ABSTRACT

WHAT ARE THE THEORIES OF

LE CORBUSIER, HIS FIVE
POINTS OF ARCHITECTURE,
AND HOW HE IMPLEMENTED
THEM IN HIS PROJECTS?

THEORY OF
ARCHITECTURE
RAR – 807
4TH YEAR, 2019-20
LE CORBUSIERSEMESTER 8

GROUP MEMBERS –
THEORIES AND PROJECTS
AYUSHI RAWAT
LAKSHITA GOYAL
SHIVANSH AGARWAL
Charles Edouard Jeanerette (Le Corbusier)

Year:1887-1965

Country: La Chaux de Fonds, Switzerland

Style: Art Nouvaeu, Art and Craft Movement, Modernism, pre modernism

Theory:

He was trained as an artist in local trade school, L’Ecole d’Art in La-Chaux-de-

Fonds, in order to learn the craft of watch case engraving. Corbusier’s mentor at
the school was Charles L’Eplattenier who decreed he should become an
architect. He traveled extensively through Germany and the East. In Paris he
studied modern building construction under Auguste Perret and absorbed the
cultural and artistic life of the city. He worked with Hofmann in Vienna, with
Perret in Paris, and with Behrens in Berlin (1907-1910) and also as a painter and
lithographer from 1912. He set up his own practice as architect in Paris in 1917
in partnership with his cousin Pierre Jeanerette 1922-1940. Jeanerette adopted
the name Le Corbusier in the early 1920s. He acquired the citizenship of France
in the year 1930.In 1923 he published his famous book Versune Architecture. He
introduced the Domino frame system (1914 -1915) for producing houses using a
reinforced concrete system.

In his architecture, he chiefly built with steel and reinforced concrete and
worked with elemental geometric forms. Le Corbusier's painting emphasized
clear forms and structures, which corresponded to his architecture.

His main observations include

 Five Points of Architecture
 La Volume, La Surface, La Plan
 The Modular

Design:

Design philosophy was heavily inspired by mathematical concepts used by

Leonardo da Vinci, such as the golden ratio and the Fibonacci series, which he
used as the basis for his architectural proportions.

Name: VILLA SAVOYE

Architect: Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanerette
Client: Pierre and Emilie Savoy
Year: 1929-1931
Location: Poissy, France
Type: vacation home
Climate: temperate
Style: modernist, international

Site: A modernist villa in poissy; the outskirts of Paris Grove of trees shields
from strong winds, while allowing sunlight. Patio receives breeze from SW in
summer. It is sheltered from cold NW wind in winter
Concept:

Purist and cubist approach

• “A house is a machine for living in” - Le Corbusier
This unique building is focused on Le Corbusier’s ideas of how space should be
arranged and experienced
The villa is perfectly designed with the alignment of the river, sun radiation, and
its surrounding environment.
 GROUND FLOOR- parking, entrance by ramp and circular stairs
 FIRST FLOOR- living room, bedroom, open common space, and kitchen
 SECOND FLOOR- series of sculpted space that form a solarium

Detail description

Entrance

there are 4 ways of entering la villa savoye, two of them are to small back
doors, the other one is the main entrance, which is big entrance, and the last
one is through the garage, and you can park in one of three parking slots
available. The last door is a big sliding door, which slides to the interior of the
building.

There are two important features that affect the entrance of the house, one of
them is a table near the main door, which is used to keep certain things. The
other one is a sink straight at the entrance, under the ramp, which makes the
process of entering of the house as something ceremonial or holy, as this is a
key element in many religious or important buildings.

Lower floor

The structure of villa savoye, begins on a four bay by four bay concrete
columnar grids of pilotis. The grid forms an uninterrupted equidistant perimeter
of columns spaced 4.75m apart in both directions.

Interior spacing is not same due to additional columns off grid at core. The
circular arrangement within the villa savoye is located around the ramp and
stairs at the center of the design. The lower level serves as the maintenance and
service programs of the house
The main house is lifted from the dampness of the earth and increasing its
access to light and air. On the lower floor there is a clear symmetry of the form
of the grid, perimeter walls and ramp about a north- south axis line. But stair
shaft creates a slight misbalance on upper floors.

Upper floor

The living quarters, or the upper volume, are fitted with ribbon windows that
blend seamlessly into the stark, white façade, which void the façade(s) of any
hierarchy.  The ribbon windows begin to play with the perception of interior and
exterior, which does not fully become expressed until once inside However once
inside, there becomes a clear understanding of the spatial interplay between
public and private spaces.  Typically, the living spaces of a house are relatively
private, closed off, and rather secluded. Yet, Le Corbusier situates the living
spaces around a communal, outdoor terraced that is separated from the living
area by a sliding glass wall. 

Type of planning- grid planning

Elevation

Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye is an exploration in the use of primary form. Le

Corbusier incorporated the structural ideals from the Maison Domino, called the
Domino Structure it is characterized by planar slabs connected by a dogleg
staircase. In the Villa Savoye, a ramp was added to the mix, allowing for a form
with a dual role of being meant to be viewed while simultaneously allowing for
viewing Le Corbusier’s architectural promenade as it flows upward travelling
inside and outside from the ground floor to the solarium.

The Villa Savoye uses rectangles, cylinders, and cubes to fill in the voids created
by his erosion of the overall cubic volume (which is actually stretched along one
axis making it a rectangular volume). Intentionally leaving voids within the wall
spaces and roof meant that he could open the structure up to frame the
surrounding environment. The top of the ramp to the roof garden illustrated this
point quite well.

The overall massing of the building is a cube and specifically at north elevation
there Is a primary mass with proportions of one high to just over five wide,
elevated above a secondary mass at ground level with a shorter height to width
ratio of just less than 1:6. Lastly, the massing element on the top of primary
element is shorter, rectangular mass with a ratio of nearly 1:7 .

Section

Side lighting articulates the use of natural light within the interiors spaces while
the exterior courtyards on the second floor and the solarium both have direct
overhead full sun exposure. The use of natural light was critical and the home
was fully intended to be “designed as a sun trap, a box of light above a meadow”
(Sbriglio.1999)

The relationship of plan to section has similar proportions when considered from
the west elevation.

The plan with the west oriented at the bottom to match elevation presents a
square with the upper left ¾ of the open space. Similarly, the elevation has the
upper-left portion open.
Environmental analysis
 Trees shade the building from the strong wind
 Allures sunlight from SE to SW open spaces
 Solar thermal mass in floor
Materials

The construction of the villa is simplistic with detailing that reflects this. The
floors are constructed of concrete slabs with the walls following a concrete
framework with cavity walls(formed with two layers on concrete block-work)
acting as infill. A concrete lintel above the window holds the block work up (lintel
is suspended from the floor above). The sliding wooden windows are typical of
corbusiers 1920 villas. They are fixed in a wooden frame on small wheels. The
wooden frame is supported by metal mullion reinforcement. The base of the
frame has a formed gutter that collects condensation build up and removes it via
weep holes to the outside. (Ford, 1990,p.250)
Corbusier had ambitious intentions for his projects, his idea for his purist villas
were that they would be constructed of minimal materials.

Influence:
The building led to the development of following concepts-

CONCEPT:
1. five points
2. golden ratios
3. purist style
4. basic forms used - cuboids and cylinders
5. machine and technology incorporated (esp. cars) - curve corresponding

Current use of building

It has been considered as the one of the 20th century contribution to humanity
and the essence of architectural inventions. Now it is world heritage building
open for all.

Bad about building

It is inhabitable by humans as it been leaking in the roof of autumn and heat
consuming in summer, its been leaking all around the building.

Good about building

Modern marvel
Tried new things
elements
origin

ISOMETRIC VIEW OF GROUND FLOOR

ISOMETRIC VIEW OF FIRST FLOOR

ISOMETRIC VIEW OF ROOF

 ISOMETRIC VIEW OF VILLA SAVOYE

FIVE POINTS OF ARCHITECTURE IN VILLA SAVOYE

GEOMETRY OF FRONT FACADE
Maison La Roche in Paris
Architect: Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanerette
Client: Raoul La Roche
Year: 1923-1925
Location: Paris
Type: Residential
Climate: mild and moderately wet
Style: Modernist style

Site:
The La Roche House occupies the end of the Docteur Blanche cul-de-sac in
Paris's 16th arrondissement, a neighbourhood under development at the time.
The use of new construction materials allowed Le Corbusier to put into practice
here what he would define in 1927 as the “Five Points towards a New
Architecture”: the open facade, the open plan, the long horizontal window, the
roof garden, and the pilots.

Concept:
 Constructed between 1923 and 1925 by Le Corbusier and Pierre
Jeanerette, the La Roche House represents an exceptional architectural
undertaking.
 Its originality lies in the unification it forges between two different spaces,
each serving a different function: an art gallery on one hand and, on the
other, the private apartments of the resident and collector, Raoul La
Roche.
 The La Roche House introduced one year later the theme of the
“architectural promenade”, a formal principle that culminated five
years later in the Villa Savoye (1928).
 The site has 2 adjoining houses-
 As Le Corbusier described it “One accommodates a family with
children, and is thus composed of a quantity of small rooms and all
amenities needed by a family, whereas the second is designed for
a bachelor, owner of a collection of modern paintings, and
passionate about art.” That is to say, the first house was designed for
Le Corbusier’s brother (Albert Jeanerette), his wife (Lotti Rääf),
and their two daughters, and
 the second for Raoul La Roche. Construction began in November of
1923, and in March of 1925, La Roche moved definitively into his new
house.
 In response to Raoul La Roche’s commission, Le Corbusier and Pierre
Jeanerette designed a project for a home/gallery that clearly disassociates
the two functions.
 On one half on the plan, they situated the art gallery and library, designed
to house a significant collection of modern art and sculpture. They
arranged the residential space on the other half, reserved specifically for
domestic activities. Raoul La Roche’s private apartments are directly
adjacent to the Jeanerette House, whereas the gallery, perpendicular to
the private street that runs along the square du Docteur Blanche, is
immediately visible from the entrance of the cul-de-sac.
 The promenade through Villa Roche plays a significant role in linking these
two programs into one. It was imagined as a “spatial experience” and
 consists of a specifically deliberate path which guides the inhabitant and
unveils the artwork as an itinerary through history.
 Beginning with Cubist art and finishing with Purism, the promenade leads
through the piano noble up into a succession of wonderfully illuminated
spaces which were perceptibly designed to be experiential and viewed
from a single, fixed point.
 Precisely placed wall openings, stairs, ramps, and balconies divide the
space into three-dimensional grid-like layers which are permeable to
stunning illumination, yet subtle and unobtrusive to the Villa’s equilibrium.
 Through the series of contracting and expanding corridors in Villa Roche,
the dweller is allowed a personalized experience of the space. The
prominent spatial volume serves as a focal point where the promenade
can be experience all at once, however, it is the individual’s path
throughout the villa is what will determine his perception of this residence.

VILLA LA ROCHE PLANS

Exterior elements
 The pilots
 the long, horizontal window
 the roof gardens
 open plan
 the open façade

Interior elements

The void - The foyer walls are painted Ivory and the staircase and radiator are
Dark Grey. “The interior of the house must be white, but in order to make this
white stand out, a multitude of colours must be carefully applied,” Le Corbusier
wrote.

Gradient colour palette- The colour palette at Maison La Roche involves a

carefully considered palette of 17 colours (the Foundation Le Corbusier
researched and restored the original colours in 2008, with the help of architect
Pierre-Antoine Gaiter): Dark Grey, Light Grey, Pale Grey, Oil Grey-White, Deep
Ultramarine, Blue Charron, Cerulean Blue Medium, Black Green, Paris Green,
Light Sienna, Raw Sienna Medium, Raw Sienna Light, Raw Sienna Pale, Red
Brown, Burnt Sienna Light, Burnt Umber, and Ivory.

Architectural promenade- Le Corbusier takes the visitor on a predetermined

path, using light to illuminate the stairs, and shadows to guide them in the right
direction; balconies and bay windows create multiple points of view. This was
inspired by traditional Arabic architectural plans.