Villa Schwob, 1912, Le Corbusier

Kisairis Espinal 

Villa Schwob

Villa Schwob was built in 1912 in Canton of Neuchatel, Switzerland, it's is the third largest city in French after Geneva and Lausanne. The architect on this project is Le Corbusier this was also his birthplace which is known for its unique architecture, microelectronics and its culture and sporting life. Throughout Le Corbusier career this is one of his least known projects due to the fact that he was a training architect during that time frame. This was a start of later issues that would become hallmarks of Le Corbusier, as his roof garden and spacious plan. There was a letter written to Ritter on June 1920, Jeanneret saw this house and right away she saw so many potentials, her idea was to incorporate new program she said ”I am devoted to serious works, even scientific, that is, to paintings that are at least the continuation of my House Schwob… But I look primarily at the Parthenon and Michelangelo… a reliable art. And the temperament won: New model; the Parthenon, this dram” (Baker,Geoffrey).

        What inspired Le Corbusier to built Villa Schwob, was a trip he took to Bosphorus this trip led him to many types of construction which started in 1905. This was inspired by some Turkish village. He created harmony in this building by mathematical precision through his design and concept. During 1918 Ozenfant published a manifesto explaining the importance of mathematical order. He tried to create order through their spaces, people describe this as a cube with a half cube, which is support by columns inside. The "geometric shapes make the Villa Schwob look balanced because he thought of order and importance created by the designer himself"(Jeanneret, Charles). 

         From all the other building Le Corbusier, this is the most complex building because it shows that he was still experimenting with methods to better propose his ideas more clean etc. This project allowed Le Corbusier to play around with his ideas such as the Dom Ino System, which allowed for open floor plans which we see how they were implemented in his later projects. In this project, the structure was one single structure interior columns which gave it an open space which was good because it gives the option for later modification if needed such as hallways, rooms etc.

        There was a room with amazing features, like a vertical window that covered two levels in the house. This was used as a focal point turning the rooms around and the living becoming more adaptable. "The rooms of this house were design on a “peripheral” design but it went as an overall aesthetic he had chosen with the open space"(Jencks,Charles).

       Corbusier always used a logic behind all his project, like private vs public, functional vs separation, these were things he embedded on the ground floor of this house. A very great detail is the garden roof which created more space, by this, he achieves harmony and was able to create a balance between natural and industrial world. The layout of the first floor was two bedroom which forms a U with a field in the middle. The kitchen is facing the street and the bathroom is embedded in between the bedroom and staircase.

Sources:

Baker, Geoffrey H. Le Corbusier: An Analysis of Form. New York, New York: Van Nostrand     Reinhold, 1984.

Jeanneret, Charles Edouard and Amédée Ozenfant. “Purism.” In Art in Theory 1900-2000: An      Anthology of Changing Ideas, edited by Charles Harrison and Paul Wood, 239-42.Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishing, 2003.

Jencks, Charles. Le Corbusier and the Tragic View of Architecture. Cambridge, Massachusetts:Harvard University Press, 1973.