Villa Savoye, Modernist villa in Poissy, France.
Villa Savoye is a house in Poissy, roughly 19 miles (30 kilometers) west of Paris, designed by Le Corbusier and his cousin Pierre Jeanneret. The building rests on slender columns of reinforced concrete and displays continuous window bands along the exterior walls that emphasize its clean geometric form.
Pierre and Eugénie Savoye commissioned the villa in 1928 as a weekend retreat; Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret built it in reinforced concrete, and the family lived there from 1931 to 1940. Damaged during the German and American occupations of World War II and threatened with demolition, it was saved after an international petition and classified as a historical monument on 16 December 1965. Restoration begun in 1963 and continued through work carried out between 1985 and 1997.
The Savoyes called the house "Les Heures claires"; Le Corbusier called it a "machine à habiter". The entrance vestibule holds a washbasin set beside a pilotis, a detail of the period's hygiene ideals. The guardian's lodge at the gate, 33 m² with two 5 m² bedrooms, applies the same principles on a minimal scale.
The house opens most days except Mondays and sits on an open plot that is easy to explore on foot. The indoor ramp connects all floors without steps, making the entire tour accessible for people with limited mobility.
The entrance hall holds a washbasin set in the middle of the space beside a pilotis, part of Le Corbusier's original design and a sign of the period's hygiene concerns. Two cellars requested by Madame Savoye appear on no plan, section or photograph, since the architect considered the buried rooms shameful.
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