The Villa Savoye — Le Corbusier
Villa Savoye was built between 1928 and 1931 by French-Swiss architect Charles-Edouard Jeanneret, better known as Le Corbusier. Le Corbusier, who has buildings all over the world, was a pioneer of modern architecture as well as a writer, and it was his writings that got him commissions to build residencies in Paris and its surroundings. Villa Savoye, one of his most famous buildings, is the last of the purist villas, and expresses a decade of research and corbusian ideals. This presentation will analyse the Villa Savoye and its historical and wider context, discuss how it portrays the principles of modern architecture, and assess its significance in architectural history.
In order to understand the Villa Savoye it is important to mention the historical context under which it was built, because in the post-world war I era, an architectural battle was taking place. Indeed, there was an ongoing battle between architects who favoured a neo-classicist approach to architecture, and architects who favoured the new modernist movement led by Le Corbusier, amongst others. Modernism was a movement interested in bringing architecture to the twentieth century. Le Corbusier’s interpretation of modernism set him on an investigation with a goal of finding a style that was free of decoration, of historical ties, and that articulated the functionality of the building in a pure form.
