lift the
To sum up the 5 Points als exemplified by Maison Cook, house proper and place the entrance below, set back a
we have here the columns lifting the house off the ground little.
(regardless of the house's internal organization); the roof- Whatever the reason , in Maison Cook a number of Le
garden ; the free plan (most in evidence on the bedroom Corbusier's points of departure merge for the first time,
level); the ribbon windows (which do not indicate the differ- seemingly automatically, due to the very limitations of the
ent functions behind them) ; and the free (front) facade, Maison Cook commission. A characteristic of such "her-
which does not show any supporting elements . metic" works is that these achievements, as in the case of
A further illustration of the abstract form is that the spatial this last point, are al most unnoticed, so logical is the sol u-
organization of the house is not directly reflected in the tion .
facades . In the important front facade , for instance, the Three years later, with the more spacious site of the Villa
double-height living room is not emphasized by a large Savoye, Le Corbusier's principles, together with his new

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49
 9

formal dei/ices, reach a new and more manifest climax. This living area consisted of the hall, a salon, library and dining
design accepts the free manipulation of the centre and room .
entrance of the elevated house: central column and central Ot her program items we re a kitchen , guest rooms, staff
entrance are one behind the another, both on the same and service rooms, a garage and a caretaker's apartment.
centralline. A collection of modern sculpture als had to be houseá, as
weil as the owners' antique furniture .
The site is in a residential area with detached houses,
Villa Stein de Monzie and is 186 metres long and 27 metres wide. A few groups of
trees and shrubs on it we re carefully noted. The north point
The Villa Stein de Monzie (May 1926/June 1927), the design is parallel to the site from back to front.
of which comes between that of Maison Cook and Villa
Savoye, is the result of an elaborate design process in the Two sketches
course of which the essential components were modified As stated above, the preliminary designs for the villa fall
right up to the actual state of building (e.g. the form of the into two groups: the July 20 plan and the designs with a
double-height spaces). ABABA rhythm .
The start of the design process may be divided into two The striking thing about the first group is that the plan as
periods, the first ranging from the date of the commission, designed occupies the entire width of the site. This is a
May 71926, to July 20 (= 44 days), and the second from the remarkable departure in a residential district of detached
design of July 20 to that of October 7, with the ABABA houses. The two "blind" walls at the sides arouse the sug-
rhythm (= 78 days). gestion of a terraced house. In these designs part of the
Studies on the history of this house's design concentrate garden passes under a raised section of the house from
particularly on the issue of whether experiments with this front to back. Notably this feature acquires extra signifi-
so-called constructional ABABA whythm (5:2.5:5:2.5:5 cance when the house is placed across the entire width of
metres) had taken place prior to thè design of July 20, and the site, like a kind of "walI". If the house had been placed
whether th is ABABA rhythm derives directly from Palladio's some distance away from the boundaries of the site, the
Villa Malcontenta5 , or emerges logically from the program. 6 need for, and ten sion of, an elevated section would be less
The extant drawings do not permit unequivocal conclusions acutely feit. There is some resemblance here to the Maison
to be drawn. Cook idea.
Although an incidental answer to the question is sug- Two designs use the entire width of the site: a plastic
gested, the main issue here is to trace the formal character- design (figs. 9 & 10), and the more abstract design of July
istics of abstract form as implied by the 5 points and the 20.
elevated, siteless house, and as initiated in Maison Cook. Of th is first there exist two coloured sheets of paper on
This article is therefore confined to the aspect of the design which three roughly identical oblique projections are drawn.
process that is directly concerned with the new achieve- On the sheet with two drawings of the house there is also a
ments stemming from Maison Cook. scribed ground-plan . The other sheet is more detailed. The
I shall therefore examine the connection of the actual fact that this design was drawn three times demonstrates
design modifications. It is in the design process that we can that it was more than a passing fancy.
see how the steps may be interrelated and how one step This may be said to develop the potentialof the elevated
generates another? house that Maison Cook had promised.
In the 5 points, for instance, Le Corbusier had high hopes
Program and situation of the quality of the outside space under the building, where
Although Le Corbusier made notes of some of the re- the garden appears to continue uninterrupted . On examin-
quirements, one gets the idea that the program gradually ing photographs of the Maison Cook garden (fig. 6), we see
crystallized in discussions between the client and the archi- that gravel and tiles dismissed any idea of an uninterrupted
tect about the various designs. garden. It is dark and rainless: in short, nothing could grow
The principal occupants of the house were: Mme de there . Le Corbusier was weil aware of this, as is demon-
Monzie, her daughter, and Mand Mme Stein, each with strated by the changing designation for this spot in the
their own spacious (bed)rooms and bathrooms. The shared Maison Cook drawings: up to the specification stage it was

50
 lOlt1 10 11

called a "jardin", followed by a period during which it was volume, lacking the tension of the previous design, with
nameless, after which it was labelled "abri". what may have been a rather overabstract image. To
In the plastic design for the Villa Stein de Monzie, the counteract this, the July 20 design re-emphasizes the fron-
problem is avoided by creating a double-height area and tality of the facade, with the entrance now the most impor-
narrowing the raised part to a 5-metre strip. The high tant symmetrical element, in the middle.
columns, echoing the nearby tree-trunks, reinförce the The elevated part re-introduces the useless single-height
impression of a continuous stretch of garden under the area (see Maison Cook), and covers far too large an area
house. (175 m2 ). Because the raised part is no longer related to the
The entrance, as in Maison Cook, is under the raised part entrance, it forfeits any function it may once have had in the
of the house, thus no long er dominating the composition . composition and organization of the house.
This design has no centre point. The sketches display Le The July 20 design retains its serial bays. Notably in the
Corbusier's most sweeping experiment in terms of abstract plan of the bed room storey, the consequences of th is are
sculpture during that period; and three items require spe- manifest in the arrangement of the functions (fig . 13). Iden-
cial attention . tical program items are ordered in the infinite direction
The dispositioning of the identical constructional bays envisaged in the "Domino skeleton" into a so-called "zone
produces aserial composition, which can be read in the top ground plan" . This search for a feasible system for ordering
"bridge" with square windows . The width (of 27 metres) is a programme in a free plan was one of the things that
divided into five 5-metre bays and a 2-metre zone. This se- preoccupied Le Corbusier in this design .
rialism carries on from the log ic of the "Domino" skeleton The July 20 design also presents a splendid architectural
(1919), which is marked by one finite and one infinite direc- promenade along the high walls of the terrace, in particular,
tion . the stairs soaring into the sky from the facade create a
A formal problem of serial composition is not the accen- magnificent, albeit alienating , effect, nevertheless, the ter-
tuation of the centre, by means ofaxial symmetry, but how race and route have a more extraneous character than in
to finish at the extremes. In this design the series ends in the previous design, in which the route passes the stag-
the spirally staggered terraces . The so-called "architectural gered terraces .
promenade" is al most organically linked with these stag- Finally, the mass is again dominated by a single basic
gered roofgardens. form : the box. In the right-hand section the enormous
Finally, the design is not dominated by a single basic screen of the terrace completes the box.
form (the box). It is more a case of several forms added The July 20 design takes a step towards more classical
together, of ten sion between a "raised" section on the left design principles: the entrance in the middle, axial symme-
and a "solid" section on the right, and of inversion of these try and the emphasis of a single basic form .
parts in the fourth bay.
This design presents a number of new visual aspects, an The designs with an ABABA rhythm
important modern feature being serialism in relation to sym- The chief reason for changing the July 20 design, apart
metry. The design is presented only in "three-dimensional" from flaws in the brief, was in my opinion the unfeasibility,
drawing, in this case oblique projection . This marks a from the point of view of the neighbouring houses and the
departure from the usual "elevations", which are more at general acceptance of the villa type (by local authorities), of
home in a world of symmetrically designed facades . a three-storey house with blind side-walls, that stretched
from one boundary of the site to the other.
The design of 20th July In one sketch, for instance, a first indication of the func-
After this undated sculptural design, matters progressed tions (fig . 14), the width of the house seems to be wh at was
towards the actual design of July 20 (fig . 11 ). left after the subtraction of two clearly indicated distances
The modified design could have been prompted by the from the boundaries, 4 and 2 metres respectively. All the
disadvantageous position of the terraces in the sculptural more so in view of the fact that only these 4 and 2 metres,
design : on the north-facing front of the villa. The principle of and absolutely no other measurements, are noted as a
having the entrance at the side, however, made rotation of requirement, obsessively, on every single ground-plan. In
the design a simple matter. It did pose a problem, though: short, the final design had to keep its distance from the
the view from the drive now ended with an uninteresting boundaries, becoming 21 metres wide instead of 27.

51
 , ',.
14

As we sawearlier, such a measure deprives the elevated

house of much of its tension, since it is now encircled by the
garden. The elevated section in the July 20 design no lon-
ger a structural component of the composition and organi-
zation of the design, it seems an obvious step to place the
whole thing on the ground.
This brings us close to the ABABA rhythm in Le Corbu-
sier's design system.
The possible maximum width of the house, as we have
seen, was 21 metres. Le Corbusier's approach suggests a
width of 20 metres: 4 times a 5-metre bay. However, the
centre is then occupied by a column, inconceivable in the
front facade of the classic villa. This is the place for the
entrance, certainly not for a column. Indeed, in all the early
plans of th is last version, the entrance is in the middle (fig .
15). For the proportions of the house this means: one 5-
metre bay in the middle, with a remainder of 7.5 metres at
either side. These can only be divided into a half-bay of 2.5
metres and one of 5 metres.
The ABABA rhythm is then (again) a fact.

translated by Ruth Koenig

Notel

1. Deutscher Werkbund. Bau und Wohnung, Stuttgart 1927, p . 27.

2. Le Corbusier & Pierre Jeanneret, Oeuvre Complète, vol. 1 1910-1929,
Zürich 1936, p . 189.
3. S. van Moos, Elements of a Synthesis, Cam bridge, Massachusetts, 1979,
p.72-73.
4. Le Corbusier, Précisions, sur un état présent de I'architecture et de
I'urbanisme, Paris 1930, p, . 59.
5. Colin Rowe, " The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa" , Architectural Review,
London, vol. 101, March 1947, p. 101-104.
6. Tim Benton, "Villa Les Terrasses" , Les Vil/as de Le Corbusier 1920-1930,
Paris 1984, p. 165-189.
Marc Dubois, "Twee woningen worden één ", Archi§ 1, Deventer, January
1986, p. 45-52.
7. Compare Rudolf Wittkower's superb analysis: "Michelangelo's Bibliothe-
ca Laurenziana", The Art Bulletin, vol. XVI , 1934.
Reprinted in Idea and Image, Over Wallop, Hampshire 1978, p. 11-72. 15

52
 > 13. Le Corbusier, Villa Stein de Monzie, floor-
I J llI. plan, bed room storey, July 20 design (drawn
. by K. Overmeire).

,//
+
\ '\ 14. Le Corbusier, Villa Stein de Monzie, function
L '" drafts.
• I
-, 15. Le Corbusier, ABABA rhythm, symmetrical
, r
,. draft with entrance in the middle.
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November 1926 January 1927 June 1927

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second floor

first floor

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ground floor

53
1. Villa Baizeau; preparatory sketches tor the
tlrst project February 1928 (FLC 25032)

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1.

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54
Max Risselada

Free Plan versus Free Facade

Villa Savoye and Villa Baizeau revisited

With the design and realisation of the villa Stein-de Monzie The Villa Stein-de Monzie thus appears to illustrate per-
during the years 1926-1928 a phase in the work of Le Corbu- fectly the ideas which Le Corbusier put forward in 1920,
sier was brought to a close, a phase in which the functional, long before he put them into practice in the houses he built
spatial, and formal possibilities of the Domino frame and the later in the decade. Thus in Towards a New Architecture he
Citrohan prototype we re investigated. wrote: "Mass and surface are elements by which architec-
Like the Maison Cook this house, too, is exemplary in the ture manifests itself. Mass and surface are determined by
way it evokes the "five points of the new architecture" and the plan . The plan is the generator ... The plan carries in itself
relates them to one another. In the Maison Cook this had the very essence of sensation.,,4
far-reaching consequences for the ordering of the pro- From this quotation it should become clear as to wh at
gramme and for the house-town relationship. Here the tradi- position the plan occupied in the theoretical observations of
tional vertical arrangement of the town house is reversed - Le Corbusier before he began investigating the potentialof
bedrooms downstairs and living rooms above - while the the Domino frame in the design of a house. Thus the plan
ground floor is left open . This means that the entrance no generates not only the elevations; it ensures the spatial
longer forms part of the facade and thus ceases to deter- experience itself. And this in spite of the fact that its signifi-
mine its composition . cance lies outside it: for the plan always comes wrapped in
The realised design of the Villa Stein-de Monzie, on the that other element - the volume .
other hand, is "traditional" in its programmatic organisa- With the introduction of the Domino frame th is emphasis
tion : servants' rooms on the ground floor, living area on the on the plan is only strengthened further; the horizontal
piano nobile, and bedrooms above. The facade can also be section dominates all other dimensions, while the vertical
deemed "Classicai " in the sense that the entrance governs section seems to go unnoticed . This is paradoxical if we
its composition, in this case by a game of displacements. observe that the chapter devoted to the plan in "Trois
The central axis, for instance, is not occupied by an entry- rappels à Messieurs les architectes" is iIIustrated with
way, but is defined by two great openings: on the roof the axonometrics from Choisy's Histoire de /'architecture.
loggia, and on the ground floor the big window of the These demonstrate the very unity of plan, section, and
entrance hall. On either side is a door with a canopy.1 elevation as elements that define one another. These axo-
In th is house the accent falls most heavily on formal nometrics are, however, drawn in a definite order: first the
experiment: the way in which a traditional and a modern plan, after which sections and elevations could be mea-
system of organisation relate to one another. Consequently sured out. It is as though the making of these drawings
it is this aspect that is focussed on in the many interpreta- governed in the long run the mental process behind the
tions accorded this villa. One authoritative interpretation is physical proposal.
that of Colin Rowe and Robert Slutzki; they were the first to In the work of Le Corbusier the distance between floors
establish a connection between the frontal, layered orga- seems no longer of importance; only by way of stairs and
nisation of the design and the compositional devices of ramps can the vertical dimension be realised. What is strik-
deconstructions, overlapping planes, and the shifting rela- ing, then, is the negligible number of sections iIIustrated in
tions of figure and background as developed in the Purist the Oeuvre Complète, as if there is little more between the
paintings of Le Corbusier in the twenties . floors than that al ready deductible from the plans.
Less attent ion has been paid till now to the vertical orga- Should the internal verticality of the Domino frame con-
nisation inside the Villa, particularly to the spatial relation- sist only of the layering of floors, there then remains the
ship bet ween the ground floor entrance hall and the living facade as the only continuous vertical element - as the free
quarters on the piano nobile. The many variants drawn facade . This cannot, however, be interpreted as a section
during the successive design stages demonstrate the for- through the building, not being determined by its internal
mal problems that arose when incorporating stairs and dou- organisation. Like the free plan the free facade is organised
ble-height spaces in the Domino frame. These were spaces according to its own laws, its grid coordinated by the
that in essence could no longer be defined br walls, but abstract system of "regulating lines" . "Freed" by the
rather obtained simply by puncturing the floor. These ver- frame, and bound by their own laws free plan and free
sions make explicit what the well-known perspective draw- facade are set against one another.
ing of the Domino frame only suggests: they confirm the This confrontation takes place in the zone created by the
unassailable nature of the floors by placing the stair outside cantilever of the Domino structural unit: the strip between
the unit.

55
 2. Villa Savoye; floorplans and perspective
drawings of an interim phase for the first
project September 1928 (FLC 19583)

the columns and the skin of the facade. It is this strip which through the use of floor to ceiling fenestration in the side
during the formulation of the "five points", during the elevations, and the interior, where this strip acquires self-
design process of Maison Cook and the Villas Meyer and sufficiency as a bridge between two voids, one inside and
Stein-de Monzie respectively, was allotted an increasingly one out. Interior and exterior are, as it were, interchange-
independent position. able.
In the front facade of Maison Cook the position of th is Thus during the design process of the above series of
strip is still ambivalent, partly because here only one contin- houses the spatial consequences of the Domino frame
uous column was necessary. On the storey of bed rooms gradually became apparent. With this the dimensional or-
this strip is indistinguishable from the rooms behind; at the der for which the Maison Citrohan stands - the vertical
living quarters and roof half of it is a component of the element - was during the process in danger of going by the
spaces behind the facade - the dining room, the roof gar- board. It is a long way from the Villa Schwob of 1917, where
den . At the double-height drawing room in the other half its a central space two storeys high weids the surrounding
allegiance is to the facade. rooms together, to the Villa Stein-de Monzie, where the void
In Villa Meyer the independent status of the strip on the seems no more than a hole in the floor. Here the void is not
facade becomes a reality. This is emphasised further still by the centre of the house any more, but is there merely to
the fact that in th is case the facade is self supporting, with highlight the succession of objects lining the "promenade
facade columns placed before those of the Domino frame architecturale' '.
itself. At the level of the living storey this strip extends In the realised versions of the Villas Baizeau and Savoye -
unimpeded by any obstacles along the entire facade, cited as examples iIIustrating the last two of Le Corbusier's
flanked on the inside by free-standing elements in which Four Compositions of 1929 - floors surfaces are continuous
small components of the program me are brought together - and the spatial development predominately horizontal.
the stairs, a servery. Only the connections between floors (the stairs and ramp)
Finally, in the front facade of Villa Stein-de Monzie the constitute a vertical element in the interior. The only room
independency of the strip is expreSsed both in the exterior, involving more than one storey - for we can consider the

56
first-floor terrace of the Villa Savoye as such - was effected of the wall formed by the original roof structure which
by omitting a number of floor areas. In these two villas the accompanies the ramp up to the roof garden. And though
free facade has been removed; each floor can be read off in the captions place particular emphasis on the properties of
the facade . With this the principle with which the propor- a ramp - "offering an approach entirely different from astair
tioning of the free facade was determined (the "regulating made up of treads. Astair divides storeys, a ramp unites
lines") has been eradicated . These facades are based on a them" - this drawing makes especially clear to us the impor-
modulor system of measurement governing the dimensions tance of the double-height wall, which would have given the
and the positions of the various components in relation to terrace both an extra vertical dimension and an orientation
one another. to the facade. It seems as though the architect wanted to
If we were to look into the protracted, complex design make clear, both to himself arid to us, what had been lost
process of both villas , it would become apparent that estab- during the course of the design process.
lishing the primacy of the plan above the cross section was As much as Le Corbusier, possibly without realising it,
not all plain sailing. It was the first designs in particular of was attached to the spatial characteristics of the original
these two villas that brought together in synthesis the versions of both Baizeau and Savoye - versions in which the
diverse qualities embodied in the Domino and Citrohan vertical dimensions still play such an important role - it can
modeis, namely horizontality and verticality , and column be inferred from the protracted design process that both
and wall respectively. (fig . 1-2) projects evolved under pressure from extern al circum-
We can even discover traces of th is desire in the way stances.
both villas are treated in the Oeuvre Complète. Here, of the
first design of the Villa Baizeau only the sections are pub-
lished, supplemented by a pair of perspectives of living Villa Baizeau
room interiors meant to clarify the relationship between the
double-height space and the mezzanine floor. Of the real- A visit to the houses at the Weissenhofsiedlung in Stuttgart
ised version of this villa we are given only the working was what prompted the contractor Lucien Baizeau to com-
drawings of the three plans and a section, which owing to mission Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret to design a
its layered construction is at first scarcely distinguishable house near Carthage, Tunesia, overlooking the Mediterra-
from the plans. Of this realised version no photographic nean Sea.
illustrations are included in the Oeuvre Complète. In Stuttgart Le Corbusier demonstrated in two buildings
Remarkable is the way the Villa Savoye is presented in his two basic dwelling types - the Maison Citrohan with its
the Oeuvre Complète. In volume one (1910-1929) only the closed, vertical orientation, and the Domino frame with its
initial version of this design is published. At first glance it open and horizontally developed potential. Though both
differs little from the built version . In this design there are, houses are built according to the "five points" and have a
however, a number of departures at roof level: the private frame , they differ in their use of the latter. In the Maison
rooms of Madame Savoye, accommodated in a free-form Citrohan it merely raises the house off the ground; in the
volume and reached from within by the stair only. In this dwelling proper the frame is confined to the walls and plays
project the continuous ramp linking from the first floor the no spatial role. With the twin houses that constitute the
two roof gardens is on one side bordered in its entirety by a other example the reverse is the case. In them the spatial
wall of the roof structure. consequences of the Domino frame are demonstrated to
The second volume of the Oeuvre Complète (1929-1934) the full.
commences with extensive coverage of the realised ver- In the first version of the Villa Baizea these two concepts
sion of the Villa Savoye, emphasising once again the spe- are fused. This occurs where five levels are stacked, the
cial position accorded this, the last of the Four Composi- Domino frame forming a pair of bays with on either side a
tions. In this stripped-down version Madame Savoye's roof- canti lever. Each bay contains a double-height space alter-
top quarters have been dispensed with : the curved walls of nating vertically , in which not only the floor between the
the sheltered sun terrace are all that remain of them . What columns is absent, but also the projecting element. One
is remarkable, however, is that the cross section illustrated result of this is a free-standing column spanning two
on the same page as the floor and roof plans belongs to the storeys. In the centre this thereby gives rise to a strip one
first version. This section follows the ramp: the elevation is storey high laid lengthways round the central row of col-

57
 February 1928 March 1928 July 1928

second floor

ground floor 3

58
 .• () 74

3. Villa Baizeau; preliminary designs respec-

tively February 1928, March 1928, July 1928 -
floorplans
4. Villa Baizeau; project March 1928; axono- •
---j
metric projection of the first reduced version
(FLC4B78)
5. Villa Baizeau ; project July 1928; floorplans of

6.
one of the variants (FLC 24968)
Villa Baizeau; project July 1928; sections of
"
one of the variants (FLC 8479) 6

umns. At the living area this strip possesses an ambivalent Although based on the principles of both houses in Stutt-
character; to the higher of the two upper stareys it functions gart - the c1ient's reason for his commission - Baizeau was
as a recess , to the lower as a gallery. At the sleeping and not happy with this design for his house. Ignoring the fact
utility rooms this zone becomes the corridor that serves the that because of the size it would have been too expensive,
independent double-height spaces. he was opposed in particular to the open vertical connec-
Central to the block are the stairs separating the living tions between living spaces. He also desired a terrace sur-
and sleeping quarters. In this arrangement the building is rounding each floor as protection from the sun . He himself
fixed in one direction, i.e. in the width . Lengthways it can be made a suggestion in this direction, of a building th ree
extended at both ends: a characteristic of the Domino storeys high with a conventional subdivision. On the ground
frame . floor were to be entrance and utility rooms, on the first f100r
In section it is easy to discern the spatial structure of the the kitchen and living area, and above, the bedrooms.
Maison Citrohan. Equally, we can see here the first step Just how much Le Corbusier and his colleagues we re
towards the cross section of the later Unité d 'Habitation, attached to this new synthesis of Citrohan and Domino is
where two dwelling units with double-height spaces on the apparent from the tenacity with which they followed up this
facade are ranged round a central corridor. concept in the subsequent, more economical proposals,
What was, in the Maison Citrohan , hitherto kept hidden against the wis hes of the c1ient. 5
behind the " c1osed" lateral walls is here completely vi si bie In the first place the cuts made were in the possibilities
in the front elevation, namely the cross section itself. And offered by the original concept , namely its flexibility length-
though both the lateral facades are non-Ioadbearing - they ways . The length of the volume was diminished by half,
occupy the edges of the projecting element of the Domino creating an al most square plan . As aresuit the number of
frame - it is their very solidity that ensures the special quali- bedrooms was reduced as was the available living space;
ties of this cross section as weil as orientation to the view the cross section, however, remained intact. (fig. 4)
out. In both perspectives published in the Oeuvre Complète There th en followed a series of variations, in which the
this relationship in particular between the large opening in original substructure of one storey high was abandoned. It
the facade and the tall space with mezzanine is made had contained the entrance, garage, and utility rooms,
explicit. which now had to be accommodated in the main volume.
The cross section of the Villa Baizeau could weil have This necessitated the rearrangement of programme com-
been devised to effect a basic, natural ventilation. Thus on ponents, which meant sacrificing the clarity of the original
the uppermost floar are to be found the terraces covered in concept. Entrance, garage, utility room, and kitchen now
their entirety by a canopy. had to share the ground floor with the drawing room, which

4 5

J
.j

141"

59
------------------------ ._-- -- - --

was provided at the front with a roofed terrace, living and status of a "room". At roof level are the private rooms of
sleeping areas intermingled in the cross section, the stair Madame Savoye, accommodated in an articulated, asym-
was rotated 90°, and so on. (fig. 5-6) metrical volume having reference to neither periphery nor
In the end the original concept turned out to be too rigid, frame. Only where it meets the ramp does this volume
too inflexible, to assimilate the changes, and so Le Corbu- concur with the building 's order. (fig . 8)
sier decided to revert to the obvious sol ut ion offered by the This division into three is also clearly recognisable in the
Domino frame. In this solution the consequences of this outward appearance. As opposed to the built version of the
concept are carried to their limits. The columns and floor Villa Baizeau the vertical order of the Villa Savoye is finite: a
slabs with parapets on the projecting section define the dominant middle layer with closed facades floating above
main structure. Inside the programme of each storey has the setback ground floor and crowned with a roof structure.
been given shape in complete freedom and expressed in In th is tripartite arrangement, however, there is further
the facade; the programmatic division is based on the origi- ordering involving two floors by the facade columns, which
nal proposal of Baizeau himself. The vertical cohesion of the on the ground floor are round "pilotis", and on the first floor
interior was achieved by a stairwell with three flights per square posts between the strip windows .
storey, which made it possible to join up with each level at a The spatial experience of the interior is forcibly deter-
different position. There is no facade in the traditional mined by the way in which one moves through it, and the
sense. design of the connections between floors is the only means
The disappointment dogging the entire proceedings can of achieving vertical cohesion. The explanatory text in the
be read off in the way the Villa Baizeau was eventually Oeuvre Complète includes the following : "Arab architec-
published in the Oeuvre Complète and in the terse com- ture can teach us a great deal. It favours the act of walking;
ments accompanying the third of Le Corbusier's Four Com- this is the means, by moving from one place to another, with
positions of 1929, iIIustrated here by this villa: "Very easy, which to experience the articulation of architecture. Here is
practicabie, allows for combinations ". a principle opposed to that of baroque architecture, whose
concept ion has a theoretically determined ｣･ｮｴｲｾ Ｎ＠ I prefer
The Villa Savoye the lessons taught by Arab architecture." All movement
eventually come to rest at the terrace on the main floor
Work on the Villa Savoye began in September 1928, imme- shown with some emphasis in the first design as an "inte-
diately following the radical change of course in the design rior" . Already mentioned is the continuation of the facade
process of the Villa Baizeau. We may assume that it was the through which this space is given windows too - albeit
experience gained during the design of the Villa Baizeau minus the glass.
that made Le Corbusier hark back to the Domino frame with Essential here is the presence of the wall of the roof
its continuous floor surfaces, where the programma could structure which accompanies the ramp . This wall ensures
be elaborated storey by storey. that the terrace is not seen as a space resulting from the
In the volume of the Villa Savoye the characteristic orien- omission of four floor surfaces: it determines the spatial
tation of the original Domino frame has vanished . In both nature of the terrace, its height and orientation. This vertical
directions there are four structural bays of 5 metres, which element also takes care of the link between the two
canti lever on two sides - through which the volume annexes - the living room on one side and the roofed section
acquired a certain orientation - and which played an impor- of the outdoor area on the other - which compensate for the
tant role in fashioning the elevations. In this structural set- missing ceiling .
up the programme's components are organised .storey by This observation appears confirmed by the series of
storey each in a different and specific way. designs carried out once it transpired that this one far
On the ground floor are the entrance hall and utility rooms exceeded the budget. 6 Uttle is known of the wishes of the
- garage, servants' quarters - in a volume that shrinks back Savoye family as regards th is country villa and we may
from the building's periphery; the curved shape of th is vol- assume that Le Corbusier was given a free hand as to the
ume derives from the turning radius of a car. On the first spatial disposition of the programme components . We may
floor are the majority of living functions; these are, in con- therefore assume also that it was, and remained, his wish to
trast to the ground floor, ranged along the periphery.round a retain the roof structure during the " economy drive" that
terrace which borders on a facade too, th us acquiring the ensued, perhaps for the reasons suggested above.

60
7. Villa Savoye; preliminary designs respective-
Iy October 1928, 6 November 1928, 26 No-
vember 1928 - floerplans
8. Villa Savoye; project September 1928, longi-
tudinal and cross section of the ramp (FLC
19418)
9. Villa Savoye; project 26 November 1928,
cross section of entrance hall and terrace
(FLC 19486) 9

October 1928 6 November 1928 26 November 1928

l
J

second floer

first floer

1
ground floer 7

61
 • lJ

10 11 12

In the first place the economising process consisted of a Roche-Jeanneret) and the fourth (Villa Savoye). The conse-
reduction in the horizontal plane, the programme being quences of these developments can be seen in a variant
housed in a structure of three five metre bays in two direc- tantamount to a caricature, dated 26-27 November 1928. In
tions . Owing to this reduction a number of fundamental this design there is no question of an overall arangements
points of departure from the first design had to be aban- of free-standing columns; they appear only in the cantile-
doned. Within the diminished surface there was no longer vered lateral facades of the wings . On the ground floor the
room for a car to turn a full circle. Also, the utility rooms and different functions are accommodated in separate units:
garage together occupied so much space that they garage, servants' quarters, and entrance hall giving access
extended to the periphery on three sides. Thus the buiId- by way of astair to the upper floors . Above, this stair turns
ing's original aspect, i.e. elevated on "pilotis " , could be out to be housed in a monumental volume two storeys high.
applied to one facade only. Using bridges and voids one would gain access to the two
It likewise became impossible to accommodate in this wings which enfold a wide terrace dominated by the stair-
volume the elongated body of the ramp. A single sta ir - tower containing Madame Savoye's sleeping quarters on
stationed in the central bay - now connects all floors . On the top . By way of an outside stair the terrace below could be
living floor this stair gains self-sufficiency as a free-standing reached , from which through a void in the floor surface - at
element, situated between a small loggia and the terrace. the place occupied in the preceding designs by the roofed
The stair on th is floor links two wings , one of which contains section of terrace - one would descend to the ground floor.
the living room and kitchen , the other the bedrooms of son (fig . 13-14)
and guests. The bedrooms of Madame Savoye on the roof It is clear that by retaining the roof structure Le Corbusier
are arranged in a volume placed at right angles to both the was in fact a long way from his original concept, in which the
above-mentioned wings . (fig. 10-12) horizontal-vertical relationship was accomplished with far
In this close-knit design the rooftop floor dominates the more subtlety.
terrace to a considerable extent. Another consequence of In the succeeding economising variant, which would ulti-
this compact construction is that program me components mately generate the definitive design, it was therefore
belonging together are combined in units coinciding with decided to leave out the roof structure and return to the
the structural bays; the columns are placed within the walls . spaciousness of four structural bays in both directions, now
Because of this the idea of the free plan becomes blurred; it of 4.75 metres. Madame Savoye's bed room was relegated
is more a composition of box-shaped elements. This variant to the first floor. On the roof, like archaeological remains , are
thus seems to combine those characteristics described by several walls of the rejected structure, combining to
Le Corbusier with regard to the first Composition (Villa la enclose a sun terrace, and punctured by a "window " fram-

13 14

62
 10. Villa Savoye; project 6 November 1928,
ground floor plan variant (FLC 19660)
11 . Villa Savoye ; project 6 November 1928, plan
first tloor (FLC 19699)
12. Villa Savoye ; project November 1928, plan
top tloor (FLC 19698)
13. Villa Savoye; project 26 November 1928,
west elevation (FLC 19694)
14. Villa Savoye ; project 26 November 1928,
view of the model

ing a view of the surroundings , because of which both ramp

and sun terrace still classify as " interior" .
That the 1055 of the high wall continued to be feit may be
deduced from the way in which the upward route via the
ramp is photographically recorded in the Oeuvre Complète.
This picture was taken from a V€ry low vantage point, giving
the impression that the wall on the right is higher than it is in
reality.

Translated by John Kirkpatrick

1. For a detailed argument see A. Hebly " The five Points and form " ,
included in this catalogue
2. Colin Rowe and Robert Slutzki " Transparancy: Literal and Phenomenal",
The Yale Architectural Journal nr 8, 1964. A German version with a com-
ment in words and images by Bernhard Hoesli was published as Trans-
paranz, BaseI1968
3 . See chapter " Two villa's: a closer look ", included in this catalogue
4 . Le Corbusier, Vers une architecture, Paris 1923. For a detailed analysis of
th is text see P. Reyner Banham, Theory and design in the First Machine
Age, London 1960
5. For the history of the design process of the Villa Baizeau see Tim Benton ,
" La matita del Cliente ", Rassegna nr 3 , 1980
6. For the history of the design process of the Villa Savoye see Tim Benton ,
Les vil/as de Le Corbusier, Paris 1984

63
64