Villa Savoye: Le Corbusier's Architectural Masterpiece That Changed Modern Design Forever!
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 16 ต.ค. 2024
- Unravel the captivating story of Villa Savoye, Le Corbusier's groundbreaking creation that redefined modern architecture. Discover how this iconic house embodies Le Corbu's revolutionary "Five Points of Architecture" and learn about the challenges, controversies, and legacy of this masterpiece.
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Good luck with getting 250k subscribers. I'm already signed up for all notifications. Love the channel.
Thank you!
I'm floored that this is a 1920's design. That's amazing. I would love to live there.
While I can admire the beauty and functionality of the modernist style, it's always seemed to be cold and sterile to me. To each their own, I guess. I do love the idea of putting the living area high up off the ground and the garden on top. I'm glad the French Govt saved and restored this home. It's part of history and should be protected.
Ingenious and idealistic this house pushed the boundaries of the minimal aesthetic early on along with Mies, Rietveld and Gropius.
To me its like an office i like the roof design
Yes! Clarity, Form, Comfort.
Amazing. Very ahead of its time.
👍Best wishes on your goal of 250K subscribers by this summer, Ken.
I like the fact that Villa Savoye was built in the '20s and so was ahead of its time. That made it and its history quite interesting.
If I had seen just a photograph of it, I would've guessed that it was built decades later.
Thanks, Ken.
Appreciate your efforts, widening our overall inquisitiveness & awe of these treasures & those involved 🙏🏼 so think of the distribution of “wealth”. So glad this dwelling still intact …
Love your videos, Ken. I always learn something. Thank you.
Nice house! Great glasses Ken! I hope you reach 250k🤞🏻🤞🏻
Thanks for sharing🙂
Awesome video.
Honest answer: I wish it would never have been built. Its those buildings that are used as justification for the boring architecture of today.
Le Corbusier was also one of the Central proponents advocating for the destruction of inner cities and the development of highways through downtown
Thank you for sharing your honest opinion, his influence on the built environment was substantial (for better or worse depending on how you view it).
For modernist architects, I always like Phillip Johnson the best. If you're going to start dissolving structure, just go the whole way and build completely out of glass, right? Le Corbusier was able, in my opinion, to bring light and dissolve heaviness with Villa Savoie and his even greater Chapel building, but nobody could really duplicate it -- anybody else that imitates his work, just manages to get brutalism on the cheap. Johnson's Glass House can easily be replicated and achieve the same effect Johnson made, which I think was Johnson's point.
I know a lot of the viewers of this channel aren’t fans of modernism (some of the comments on this video are HARSH) and to a certain extent, I get it. For the lovers of ornate mansions I totally get why in comparison modernist architecture seems cheap and that it is responsible for everything boring and blah that we see in architecture today. I get that and even as a passionate admirer of modernism I too mourn the loss of the beautiful works of art that architects and craftsmen built in the turn of the century through the 1930s. I’m an LA native, Pasadena specifically, and we are blessed with the most beautiful Craftsman homes, gorgeous mansions from that era, there is room for appreciation of those styles as well as a lot of modernism. Modernism was born out of the belief that good, beautiful design should be accessible to all, a utopian ideal that sadly hasn’t really sustained. As explained in this video, Villa Savoye was a statement of a design perspective, one that was carefully crafted and lovingly executed. The issues it had with leaks and other structural issues were equal to the less problematic of Frank Lloyd Wright’s work. (Again, LA native, FLW built concrete blocks houses on mountainsides on earthquake fault lines. USC architecture school owns one as an example of what not to do as an architect). I am always quick to excuse many of the faults of FLW’s designs bc I see them more as fine art pieces, they were more concerned with presenting a conceptual approach to what architecture could be, rather than something that actually functioned as a house, bc a lot of the 100% did not. So I think looking at Villa Savoye as a house you might live in kinda misses the point. There are modernist masterpieces that were meant to be lived in, Villa Savoye isn’t a great example of that. I will say Villa Savoye is stunning in person, again not as a home, but as an incredible series of sculptural form. There are fine artists who specialize in creating beautiful spaces to experience nowadays, I think architects like Le Corbusier and FLW could have been fine artists today. Now begins my passionate defense of modernist residential architecture: some modernism is cold, minimalism tends to be, but that isn’t all that there is when it comes to modernism. I know no one is probably reading this, but if you are are I would suggest looking at LA modernism, which was conceived with the fantasy of bringing the gorgeous views and nature inside. The Eames House (Case Study House #8), the ultimate example of mid-century charm and optimism, a great place to start. The works of R.M. Schindler whose residential architecture had interiors fully built in, custom crafted interiors, same with Richard Neutra though his clients had a much larger budget. Homes like Neutra’s own Research House are hugely aspirational in just as the mansions that came before it (there was a reflecting pond…on the roof!! Sadly it isn’t still on the roof but still). Many of the homes designed for the Case Study House program were designed with the fantasy of what a home could be, that anyone could afford to live that fantasy (ironically all of them are now worth well over $2 million lol). Saul Bass’s Case Study House had a beautiful tree growing through the roof! The architects who designed it, Buff and Hensman, were hugely inspired by the Craftsman movement and their work with wood is a clearly influenced by the Greene and Greene masterpieces in Pasadena. Ray Kappe was clearly inspired by that movement as well as FLW and his homes are also complex celebrations of the natural environment with his use of wood beams along with large panes of glass to bring the beauty of the outdoors inside. The Craftsman movement celebrated the materials found in nature, so many modernists did as well. John Lautner, who isn’t everyone’s taste but was undeniably one of the most innovative residential architects of his time, studied under FLW and you can see that in his work, but the way he worked with challenging budgets and lots led to some of the most iconic houses in LA. Chemosphere, his house in the clouds is the most famous for obvious reasons, but the gorgeous Garcia House is probably my favorite. Its panels of rainbow glass shimmer on the steep hillside up in the Hollywood Hills, truly innovative in its form, structure, and design. So while I understand why people hate on modernism, it makes me extremely sad bc I do believe it is misunderstood. Modernists ended up flocking to LA bc it was such an inspiring landscape: the hills with gorgeous views of the ocean, the forests, the appreciation of fantasy around Hollywood, there was so much to find inspiration in. (Architecture critic Rayner Banham wrote a whole book about it, Los Angeles and the Architecture of Four Ecologies, and it is basically about the fantasy provided by the landscape that produced a whole new approach to residential architecture). It is a happy, sunshine, idealist manifestation of modernist architecture, one that has everything that Villa Savoye doesn’t (and a lot of FLW houses don’t have imo) these are homes, not concepts. I think it is telling that after FLW built the Kaufmann family Fallingwater they did not have him design their desert home in Palm Springs, they had Richard Neutra build it. Their entire fortune has been sunk into (pun intended) preserving and the most beautiful fine art piece masquerading as a house, but they actually also needed a house. I think there is a place for all kinds of architecture, I love pretty much all of it (not a huge fan of Post-Modernism, few Modernist lovers are, and my appreciation for Brutalism has it’s limits), but no one architect or style is to blame for boring corporate industrial style or cookie-cutter residential homes. Money, greed, and growth driven by consumerism is what leads to a lack of thought and beauty in architecture. I don’t think it is fair to blame modernism. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.
I enjoyed your TED Talk very much. I'm intrigued enough that I'm going to search for the homes you mentioned that I haven't heard of before.
I wish that more cities would take seriously the concept of beautiful affordable homes, or housing. I live in a medium sized Canadian city with a huge homeless population. Fifteen years ago, my daughter and I moved into a very large 2 bedroom apartment and our rent was $650/month. We now pay $815/month. The AVERAGE monthly rent on a small 2 bedroom apartment is $2,130. Homes that sold for $350k 15 years ago are selling for over a million dollars. And it hasn't been a steady increase in rents and housing prices, most of the increase has happened in the last 5 years. Prices have increased faster than people can keep up with them. There are homeless people in our city with full-time jobs!!
There's no real incentive for developers to build lower priced housing when they know that they can get people to pay current market prices. It has to be the cities that do it themselves. In the case of our city, people are moving here in droves from the largest city in the country, which is about an hour away from us. They are wildly overpaying asking price for homes, because it's still less than they'd pay there. They're paying $500k over asking on homes with a listed price of $850k, because in their city that might buy a poky 1 bedroom condo, while here, it buys a 3 bedroom house with a nice piece of land. But this has resulted in people from this city not being able to find affordable housing. I know other people in our position, who want to move, but can't because none of us can afford to pay 3X the rent we're currently paying.
I wish that city governments would look at hiring architects who will design something more than ugly, dreary housing complexes for lower income, or even lower-middle class residents who would like to own a home of their own. All that municipal governments offer at the moment are affordable rental units, usually in equally ugly and dreary apartment buildings. I've known people who have lived in them, and I've visited them. It would destroy my soul to live somewhere like that. I think it would be good for cities in general to have more affordable housing for sale, usually because people will care more about a place they own. But even rental properties could be designed to be attractive. Living somewhere drab and dull has got to be draining on you emotionally and mentally.
I've seen occassional projects from around the world, where cities have had innovative architects design low income housing that look like places where people would want to live. They're bright, there's lots of light, apartments built around courtyards instead of as single blocks, attractive landscaping that incorporates child friendly areas as well as areas that encourage people to sit and talk and get to know their neighbours. Some have included party rooms with kitchens that residents can use to host parties or large family gatherings, gyms, community rooms where residents can gather, even rooftop or regular community vegetable gardens. Many of those ideas could be incorporated into housing complexes where the homes are for sale. Things like that would be good for everyone in the city. Not only must it be depressing as hell to live in the housing that's now available, but it's depressing to walk past it. And, because low income housing is notoriously ugly, no one wants it in their neighbourhood.
As I said, we have a huge homeless problem in our city, and many of those people have jobs. Why shouldn't someone who works hard, full-time, be able to live somewhere clean, attractive, and safe? Finding enough shelters for the indigent homeless, and those with mental health issues, is a problem I won't go into here, because that's a huge thing all on its own. Our city is full of old schools, and other appropriate buildings, that would be perfect to convert into shelters for people with no income. They already have bathrooms and large kitchens, and lots of space that could be divided into good sized rooms, so that people can have a space of their own. Something similar to the tiny home communities that are built...everyone gets their own cabin with bathroom and laundry facilities, a kitchen that provides food, and counselling onsite. The city was actually ready to build a tiny home community here, and just before construction began there was an outcry from people who realised how close it would be to their neighbourhood, and complained so much that, for the sake of the safety of the people who would be living there, the project was shut down. The people in the neighbourhood were threatening so much violence against anyone who moved into the tiny homes that the city couldn't chance it. Mind you, the monsters threatening violence talked about homeless people as if they're not quite human, something a little less than. But, as I said, that's not for today.
@@Terri_MacKay Wow, thank you, I'm so glad you enjoyed it! :D
It's insane, everything you described is so similar to the housing situation in Los Angeles. I'm SHOCKED to hear that your rent prices are as awful as ours are here! I'm so sorry that your city is dealing with these same issues! While we don't have a ton of people coming from more expensive cities and therefore able to pay much higher prices, almost all new housing development projects are for high income buyers, and they aren't interested in building housing for renters. Also what you were saying about having available buildings that would be perfect to convert into low-income housing or housing for the homeless, we also have so many buildings especially in Downtown LA that would be perfect for repurposing, especially since the homelessness in that part of the city is out of control. Unfortunately, and it pains me to say this, but our historic preservation laws, which have saved so much of our amazing architecture, are incredibly strict. They won't allow developers to do anything other than a full restoration on these incredible old buildings, which is hugely expensive and makes them impossible to convert into functional spaces. It would be great if they restored the exteriors and the ground floor lobbies (which are the stars of many of these buildings), and then be allowed to convert all the upper floors into whatever spaces are desired. Many of these buildings are just slowly decaying bc no developers are willing to restore them without making them able to be functional office spaces or apartments. It is SO SAD. Bc same as you described, those older buildings would be perfect for homeless housing! It is so sad that there are so many people in your city with full time jobs who can't afford any kind of housing, I can't imagine how bleak that must be! In California they keep trying to raise minimum wage bc the housing prices are so out of control but that just drives prices up higher too bc a lot of smaller businesses can't afford to pay higher minimum wages without raising their prices. It is an endless cycle that seems to have no solution...OTHER THAN ACTUALLY INVESTING IN AFFORDABLE HOUSING DEVELOPMENTS!!
I completely agree with everything you said about how amazing it would be if cities worked with architects to design affordable housing that was aspirational and allow lower-middle/lower class families to actually have someplace nice to live, something that builds community. Unfortunately, like you said, as long as developers are more concerned with making money and the cities have no incentive to invest in affordable housing. Probably the worst thing that was done to Los Angeles was that in the 1940s the wealthy business men and city officials decided to build the freeway system to encourage use of automobiles...something only the rich could afford. Los Angeles had a fantastic cable car public transportation system that was essential for the working class communities. Not only were the cable cars taken out, but the freeways were built through the poorest communities, destroying peoples' homes and displacing them. A lot of the earlier modernist homes were destroyed when the freeways were built, sadly a lot of them were examples of how some of our iconic architects designed homes for lower income families. So many of our problems date back to the way LA was carved up by the freeways. What makes things more confusing is that many of the communities that were a part of the city became their own cities, and everything in between stayed the City of Los Angeles. What was positive about this was that some of these cities chose to make housing more affordable. Hollywood requires that all apartment buildings have rent control, Santa Monica has a certain percentage of all housing dedicated for lower incomes. All that is great, but City of LA is stuck in between all these separate cities which is why crime is so hard to combat. The LAPD has to patrol such a large population spread out all over the county and they have to prioritize the worst crime, gang violence for example, leaving anything else as an afterthought. It is a mess LOL!!
Part of the reason I love modernist architecture so much is its idealism! There was an effort to create a world where everyone could afford a nice home, they believed good design could positively impact peoples' lives! I love the idea of tiny home communities, for the homeless or for lower income housing. Designs for pre-fab houses have gotten to be really sophisticated, they make building homes much more affordable, and they are actually well designed. These are solutions that are more affordable, but they aren't necessarily accessible enough yet. I really wish that there were more initiatives to allow for better access to these kinds of developments. It is so disappointing that the plan for the tiny home community in your city was shut down do to neighbor complaints. The city would be so much safer if homeless people were able to the help they need, whether it is just shelter, or counseling. Homelessness in LA has skyrocketed due to the Fentanyl epidemic, and shelters are overrun. These people need help, and getting them help makes it better for everyone. I wish there were better ways to implement solutions to these problems bc they are solvable!
Anyways, thanks for such a thoughtful reply to my comment. I am saddened to hear that your city has such similar problems to mine! Sadly, there are a lot of cities in the US that have seen a massive influx of people, mostly from California (LA and San Francisco), bc the cost of living here is so expensive. Just like in your city they are driving up housing prices bc they are able to afford so much more. A small house in a kinda bad part of town in LA can buy a really nice house in most parts of the country. I hope that someday things will be better. Until then it is nice to be reminded of the idealism of the modernists. :)
Great video!
Merci beaucoup !
❤ from France
It’s interesting that a structure which failed miserably at its intended function, to be a practical family home, has become so beloved and a protected icon. I appreciate the visual design but am glad I’m not the one who paid for it!
I love it Ken! My favorite house in the world is Joldwynds!!
A modernist style house in Holmbury St Mary, Surrey, England, designed by architect Oliver Hill for Wilfred Greene, 1st Baron Greene. Completed in 1932, it is a Grade II listed building. Google the interior pics too!
That’s a great one, too! I’ll probably do a video on it at some point. Cheers!
That house was used in a couple Poroit episodes.
This is definitely a case of function follows form.
Thank you so much fo this one, I have always wanted to see it close up and thanks for your research and presentation. I’m guessing the restoration solved the leaking challenges.
Are you planning a new series, where you'll be reviewing homes by Neutra, van der Rohe, Phillip Johnson and RIchard Meier? Very cool.
My first impression was that it reminded me of The Guggenheim. I imagine Wright was influenced by Corbusier’s work.
Looks like the building where I renew my driver's license. Yuk
While there, you can also get your cat spade and buy some new hoops at Claire's. This mess is a blight on the landscape. This kind of "intellectual" trash killed craftsmanship. Heck, it was top of the line in its day, and it was poorly built! It's the CVS of modernity.
It's an example of non-functional architecture actually. As you noted in the video the roof always leaked and the placement and size of the windows made some of the rooms unbearably hot in summer and extremely cold in winter. Enjoy your channel and never miss an episode.
Your lecture is the masterpiece. I believe stucco was not the desired material for the exterior though no modern material met the vision of the design. Brilliant composition shame it did not perform well or provide habitation.
Vous n'avez pas assez insisté sur un point qui est frappant quand on visite la Villa Savoye : les proportions sont telles qu'en dépit de la relative petite taille des pièces (les chambres, en particulier), on a partout l'impression d'avoir beaucoup d'espace. Cet attachement aux proportions, que Le Corbusiser théorisera en 1945 avec le Modulor, est déjà très présent dans la Villa. Bravo pour cette présentation. À bientôt. François
I've been there twice. The furniture in the images is non-existent. It is used by the neighboring school, and I think they were having dance classes one of the times I was there. The blue glazed tiled bathtub conforming to the "modulor" is awesome though. Just not much furniture, and for someone who designed lots of furniture, it is unfortunate.
It looks like an office building.
I feel that buildings like this are demoralizing.
Soulless and void. Could you imagine a ghost trying to haunt this used car dealership?
@@paco7992
**Slaps hood**
"You can fit a whole lot of lost souls in this bad boy!" 👻
😂😂😂
@DrinkYourNailPolish "Let's just head up this ramp and get those papers signed." LOL
Great video. The house... ummm... It looks like the building where I pay my taxes. I will stop there. 🤮🤮
Who knew Miami Modern started in the French woods?
Thanks Ken!
My humble opinion is Le Corbusier destroyed far more value than he brought into the world. He creat6ed lots of garbage structures and human-alienating, neighborhood-destroying projects too, imo. He possessed a huge disconnection between what he was obessively convinced was right, and its actual effects on people. I'd say he was as sensitive as a rock, to real, human needs.
I AM an architect - in Architectural School we had to worship at the alter of Corbusier, and I had the same feelings as Mme Savoye - looks cool as art, but was unlivable. Sure, it was the first of it's kind, but I find it pretentious and unfulfilling. Give me a good Frank Lloyd Wright or Louis Sullivan design any day!
I hate modern architecture, this to me is incredibly ugly
It is to everyone who is being honest. People think they look smart when they call this "cutting edge." This man's opinion ushered the end of craftsmanship.
Not my cup of tea (or, being French, not my glass of wine?) And a leaky roof? No thanks! Though I can appreciate what he was trying to accomplish.
Uck.
Even nature is trying to reclaim its space. 😂
I’m sorry but it just looks like a boring office building.
Love your channel Ken, but I can’t stand modern architecture….
Beautiful views, ugly house
It’s hideous. It looks like a cheap public car park. Bland to excess.
Not my cup of tea…
I don’t care for this house
That house would fit right in the Hollywood Hills overlooking L.A.
How about a vid on the House of the Future that was at Disneyland. I always felt it would be a great way to live if the house was scaled up to about 2200 sf while keeping the same look and feel of the original design.