Despite the crisp white finish and resolved modernist design, there are ideas and concepts in the Villa Savoye that Le Corbusier has had to address and work through. It is this that my parti and poches attempt to express. They are sketchy yellow traces, pinned up with masking tape and highlighted expressively with pantone. I am interested by the ideas embedded in the building; the architect behind the design.
Inside and Out: Feathering the Boundary
The varied internal spatial organisation of the Villa is unified by ribbon windows on all four facades. The aesthetic choice to use the windows is a simple but strong one. However, from most rooms in the first floor, there is a visual connection with the exterior. The sight of nature (bearing in mind that when built, the Villa was surrounded by trees and not paddock as today) and the feeling of being above it is a powerful generator of emotion in the villa. The windows, like the walled terraces and rooftop gardens ‘feather’ the boundary between inside and out.
Nude on top of the World
“One is drawn up to the culminating point, the curved walls, feminine shapes that are a memory of the former scheme when they enclosed Madame’s bedroom. She had insisted that the living room “should not be strictly rectangular but should have some comfortable corners.” However, Le Corbusier disregarded her wishes when it came to the main room and transferred them to the culmination of the route (of the ramp), the place where she might be nude on top of the world, sunbathing, and spiritually in touch with the sun.”
(Charles Jencks, 1974, Le Corbusier and the Tragic View of Architecture, 178.)
Equating the Machines of Living and Driving
That the car has been incorporated into the body of the building is significant. That there is space enough for three cars and a chauffer’s living quarters is Le Corbusier suggesting a new significance for the car in modern life. His correct prediction and prototype for a manner of living focussed around movement and efficiency is profound.
Cameron Foster, Hu Wen Jun and Barnaby Hartford Davis
Model
These photographs were taken with a single lamp in a fixed position, a black calico backing sheet and a digital SLR. The ‘sun’ angle is around 45 degrees from the ‘ground’ or base of the model and light emanates from the southern ‘sky.’ In all, it is roughly similar to the light conditions at around noon on a Winter’s day in Poissy.
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The Section Cut
Charles, Cam and I chose to build the model with a diagonal section cut to reflect the parti of the first floor. In one half of the model are all the private spaces: Madame’s bedroom cluster including her boudoir and ensuite, the Son’s bedroom and ensuite, and the guest bedroom and ensuite. In the other half are the public spaces, including the terrace, saloon, pantry and part of the kitchen. The majority of the kitchen lays within the ‘private’ model half, though only to afford a clean section cut.
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This section cut illuminates the complexity of the building’s plan. The building appears literally ‘full’ of walls, as we discovered in building the model, yet it is spatially resolved and calm.
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The section cut also cleanly divides the building into public and private spaces in the ground floor. The foyer and garage are in one half, and servant’s quarters in the other.
The simple becomes the complicated, the parts become the whole.
This work represents the evolution of thought and process in material modelling that I have experienced this semester. It's form is intended to represent a simple, rectangular volume expressed as a compilation of gradually finer rectangular volumes that are interconnected. It took 5 hours to build.
All of the joints in this work are either notched or mitered.
The following, Sinister, was spawned following a visit to the CBD. It is a reflection on the more sinister aspects of light in the city.
The day. The light. Everywhere the objects of luminescence rest silently, eyes closed. Like torches they stand ready to burst into light, to change those around them, to show them differently, expose them in the darkness.
But without the dark do they have purpose? Some. Some bear the flags of the now and the planned, of the present and the future. Some mark portals; to the road, to the building. But others? Are they even noticed? What of their many idiosyncrasies? What of the one that flickers, or the one with the low reddish glow that warms and holds without heating or touching?
I am looking for them, even though it is they that are meant to light my path. But the light shrouds them in darkness. Do they remain unused, ignored and forgotten. Or are they sentinels of the dark, waiting patiently for their time to shine, to light the way, to protect?
Is it a great city of light? Or does the day reveal the lights to be the great destroyers of darkness?
As I explore the alleys and the open spaces I can’t help but feel the lights as sinister, the slaves of vision. At the same time they are beacons of the debauchery and danger of the city night, as well as the illuminators of the safe and well meaning. Their pervasive presence and myriad forms stretch through time and space. Yet it is not a consistent time that they traverse. Lights exist in their new forms in much greater numbers than their old. The care taken in their construction and detailing dwindles like an expiring candle. Yet their scale has become so much larger. Is it an ever-present, robust light that we need?It would seem that what was once a path is now an ever expanding field of light, amorphous, cold and unrelenting.
One can help but reflect upon the changing fabric of the city and the people who use it. Are we more wicked or more active?
Look up, above the hooded poles to recognise the true light and dark. The night is the great humble, and the day more powerful than any light.
This work is inspired by the early design for the extension to the Tate Modern tendered by Herzog and DeMeuron. It is entitled Fold and is made from a single piece of folded card.
