Villa Jeanneret-Perret; ( Switzerland); 1912; Modern architecture

Villa Jeanneret-Perret is the first realization of Le Corbusier as an independent architect. The project built in 1912, in La Chaux-de-Fonds, home town of Charles-Edouard Jeanneret.It was originally intended for his parents.

The Villa Jeanneret-Perret is located on the edge of the forest on a very steep terrain, overlooking the north-west city of La Chaux-de-Fonds. The site offers a wide view and distant view. It is a family house built on a rectangular plane and supported by the outer walls and four central pillars, thus releasing all other internal partitions of their bearing function. Thus, interior spaces are separated only by light partitions, anticipating the principle of "piles" and "free plan".

The house has two levels. It is like a compact cube, with a recess reserved for the entrance and the stairs. The axis of the house, or "cathedral transept" as Le Corbusier said, is extended by a central advance semicircle side south-west. The whole is surmounted by a roof marrying the different articulations. The building forms a T-shaped plan that punctuates the entire distribution. It is extended externally by a "summer room", and a garden arranged below.

At first glance, the Villa Jeanneret-Perret seems stylistically related to different artistic trends (Peter Behrens and his "classic clarity", Josef Hoffmann and the "Wagner School" or that still Frank Lloyd Wright's projects). However, it is in total rupture with the contemporary villas by the organization of its plan, the materials and the techniques of construction used (steel beams on pillars of brick, fibrocement).

All facades are completely different and they are pierced by many different types of openings that correspond to the function of the interior space. The northwest facade is characterized by a gable projection. Most of the protruding volume of glass supports the only balcony on the upper floor on the northeastern facade. The southwest facade forms a window semicircle in its center. Finally, the southeast façade is in a sense a main or “ceremonial” façade that overlooks the gardens and towns below.

At the basement level, it passes through three vertical windows. On the first floor, there are pillars on both sides of the picture window in the living room, and there is a vertex. The entire width of the upper floor was broken by a row of eight windows. The windows continued to extend to a portion of the southwestern region, where they were withdrawn from the façade and alternated with external concrete columns. Vertical casting of the windows seemed to be completed in the garden. This is the seed of Le Corbusier's famous ribbon window, one of the five main points of the new building established in 1927.

These stories are covered by a cordon along the southwest and southeast facades, highlighting the upper level: some corners of the building are highlighted by joint pillars that do not extend through the entire height of the house, for example, the main body is in the northwest Instead, focus vertically on a volume.

The roof was originally covered with Eternit slates, which is a fiber cement slate to offer an innovative alternative to traditional state roof tiles and vertical cladding.

Klaus Spechtenhauser, Arthur Ruegg. Maison Blanche Charles-Edouard Jeannert Le Corbusier.Association Maison Blanche