Essay Example on Villa Savoye private home by the Swiss-born architect Le Corbusier

The building called Villa Savoye is private home built in the 1928 for the Savoye family It was designed by the Swiss born architect Le Corbusier The Villa rapidly has become one of the most influential buildings in the International style of architecture and cemented Le Corbusier s reputation as one of the most architects of the 20th century It is located just outside Paris and is totally surrounded by nature The landscape plays an important role in terms of the building s properties The Villa Savoye it s a building with complex geometry and undecorated white walls which exemplifies the International style as well as Le Corbusier's idea of purism The entire exterior of the building follows the shape of a box as seen from the drawing which is raised using the well known pilotis also named as columns or stilts The reason behind this aspect is that the main rooms of the building are located on the first floor allowing space for a roof with terrace which communicates with the surrounding landscape The Villa Savoye is a key building which exemplified the International Style It had a big influence on other architects buildings It is easy see the similarities in the buildings of the Bauhaus and De Stijl movements features like rectangular façade concrete slab roof and connected spaces can be found in all styles but they are represented most strongly in Villa Savoye The presence of white walls is another aspect of the modernism style frequently found in many examples from that period The purpose of the building is to explore the concept of the inside outside using the International 

Style characteristics such as long ribbon windows or even entire window walls which connects the environment of the house with the landscape outside as can be seen clearly these details in the left hand side drawing The house is a box in the air pierced all around without interruptions by a long window Le Corbusier The villa is quite big having 408 m 2as surface The villa was constructed taking in consider the system Five points which Le Corbusier had developed in order to guide to his modernist architectural style The system needed pilotis to lift the building off the ground and allow air to circulate underneath Functional roof serving as a garden and terrace to bring nature into an urban scenery an open plan that allowed interior space to be spread freely upon the client's or architects wish freely designed façade this time not affected by load and ribbon glazed windows providing illumination and insuring that the environment is good ventilated The blend between indoor and outdoor of the Villa Savoye has allowed the family to spend time outwards in an efficient way The flat land which surrounded by trees makes the building to stand out The preferred main material of construction was reinforced concrete as it was highly demanded at that time as well as beam structure Even if Le Corbusier's concept of Five points over complicated the process of construction and then making the stay of the Savoye family a bit difficult it remains an iconic fusion between the surrounding landscape and the modern architecture 

The house should be a machine for living in as he declared The Villa Savoye has cavity walls which is made up of 2 layers of concrete masonry and a cavity between them allowing to building to keep the warmth inside during the winter White plaster has been used on façade to emphasise the idea of purism also for the windows Le Corbusier has chosen wood instead of the higgle demanded steel in order to blend with the natural materials from landscape such as wood Villa Savoye s detachment from its physical context lends its design to be contextually integrated into the mechanistic industrial context of the early 20th century conceptually defining the house as a mechanized entity The house looks like is floating on the pilotis as seen in the rough sketch The curved glass façade is designed in a way that the cars are able to turn in a circle way in the garage These curved lines in the house as observed also on the spiral staircase creates this harmonious effect blended with the straight lines inspired from International Style The design of the building allows plenty of natural light to get through as walls containing endless ribbons of windows and few internal walls because the reinforced concrete within the structures supports the extra load Although the boxy looking like structure is predominant in the Villa Savoye the curved handrails and edgings gives the impression of movement and free flowing as well as continuity between the spaces located in the house Even though the building has so many iconic characteristics and the structure is made out of the modern materials at that time the flat roof didn't behave as expected due to the climate It had major leaks and the owners hat to abandon it soon