A paradigmatic work of Modern Movement architecture designed by the Swiss-born architect Charles Edouard Jeanneret-Gris, the great Le Corbusier.
Located on the outskirts of the city of Paris in the Town of Poissy to the north, the way to get there is through the RER which is taken at the Charles de Gaulle station located under the Arc de Triomphe, below the Metropolitan underground station . The trip lasts approximately one hour and twenty minutes and during the whole tour you can always see the meandering river Seine on both sides of the road.
Before arriving, you can see the presence of the manufacturing plant for Citroen and Peugeot cars. The train stops at the last station in Poissy. Going out you have a memorable view of the river Seine that resembles a lake in spring (perhaps recalls a scene from some European film where the characters arrive at a lake where a single bench is located).
I recommend walking around the place a little and getting to know the main square where the Hotel de Poissy is located, which would be like the municipality or town hall of the Place. It was there that I came to ask, but the person who treated me could not communicate with me because he only spoke French, he gave me signs and I wrote the name of the place where I was going on a piece of paper. A very nice person who was there leaving an order took me in his car to Villa Savoye because he worked right in the front.
After a brief tour in a Citroen C3, I arrived outside the well-known work. Entering the house of the guardian is observed that would become a miniature of the original. There is a path with trees to the sides which you walk a few meters to then look to the right and see the work: Villa Savoye.
I doubted it is smaller than it looks in the thousands of pictures I saw on the internet and books, but it looked like this. Perhaps I thought I would see a cold and rigid place in which it is shocking to inhabit it, but it was not so because there are many curved elements that break with that straight geometry. Upon entering from the first level you felt a pleasant atmosphere with lighting everywhere. When entering through the door there are two modules: the one on the left to buy souvenirs and the one on the right to make payment and register.
In order not to be repetitive with information that can be found in various sources, I can say that the central ramp may perhaps turn out to be a pleasant slope for a person’s path without difficulties, but a little uncomfortable for someone with reduced mobility.
The thinness of the “pilotis” means that in some places they are not easily noticed and disappear. Sliding windows effectively make lighting available in all environments and the fact that they are not too high allows visibility from the outside to form part of the composition of the interior architectural space. One of the most welcoming parts is the terrace on the second level due to its spaciousness and for having the feeling of intimate exteriority due to having on one side the wall with the continuous opening that causes the same effect as in the adjoining living room separated by a large glass partition. The planters on the terrace in composition with the canopy of the trees outside give us a feeling of spatial continuity from outside to inside, but having this space limited by the perimeter enclosure.
From the main floor or “Piano Novile” there is a ramp that leads us to the upper level terrace which has a curved shape that shows two curves on the ground that connect to a straight wall and from the outside it could be understood as a auction, which breaks with the rigidity of the main volume which is the one supported by the “pilotis” (I cannot imagine a building with such thin columns in Peru due to the high seismic incidence that exists)
An important point is the volume of the first level which is removed from the perimeter of the building and towards the main entrance it has a curvature which is given by the turning radius of a car of the time (we speak of the year 1929) which leaves its passengers at the entrance and continues its curved route until parking on one side of the building (it should be noted that that side where the vehicles were parked was closed and said enclosure was painted green like the entire exterior of the service floor) .
Other interesting details are for example the curved staircase that runs through all the levels, the bedrooms which have fixed wardrobes that do not reach the ceiling and delimit the room spaces a bit; the bathroom with two doors (which can be uncomfortable, but I can suppose that it was a special request of the clients). It is interesting to observe the main bathroom, which has a bathtub where one of its sides shows a curved shaped support that molds to the human body when it is decided to lie down after a bath (it resembles a tantric sofa in truth and evokes perhaps to use it in other pleasant ways).
I really liked the arrangement of the fixed furniture that is glued to the window walls, which are also moved, that gives me the feeling that they were designed to make the activities that are carried out always be linked to the outside. In the social area of ​​the house that is the living room, I highlight that fireplace that volumetrically has the same shape of the lower floor of the house (service floor) but in this case it serves to place the coals and on top of the smoke purification duct the which has a cylindrical shape and resembles the piles that support the house. I can not fail to mention that slim and long ceiling lamp that extends on the ceiling of the room and that contains the lights that illuminate this spacious place.
The detail of the kitchen seems interesting to me because it is a traditional kitchen of the time, which is closed and is independent of the social area (unlike in these times where the kitchen is integrated into the living room and dining room) and it has a kind hatch as a restaurant where there is no need to go out or enter and food would be arranged on the flat part of said hatch opening.
Without wishing to be very academic, I have described in previous lines the five points of “modern architecture” or “new architecture” raised by Le Corbusier and were fully reflected in this building:
- Building elevated on pilotis, with the lower floor removed for the car to pass
- Free Plan, having the structural columns placed on the perimeter of the building disappearing and not interfering with the interior development.
- Free Facade, the columns are removed from the facade to leave it clean of objects.
- Horizontal Window, which is closed and causes all interior environments to be completely illuminated.
- Garden terrace, returning the occupied space to the natural land or garden building on the terraces.
Important data:
- To get to Poissy it is necessary to take the RER (Réseau Express Régional) which is the network of commuter trains that connect the downtown area of ​​Paris with the suburbs. In this case you have to take Route “A” which is red towards the “A5” stop that is destined for Final Poissy (it is easy to recognize this route because in the opposite direction to Poissy it takes you to Disney Paris).
- From the final station in Poissy you have to walk, you have to leave and enter until you reach the “Toy Museum” and then continue and turn at the next corner to the right and walk a little more.
- The price of admission to Villa Savoye costs 7.50 Euros, but if you are a student and you can prove it, it costs half.
- No one speaks a language other than French, except for those who attend Villa Savoye, she does speak English.
- The events that occurred were in June 2015
