FINAL SUBMISSION: My understanding of the Villa

When I first started looking at photographs of the Villa, I was confused. This was Le Corbusier's design and even though called a "villa" it was not one of those traditional French bungalows one would expect as somebody's vacation home. This was to be the weekend relaxation house for Corbusier's wealthy clients, the Savoye family.

From history we know that during the early 1900's when modernism was replacing old elaborate decorative architecture, Corbusier's designs had a huge effect. He was influenced by new technology and machinary and vehicles such as stream lined ships and cars. In his designs therefore he tried to incorporate this influence.

Villa Savoye was one of his last white houses. The whiteness of the entire house, which signifies the purity of its form was an aspect that I decided to uphold in our model through spray painting. The floating form of the house was hard to achieve, specially because the load had to be carried by unusually thinner columns. The windows on the facades and glass exterior of the ground level added to the transparency of the building.

These were all parts of his 5 points of modern architecture which I discussed in the blog below at an earlier time.

Since it was a white model and card was used, the smoothness of the material made it hard to convey the different textures of the building. Therefore I decided to make criss cross patterns on the roof ramp in order to show the texture of the tiles which were placed in the building at a special angle to aid in rain water drainage. I felt that this tiny detail would add to the model's reality.

Having made the garage level twice I had less time to utilise my drawing skills for the poches/partis but it has been a very good learning experience. In order to create the different complex spaces in one of Corbusier's most famous villas, we required a high level of understanding of his modernist views. After studying this villa I realised I would never look at another building the same way because from now on more than focusing on just its outside looks, I would pay closer attention to its interior organisation and its relationship to the building as a whole.