Villa Schwob, ( La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland); 1916-7; Modern architecture R. He

Villa Schwob also called Villa Turque is a house located in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland. It is the work of Charles-Edouard Jeanneret future Le Corbusier for its sponsor, Anatole Schwob, watchmaker. Its construction took place in 1916-1917.

The fourth of the homes designed by Le Corbusier, which also considered it among the earliest achievements worthy of publication on the Esprit Nouveau. The structure is in reinforced concrete, while the epidermal brick lining. Starting from the "bottle house" in cement, rich in references to the poetics of the master Auguste Perret, Le Corbusier puts "the facades with terraces and the French, but in reinforced concrete. He obtains the reinforced concrete skeleton fill it with bricks in a few weeks.

The construction is based on a reinforced concrete structure. Le Corbusier applies the principles of the patent "Dom-Ino" he filed in 1914. The frame carries the floors and the staircase and allows to release the plan. The architect combines brick and concrete in a construction without load-bearing walls and flat roofs. 16 pillars support 4 slabs to support the entire building load. If the general silhouette of Villa Schwob removes it by its classicist future white villas (1922-1931), the modern spirit is present in the structure of the building. The villa is listed as a cultural property of national importance.

In the Villa Schwob, which as noted by critics Tafuri and Dal Co constitutes an "ambiguous episode, but full of implications", Le Corbusier then juxtaposes a sharp cubic volume, which conquers space with curved extensions with a semi-cylindrical and apsidal shape. which denounces with its Cartesian rigor the definitive change of direction with respect to the vernacular manner of the beginnings: this element, "incongruous and at the same time obscurely prophetic" according to Biraghi, has a smooth, plastered white, bounded by three courses of brick bricks and openings with an elliptical shape. There is also a terrace, surrounded by a "large frame, like a space for flowers". Thus, a house is obtained which, although in many ways modern, retains a certain Turkish appearance, hence the nickname given to it.

The distributive hub of the residence is the double-height living room, which opens outwards with a large glass wall facing the garden: around this large void, the other rooms are arranged, with the kitchen confined along the wall towards the street and services compressed between stairs and other living environments. As for the distribution, in a certain sense, the Villa Schwob can be combined with the house of Diomede, a suburban villa in Pompeii.

A large vertical window has place on the facade can cover two floors. It looks like a glass curtain in exterior, but not interior. Thus, people who living in the villa can browse the exterior views in both floors and make it more adaptable.

The roof terrace, which are set as opposite side. The shapes have set as half circular. It also has one above the huge glass window as rectangular shape. They can fully explore the view of La Chaux-de-Fonds.