10 - Pavillon Suisse

10 - Pavillon Suisse - Le Corbusier - 1932

Le Corbusier was an influential Swiss architect and city planner whose designs combined functionalism with sculptural expressionism. He belonged to the first generation of the socalled International school of architecture, which promoted clean geometric forms and open efficient spaces. The Swiss Foundation, also known as the Swiss Pavilion is a residence for Swiss student graduates in Paris. The Swiss government directly commissioned Le Corbusier.

The building is made up of three volumes. The first, the rooms, is in the form of an autonomous bar resting on a row of concrete poles and rising on four levels. The second volume, is on the first floor and houses the reception and administration areas. The third volume is the link between the two spaces and allows the connection through vertical circulation. The staircase that begins in the hall is illuminated by a facade of Nevada glass. The building is built on an artificial slab allowing the anchoring of the foundations deep in the ground. The lower structure is formed of massive reinforced concrete poles. The first floor consists of curtain walls and a millstone façade on the curved lounge side. The upper floors are built with a metal frame hidden in a brick and reconstituted stone slab envelope. The curtain walls and the industrial prefabrication process of the floors give the building a modern look.

Le Corbusier made the Swiss Pavilion a privileged laboratory for the implementation of their vision of collective housing and their theories as contemporary builders: the power of the reinforced concrete lower structure, industrial prefabrication of the floors, advanced research on sound insulation and the studied layout of the rooms with the collaboration of the designer Charlotte Perriand. The “five points of modern architecture” are expressed here: free plan, free facade, pilotis, curtain walls and flat roof.

7K Boulevard Jourdan, Paris