VILLA SAVOYE

By Le Corbusier

ARCHITECT:
LE CORBUSIER

LOCATION:
POISSY, FRANCE

CATEGORY :
HOUSE

PROJECT YEAR:
1929

Group 04 :
1. Qhayza Dara Intan Atlasya (21020118140067)
2. Alifia Putri Sumarno (21020118140072)
3. Dimas Iqbal Darmawan (21020118130078)
4. Yayang Isnia Mukharomah (21020118130090)
 BIOGRAPHY ARCHITECT

LE CORBUSIER

Le Corbusier was born Charles-Edouard Jeanneret-Gris in Switzerlandon October 6, 1887, Le

Corbusier was the second son of Edouard Jeanneret, an artist who painted dials in the town’s
renowned watch industry, and Madame Jeannerct-Perrct, a musician and piano teacher. His family's
Calvinism, love of the arts and enthusiasm for the Jura Mountains, where his family fled during the
Albigensian Wars of the 12th century, were all formative influences on the young Le Corbusier. At
age 13, Le Corbusier left primary school to attend Arts Décoratifs at La Chaux-de-Fonds, where he
would learn the art of enameling and engraving watch faces, following in the footsteps of his father.

Le Corbusier initially intended to become a painter but the trip that he took across Europe made him
come across many architects as well as engineers (some that he will soon work with) which would the
influence him to go into that specific field of study. He always had the intention of creating large
cities with even proposing an idea to knock down half of Paris, something of which he received a lot
of political views on.

After designing his first house, in 1907, at age 20, Le Corbusier took trips through central Europe and
the Mediterranean, including Italy, Vienna, Munich and Paris. His travels included apprenticeships
with various architects, most significantly with structural rationalist Auguste Perret, a pioneer of
reinforced concrete construction, and later with renowned architect Peter Behrens, with whom Le
Corbusier worked from October 1910 to March 1911, near Berlin. These trips played a pivotal role in
Le Corbusier’s education. He made three major architectural discoveries. In various settings, he
witnessed and absorbed the importance of (1) the contrast between large collective spaces and
individual compartmentalized spaces, an observation that formed the basis for his vision of residential
buildings and later became vastly influential; (2) classical proportion via Renaissance architecture;
and (3) geometric forms and the use of landscape as an architectural tool.

To improve his knowledge on architecture, he built various houses so that he could experiment with
his many theories whether it was on the the way people would utilise the space or how they would
react to the form and layout of the actual building. He then went onto to narrowing down these
theories to splitting them to those that performed well and those that didn’t. He always strived to
improve the way people would eventually live in the future.
 

2
 Villa Savoye

Introduction

Villa Savoye is a modernist villa in Poissy, on the outskirts of Paris, France. It was designed by the
Swiss architects Le Corbusier and his cousin, Pierre Jeanneret and built between 1928 and 1931 using
reinforced concrete. As an exemplar of Le Corbusier's "five points" for new constructions, the villa is
representative of the origins of modern architecture and is one of the most easily recognizable and
renowned examples of the International style.

Villa Savoye just like the name of the owner Pierre and Eugenie Savoye. It was created to be a rest
place for family. Villa savoye built in 1929-1931 on farmer area in Poissy city, 25 mill from Paris.
Savoye’s family is the first family which has a car in that area, and Le Corbusier made the design to
put the car. For example, when he designed the Villa Savoye has a ramp to in and out the car from it’s
garage. The radius of it circle fit to car’s radius at that time. It’s interior also has a ramp to fit with
vehicles rute out of the house. Villa Savoye also has a type that not use in other house for example,
pilotis, flat roof, windows around the house. In front of the door there is a basin to wash their hands
and keep their cloak. On the top floor is a bed room, living room, kitchen and family’s room. formed
to be letter L around the yard. Toilet for Mrs. Savoye there is a bathub and lazy chair that made from
ceramic with blue and black colour. The bathub also made from ceramic. For the top floor made like a
garden.

Altough this villa is owned by Savoye’s family but when world war II this villa was abandoned at that
time. After the war finished the houses in Poissy city was planed to hancur to built the school. It’s
plan was bring the international attention, Le Corbusier has negotiation with France’s goverment to
discuss about that news. When Le Corbusier pass a way in 1965 the government just take the action to
repaired Villa Savoye.

Le Corbusier often connect the house as “A Machine for Living”. Some of the criticus not really
enthusiastic about Le Corbusier. Some of them was thinking that Villa Savoye like an alien that
landed on the ground. Even an architect like Frank Lloyd Wright given a negative reaction to Villa
Savoye. He even called it as box on stilts. He explained that Le corbusier's creation was very childish
because made a built that like an kapal uap, plane and train.

The Villa Savoye uses the horizontal ribbon windows found in his earlier villas. Unlike his
contemporaries, Le Corbusier often chose to use timber windows rather than metal ones. It has been
suggested that this is because he was interested in glass for its planar properties, and that the set-back
position of the glass in the timber frame allowed the façade to be seen as a series of parallel planes.

3
Concept Design

The Villa Savoye was one of Le Corbusier’s most vital experimental pieces. It was a part of a variety
of minor test pieces that now became one of the great modern buildings in the 20th century.
Influenced by many he took on a Mediterranean style to this specific building something very unique
compared to other professionals at that time (Frank Lloyd Wright opposed to the fact that the building
was hoisted and sat on ‘pilotis’). The design of the ground floor has an almost semi-circle like portion
to the building facing north. Illustrating his interest in automobiles, he wanted to have the building
revolve around the car. He even placed a sink in the foyer area where the owner would come in from a
hard day at work and wash his impurities away and settle into his home. These subtle concepts may
seem small to a regular person but it’s astonishing in the eye of a modern day architect.
Corbusier uses French to describe the five points:
·         pilotis- Stilt
·         faҫade libre- free facade
·         fenȇtre en longueur- window length 
·         plan libre- free plan
·         toit-jardin- roof top garden

These elements separate the building from the ones that were created at that time of construction. The
structure oozes the words shape, build, edges and geometry. The actual form of the building looks as
if it’s floating on the piece of land that it is standing on. The stilts actually become visible as you
approach the building from behind the trees.  Inside, all the straight sharp edges fade into curve like
structures that bend their way towards the roof top garden challenging the normal clean cut methods
used on the first floor of the exterior façade. Some may say it is almost an abstract building as the
ground floor’s plan differs to the one above it. Again using the auto mobile as the main source of
revolving the house around. In my opinion I think that Corbusier intended to have this structure

4
standing out rather than blending it into the landscape, a masterpiece that was meant to object to its
surroundings. 

A feature that is really talked about is the roof top garden that is open to getting the most of sun’s rays
as it travels across the sky revealing the landscape along its journey. It is placed so that is faces away
from the sun so that the observer doesn’t get a restricted view of the surrounding area by having the
sun in their eyes. To admire the landscape outside the site Corbusier placed viewing spaces to the
facade of the building, it has been quoted that the windows ‘appear like naturalistic murals’ to the
observer. The patio on the first floor is another feature to allow the resident to get views of the
surrounding area. This again relates back to the Mediterranean style of having “patio houses” a term
that Italian architect Ernesto Rogers stated of Corbusier’s buildings.The attention towards detail has
been a priority for Corbusier whether it is for the physical building or the actual person and how he or
she views the architecture within the building. Corbusier stated “the house must be open to all
horizons”. Corbusier was so impressed with the outcome of the structure that he intended to go on to
make 20 replicas for a small village in Buenos Aries.  

Materials

Villa Savoye was an extremely modern building during the 1920’s and 30’s, (if you didn’t know the
year it was built you would probably guess it to be constructed within the last ten years) and
Corbusier’s construction methods matched this. Corbusier used reinforced concrete and plastered
masonry to create villa Savoye. [1] The use of reinforced concrete was a very modern method of
construction in the 1920s and 30s. Villa Savoye was the vision of Corbusier’s 5 points to a new
architecture, and included his idea and concept of open plan and free space. This meant that Corbusier
needed to use materials with the structural integrity to be able to create this, and reinforced concrete
allowed him to do so. It can be used to create curves with ease and flexibility in creating complex
shapes, allowing to create the solarium and U-shaped ground floor. It also meant that creating the villa
was a lot less labour intensive than it would be to use brickwork etc.

A French industrialist, Francois Coignet, was the first to use reinforced concrete in construction. He
used iron reinforced concrete to create a 4 story house in Paris. However, his intentions in using
concrete wasn’t for adding strength to the building, but to prevent the wide , elongated walls from
collapsing and falling over. For Corbusier, this allowed him to create the long, horizontal wall that
encases the wide windows, giving great structural support. It also gave enormous strength and
stability by using reinforce concrete pilotis. 

However, Corbusier's modern methods and detailing weren't quite perfected. There were many leaks
throughout the building due to this, because of joints where the walls met and the main issue of the
concrete flat roof As a result, the villa was abandoned.

Source :
https://www.archdaily.com/84524/ad-classics-villa-savoye-le-corbusier
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villa_Savoye
https://www.archdaily.com/84524/ad-classics-villa-savoye-le-corbusier

5
https://villasavoye.weebly.com/the-building.html
https://id.pinterest.com/pin/374572894006303876/