Author | Lucía Burbano
Though it is nearing its 100th anniversary, Villa Savoye, the work of the renowned and revered Charles-Edouard Jeanneret, known as Le Corbusier, remains a cornerstone of modern residential architecture. It perfectly embodies the Swiss architect’s vision, standing as a timeless example of how aesthetics and functionality can coexist. So much so that many of its principles continue to inspire countless modern architects today.
The Savoye Family’s instant connection with Le Corbusier’s architecture
The Villa Savoye project began when the couple Pierre and Eugénie Savoye were impressed by the Swiss architect’s work on Villa Church, in Ville-d’Avray and commissioned him to design a weekend family home on their spacious seventeen-acre property in Poissy.
The Savoyes also had a significant budget and no preconceived design demands, which allowed Le Corbusier to fully apply many of his architectural theories from the 1920s.
The architect based his proposal on his “Dom-Ino” design, a structural system created to address the housing shortage following World War II. Its main feature is a framework that supports the floors and staircase, and thanks to the standardized production of its components, these can be combined in several ways, allowing for great flexibility in layouts.
The final design was approved in December 1928, with a budget of 487,000 francs. Construction began in April 1929, and the couple moved into the villa in the spring of 1931.
The Design of Villa Savoye: A landmark of modernism
The architect envisioned the villa as an “architectural promenade,” arranging the flow so that spaces gradually unfold as you move through the interior, continuously shifting and revealing new interior and exterior views. This bidirectional movement is enabled by a central ramp paired with a staircase.
For this ramp, Le Corbusier drew inspiration from traditional earth architecture of the Middle East, as he noted in his Oeuvre complète, which compiles his designs from 1910 to 1929: “Arabian architecture teaches us a valuable lesson. It is best appreciated on foot, walking, moving around, where you can see that the architectural orders are developing.”
The living spaces are concentrated on the two upper floors, which offer expansive views of the surroundings. The ground floor is dedicated to cars and service areas. Interestingly, the geometry of the central base at the villa’s entrance was designed to match a limousine’s turning radius, allowing the vehicle to navigate the house without needing to reverse.
For Le Corbusier, a home must be functional while also delivering “pure, clean, and healthy” architecture, achieved through natural ventilation and a continuous connection between interior and exterior spaces.
The five principles for a new architecture
What truly makes Villa Savoye renowned and why it remains an icon of modern architecture, is its fulfillment of Le Corbusier’s five points: a set of functional requirements for buildings in the machine age that became a universal stylistic vocabulary for architecture.
1. The “pilotis”
This is the name given to the stilts used in modern architecture to raise a building off the ground. This technique frees up much of the surface area below by elevating the living spaces, creating the impression that the house is “floating” in the air. It also allows greater light and offers a different view of the surrounding landscape.
At Villa Savoye, these pilotis are slender, white, and made of reinforced concrete, serving as the building’s primary vertical support structure.
2. Roof garden
Le Corbusier eliminated pitched roofs by using reinforced concrete. Instead, flat, accessible terraces are designed as unique outdoor spaces that can be transformed into garden areas.
At Villa Savoye, this concept is realized on two levels. On the first level, sliding windows from the living room open onto a hanging garden that brings natural light inside and covers one third of the building’s footprint. On the second level, there is a 70 m² solarium accessible via a ramp.
3. Open plan
This third point is crucial, as it fundamentally challenges traditional building design. Instead of relying on load-bearing walls that must align from floor to floor, Le Corbusier separates structural functions by supporting the house’s weight on evenly spaced columns and slabs.
As a result, the interior layout is completely open. Partition walls are arranged based on functional needs and desired effects, such as the expansive 6 by 14-meter living room.
4. Free façade
As with the previous point, the idea is to break away from traditional codes by freeing up space, in this case, the building’s envelope, which is independent of the structure, with the columns set back and the floor exposed in a cantilevered position. The façade thus becomes a thin, light wall.
Once again, the placement and size of openings are determined solely by natural light needs and aesthetic preferences. The villa’s four façades are nearly identical, deliberately breaking away from classical conventions in a way that borders on abstraction.
5. Ribbon windows
In addition to freeing up the floor plan and façade, the use of concrete also eliminated the need for lintels. As a result, the window openings stretch uninterrupted from one end of the house to the other.
Their full length provides panoramic views of the surroundings and natural light unlike anything seen before. To this day, they remain a hallmark of modern architecture.
A national monument
In 1940, the villa was requisitioned by the Germans, and the Savoye family ceased using it. After the war, the villa’s future was at risk due to reconstruction and urban development plans, with the city council proposing to build a secondary school on the site.
By 1958, demolition was imminent, but the international architectural community called for its protection. Le Corbusier appealed directly to André Malraux, then Minister of Cultural Affairs,
Malraux, a friend and supporter of Le Corbusier’s work, became personally involved in safeguarding Villa Savoye. In 1962, the government purchased the villa, and on December 12, 1965, just four months after Le Corbusier’s death, it was declared a Historic Monument.
Its significance in modern architecture is reflected in its visitor numbers: around 40,000 people each year travel to Poissy to experience this masterpiece of modern design firsthand.
Photographs | Flickr/Jean-Pierre Dalbéra (CC BY 2.0), Wikipedia/Netphant (CC BY-SA 4.0), Flickr/ Steve Silverman (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0), Flickr/scarletgreen (CC BY 2.0)