Toward an architect by Federico Ortiz

Toward an Architect

Architecture is the construction of a discourse and, in order to build it, editing becomes a fundamental tool for whomever – architect, historian, critic or curator – is writing his or her narrative. A specific selection of fragments is presented to our eyes as a convincing solid body of work; however, for us to believe in what we see, something has been left out – the inconsistencies of the narrative have to be removed. Hence, we could ask ourselves, what happened to what we do not see? Could the cut out parts tell us more about the whole discourse? What makes these excluded narratives less (or more?) modern? How could they establish their place in the history of modern architecture? As Foucault says in The Archaeology of Knowledge, in order to make visible other discursive groups, it is important to understand that a discourse is actually what is not said. He explains that “the manifest discourse, therefore, is really no more than the repressive presence of what it does not say; and this ‘not-said’ is a hollow that undermines from within all that is said.” 1The ‘not-said’, or the ‘never-said’, is in his words the ‘already-said’; an incorporeal discourse that runs beneath the repressive discourse. To reveal this constantly recurring absence is to reveal the discontinuity and the cracks in not only the unity of the discourse but also probably in its statements. The unity of the discourse of the so-called modern movement has always been a struggle in the architectural history of the 20th century. Forty suggests that modern architecture was not only a new style in architecture but also a new way of talking about architecture.2 To its specific vocabulary, which he analyses in Words and Buildings, we could incorporate a specific imagery. Images and words, projects; they built up the discourse of the movement. To talk about a solid movement to refer to this complex and multidimensional moment in history is only worth in terms of its practicality in order to render some ideas. As Rowe puts it, the modern movement “is an unformulated collection of aphorism and polemics from which certain interferences can be drawn. It is an attitude of the mind, which may be recognised by its temperature. For present purposes it is that atmosphere of thought vaguely associated with Le Corbusier, Gropius and Mies which expounds and justifies the appearance of a new architecture in the years following 1919.”3 From this figures, we will concentrate on probably the most contradictory and complex one, Le Corbusier. To question the unity of Le Corbusier’s early modern discourse is to question the wholeness and coherence of a ten years practice that this built argument sustained; something that he himself did after 1929.

Foucault, Michel (1989). The Archaeology of Knowledge. London: Routledge. Forty, Adrian (2000). Words and Buildings. London: Thames & Hudson Ltd. p.19. 3 Rowe, Colin (1976). The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa and Other Essays. Massachusetts: MIT Press. 1987 Edition. p.122. 2

The formative years as an architect of Charles Edouard Jeanneret, as well as the emergence and development of one of his most famous nicknames, alter ego or persona, have been well studied and documented.4 Therefore, instead of analysing the continuity of the process that led Jeanneret into becoming Le Corbusier, its discontinuities will be the interest of this essay. In order to do so, we will focus on his writings and his projects, portrayed as images vis-à-vis written words. Specifically, we will look at the series of 5 books that came out as a result from the L’Esprit Nouveau journals and particularly attention will be brought to a central discontinuity. Villa Schwob Between 1920 and 1922, Le Corbusier wrote and published a series of articles in the journal L’Esprit Nouveau, which he co-edited with Amédée Ozenfant and Paul Dermée. It is well known that from these articles the possibly best known, probably least understood and perhaps most influential architecture book of the first half of the twentieth century, came out: Vers une architecture. However, it is not always addressed that, most importantly, out of these series of articles and after 28 editions of the magazine, a series of 5 books (one of them being the famous manifesto, then Urbanisme, L’Art Decoratif d’aujourd’hui, La Peinture Moderne and Almanach d’Architecture Moderne) and even “Le Corbusier” himself were born.5 Before 1920, all Jeanneret had published to give himself recognition was books based on his notes and sketches of his travel journals from his trips across Europe. Only in 1918, he was beginning to be known in the artistic scene of Paris after Après le cubism was published. It could be said therefore, that the L’Esprit Nouveau articles were in a way aimed to promote himself as an architect, and that the following series of five books finally built his name as an internationally renowned architect (or should we say, as his passport would specify, a home de lettres?). All of the articles in the five books are intended to build a solid argument: a great epoch has begun and it demands new cities, new architecture, new objects and new art; a new culture coherent with the new machine age. As Le Corbusier says in his Confession at the end of L’Art Decoratif d’aujourd’hui, a new spirit exists and it is his intention “to grasp what really is happening and help give expression to its direction.”6 The modern spirit unfolds in succession before our eyes when opening any of these books. Here, images are not to be seen but to be read. 4

See for example, Brooks, H. Allen (1997). Le Corbusier’s Formative Years, Charles-Edouard Jeanneret at La Chaux-de-Fonds. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press. 5 For a precise explanation and chronology of the appearance of the 5 books see Benton, Tim (2009). The Rhetoric of Modernism: Le Corbusier as Lecturer. Basel: Birkhäuser Publications. p.10. Furthermore, Charles Jencks interprets this moment as “A Revolution in Four Books” in Jencks, Charles (2000). Le Corbusier and the Continual Revolution in Architecture. New York: The Monacelli Press, Inc. pp.128-165. 6 Le Corbusier (1987). The Decorative Art of Today. Massachusetts: MIT Press. p.214.

As Colomina writes, the fact that Le Corbusier was using mass media and publicity as a source for images for the L’Esprit Nouveau articles could be read as an intention to relate not necessarily to the other avant-garde magazines but more specifically to the mass media and advertising culture.7 Colomina goes on to explain how Le Corbusier was using his own projects in advertisements of industrial products specifically in Almanach d’Architecture Moderne. Furthermore, we could extend this reading to the whole series of the five books by saying that, if we consider that among the low-culture mass-media images Le Corbusier was placing images of his own projects, this could be interpreted as a threefold strategy: inserting his projects in a wider cultural context, attracting possible future clients and advertising himself as an architect through his work. Foucault argues that the unities of the book and the oeuvre are questionable.8 The book, he says, is not simply an object but a node within a network of references; its unity is variable and relative. Moreover, the unity of the oeuvre is the result of an interpretative operation. These ideas could be related to Le Corbusier’s operation of not only the making of the 5 books from previous articles but also the creation of his own oeuvre.9 How can we question the unity of his products? If we consider the projects and buildings that appear in Le Corbusier’s 5 books and his Oeuvre Complète, we could create a matrix that could help us understand how the projects were managed between the 5 books and the complete work. (A)

(A) 7

Colomina, Beatriz (1994). Privacy and publicity. Massachusetts: MIT Press. p.153. Foucault, op. cit., pp.25-27. 9 The first volume of Le Corbusier’s Oeuvre Complète was “compiled in 1930 by Wili Boesiger and Oscar Storonov under his [Le Corbusier] guidance”, as explained by Cohen in Le Corbusier (2008). Toward an Architecture. London: Frances Lincoln Ltd. Jean-Louis Cohen. Introduction. p.42. 8

Furthermore, looking carefully at the images that illustrate the projects, we could analyze the intensity of their appearance – or disappearance. First of all, we could say that the fact that the most illustrated project within the 6 books is the pavilion of L’Esprit Nouveau, could explain its use in support of the main argument: the new epoch has begun. (B) Secondly, we could evidence the discontinuity we were mentioning before since, from all the projects between the 5 books and the Oeuvre Complète, the only one missing is Villa Schwob. (C)

(B)

(C)

As Colin Rowe suggests in his essay Mannerism and Modern Architecture, the absence of the Villa Schwob in Le Corbusier’s Oeuvre Complète, could be explained by the fact that “this building is obviously out of key with his later work; and, by its inclusion with them, the didactic emphasis of their collection might have been impaired.”10 However, in Vers une architecture, published before his Oeuvre Complète, Le Corbusier included the Villa Schwob. Indeed, from all his early buildings – his “pre-modern” buildings – the only one that appears in Vers une architecture is the Villa Schwob. Even if we know it is certainly this house, he mentions it simply as a “VILLA”. It is rather surprising that not only the building is not named – which is certainly strange for a person who is interested in naming – but also its photographs have been edited. As Cohen says, four illustrations have been removed and replaced by images of the recently completed Ozenfant Atelier and only two images of the Villa Schwob remain.11 (D)

10 Rowe, op. cit., p.30. 11

Le Corbusier (2008). Toward an Architecture. London: Frances Lincoln Ltd. Jean-Louis Cohen. Introduction. p.11.

One image is a drawing of the south façade and its regulating lines, and the other one is a rather mysterious photograph. First of all, the sky is perfectly homogeneous and the white plane or blank wall looks incredibly white, has it been edited? Secondly, it is the first image – out of a total of 15 images in the whole book – that is actually placed vertically so that you have to turn the page to read it, or does he wants us to read it this way? (E)

(D)

(E)

If we go back to the introduction of the projects in this part called Regulating Lines, we will see that Le Corbusier enounces “CONSTRUCTION OF A VILLA (1916)”, describes generically how he applies this “method” and immediately presents, chronologically, images of the Villa Schwob, the Ozenfant Atelier and the Villa La Roche. The last one receives a specific location attached to it, the Atelier gets the name of the painter, but the Villa Schwob remains simply a VILLA. Why isn’t he mentioning that in fact this Villa has been built in his hometown, La Chauxde-Fonds? Is he trying to hide this project? This is not the case because, even if edited, it is still here. Furthermore, even if he had other “more modern” projects to explain the use of the Regulating Lines (Ozenfant Atelier and Villa La Roche), why is the Villa Schwob still here? Therefore, a series of questions arises: was Le Corbusier aware after the publication of Vers une architecture that he needed to edit the selection of his buildings? In the moment of selecting his own work that would accompany his arguments in Vers une architecture, how did he proceed? Are there any other buildings from his early career that could have been included?

Villa Schwob and Dom-ino If we consider the Oeuvre Complète as a collection of the work produced by an architect established in Paris – not Jeanneret but Le Corbusier – then it would be reasonable not to expect any work produced before 1917 – the year he moved to Paris – to be published. However, Dom-ino (1914-1916) was published instead of his already constructed buildings. In Le Corbusier’s mind, the project already exists in paper and that is enough to publish it instead of his materialized buildings. Or what is his actual message? Usually Dom-ino is related to “The Five Points of a New Architecture” and the modern aesthetics, when actually the projects Le Corbusier developed to illustrate the Dom-ino system are much closer to the Villa Schwob, or to even previous projects. As Tim Benton suggests, “the Dom-ino project from December 1914 to September 1916 embodied none of the principles of the Five Points, and equally none of the modernist potential implied by its celebrated and frequently reproduced perspective drawing.”12 Therefore instead of looking forward and understanding the Dom-ino as a technically avant-garde proposal that defined Le Corbusier’s future projects, we will look backwards and connect it to his previous projects. Ever since his working experience with the Perret brothers in Paris, reinforced concrete had been a major problem for Le Corbusier. From the project for the house of 1909 ‘Maison Bouteille’, trough his parents house ‘Maison Blanche’ of 1912 to the Villa Schwob (one of the first concrete houses in Europe) in 1916; this concern, its spatial and technical implications, and somehow the Dom-ino project itself can be found (F). In Vers une Architecture, the Dom-ino project appears to sustain the argument of mass-production and the need for standardized construction systems for new dwellings. This elementary system allows the user to complete the house once the basic elements have been settled. Now, the house for the rich and the house for the poor share a “definite moral connection.”13 Indeed, the first images that exemplify the use of the construction method are not those of workers housing but of luxury villas, clearly related to the Villa Schwob.

(F)

Benton, Tim (2014). Dom-ino and the Phantom “Pilotis”. London: Architectural Association. AA Files, No. 69. p.43. 13 Le Corbusier, Toward an Architecture. op. cit., p.261.

As Benton suggests in his essay, “a perspectival sketch of a luxury villa incorporates much of the layout and siting of the Villa Schwob, certainly when compared with a similar blueprint drawing of the actual villa.”14 (G) As well, the façade for a “residence and workshop” project visibly resonates the façade of the Villa Schwob. (H)

(G) If we take a closer look to this facade, apart from the proportions and the distribution of the masses and the fenestration, possibly the strongest element that connects the Dom-ino house to the Villa Schwob is the cornice. If we reconsider all together the publication of the Dom-ino as the first project in his Oeuvre Complète, the connection between Dom-ino and Villa Schwob, the omission of the Villa Schwob from the Oeuvre Complète and the “Five Points of a New Architecture” published in that volume; the problem of the cornice becomes an interesting fact and a possible answer to the question of the editing process. Stanislaus von Moos explains that to the “Five Points of a New Architecture” Le Corbusier added and then edited out a sixth point, la suppression de la corniche. 15 Is this normally underestimated fact the reason why Villa Schwob is not included in the Oeuvre Complète? After all, it made no sense to publish a project like the Villa Schwob together with a statement that would fight for the abolition of the cornice. 14 Benton. op. cit., p.42. 15 Von Moos, Stanislaus (2009). Le Corbusier. Elements of a Synthesis. Rotterdam: 010 Publishers. p.87, note16.

(H) However, neither were published and Dom-ino together with the “Five Points of a New Architecture” became, relatively late in Le Corbusier’s career, a solid discourse “suited to the promotion of a universal style based upon objective and scientific ‘facts’”, as von Moos puts it.16 Not objective or scientific enough, was the Villa Schwob excluded, paradoxically, for aesthetics reasons? Villa Schwob and Maison Blanche As mentioned at the beginning of this essay, the effort should be placed in the “not-said”, the projects that Le Corbusier left out of both his 5 books and his Oeuvre Complète. For this reason, we will look into a building realized in 1912 right before the Dom-ino project and after coming back from his trips around Europe; the first project of Charles-Édouard Jeanneret as an independent architect and, paradoxically as many architects start their careers, a house for his parents, the Villa Jeanneret-Perret, also known as the Maison Blanche. 16 Ibid,. p.87

Le Corbusier first hated this house, he thought of it as an outrageous anachronism. However, in 1916, he writes to Perret and comments on how he had reconsidered his work and how he was able to now judge it joyfully.17 In spite of changing his mind toward his creation, Le Corbusier never published this building. Just as he decided that his “first painting” would be La Cheminée of 1918 and used it to sustain the argument behind Purism and the Esprit Nouveau, Le Corbusier said that his first house in Switzerland was his house for his parents, the other one, the Villa Le Lac of 1924.18 As Schubert suggests, “the immediate past is denied in favour of a mythical past, super-individual.”19 Thus, the Maison Blanche was left in oblivion. In recent years, the house attracted many scholars’ attention and it recovered its position in Le Corbusier’s oeuvre. From these studies, it was Leo Schubert that developed probably the most comprehensive one. However, instead of looking at the complex map of references of the house, we will concentrate on the relationship between this house and later projects, since everything is here: an early dom-ino (I), promenade architecturale (J), fenêtre en longueur (K), spatial configurations and compositions, regulating lines and proportions. Still, the “Jura Parthenon” as Jencks called it,20 never made it into any of the pages written by Le Corbusier.

(I) 17

Spechtenhauser, Klaus and Rüegg, Arthur, Eds. (2007). Maison Blanche. Basel: Birkhäuser. p.49. Schubert, Leo (2006). La Villa Jeanneret-Perret di Le Corbusier 1912. La prima opera autonoma. Venezia: Marsilio. p.155. 19 Ibid., p.163. 20 Jencks, Charles (2000). Le Corbusier and the Continual Revolution in Architecture. New York: The Monacelli Press, Inc. p.90. 18

(J)

(K) Schubert identifies in the Maison Blanche a “type of composition with individual elements defined by aesthetic or functional values and then assembled according to precise rules”, and connects it with both the idea of “objects type” that Le Corbusier developed in 1918 with Ozenfant and the “Five points of a New Architecture” that he wrote in 1927 and were published in the Oeuvre Complète.21 Therefore, the Villa Schwob and the Regulating Lines “chapter” in Vers une Architecture, become a central piece in connecting Le Corbusier’s past, present and future production (architecture, painting and writing). Although the Maison Blanche could have been legitimately included in this chapter, it was never published. 21

Schubert, op. cit., p.143.

The strongest association between this house and other future buildings of Le Corbusier is definitely established when Schubert brings back and pushes forward the Maison Blanche. By placing it next to the “petit maison” and comparing them element-by-element, he “reveals the great continuity that links the two buildings, apparently completely different.”22 Moreover, by highlighting their proportions and spatial organization, he brings together the “House of the Tragic Poet” – that Le Corbusier sketched and published in Vers une Architecture – Maison Blanche, Villa Schwob and Villa La Roche; explaining that the only thing that changed in ten years of experimenting with a spatial organization, beginning with the Maison Blanche, was the formal vocabulary.23 (L)

(L) In that sense, finally, the author of la prima opera autonoma identifies what is perhaps one of the most striking points and a possible answer to this essay’ questions. At the end of his book, he isolates a revolutionary project that might have been the reason why Le Corbusier “erased” all his production previous to 1917, an industrial project for a slaughterhouse in Challuy. Schubert explains this moment as the arrival to “an aesthetics that sees in the anonymity of the industrial buildings the forms that best expresses his [Le Corbusier] idea of ‘modern architecture.’”24 22 Ibid., p.155. 23 Ibid., pp. 159-163. 24 Ibid., p.167.

Since then Le Corbusier would abandon the use of any architectural element that would refer directly to any other architecture, including that of the past, and would initiate his search for the means of expression of a universal ideal. This inevitably required the edition of his already produced work and the Chaully Slaughterhouse gained the title of “my first important work” and made it into the opening pages of his Oeuvre Complète25 – although it was eliminated after the first edition, again an aesthetical problem? Villa Schwob and Le Corbusier Villa Schwob is used, in the “chapter” of Regulating Lines, not only to exemplify how this method could work as a mean to guarantee keeping arbitrariness away, but also to establish himself, Le Corbusier, as part of the Great Architecture. Right next to Michelangelo’s Capitol in Rome and Gabriel’s Petit Trianon in Versailles, this “VILLA” proves that Le Corbusier was an Architect, with capital A. (M)

(M) He goes even further with this self-promotional attitude, by adding a footnote that reminds us how ahead of his contemporaries he was: “I apologize for citing examples by myself here: but despite my investigations, I have not yet had the pleasure of encountering contemporary architects who have concerned themselves with this matter; re this subject, I have only prompted astonishment or encountered opposition and skepticism.”26 25

Francesco Passanti in Von Moos, Stanislaus and Rüegg, Arthur, Eds. (2002). Le Corbusier before Le Corbusier. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. pp.224-225. 26 Le Corbusier, Toward an Architecture. op. cit., p.142.

As Cohen explains, Berlage wrote to Le Corbusier reminding him that, long before him, the regulatory lines have been the subject of studies – and in fact design – by many Dutch architects. 27 Here editing is clearly strategically used again: not mentioning his predecessors is a way of putting himself as a singular outstanding persona in the contemporary production. But, was he really ahead of his time by implementing this Beaux-Art (his apparent enemy) instrument or wasn’t this the most classical if not conservative approach to architecture in the middle of this revolutionary manifesto? While building up his fictional persona Charles-Edouard Jeanerret used, to sign his texts in L’Esprit Nouveau, at least five different names (The Five Names of a New Architecture?): Le Corbusier, Paul Boulard, Vaucrecy, de Fayet and even ****.28 These were used to write freely about architecture and to even attack other architects. But, as Jencks says, “for every positive point, there is someone or something which is destroyed”29 and this “someone” includes not only the Dutch architects but also his friends. As already mentioned, L’Esprit Nouveau magazine was co-edited with Amédée Ozenfant and Paul Dermée, but Dermée was eliminated after the third issue 30 and Ozenfant was crossed out of Vers une Architecture in the 1924 reprint.31 As well, for his legendary Dom-ino system, he never mentioned the collaboration of Max Du Bois and Juste Schneider. 32 Le Corbusier was no doubt an architect that worked collaboratively with a wide range of people, but when it came to advertising he would not hesitate in favoring only his own name, creating not only himself but also his audience. In Privacy and Publicity, Colomina explains Tafuri’s idea of operative criticism through the work of Giedion, in which “differences are canceled by the process of labeling, and the product in turn becomes marketable.”33 Modern Architecture, then she says, is a commodity. If instead of labeling we consider the process of editing, Le Corbusier himself becomes the key figure in charge of the marketing of his own work. By excluding certain projects and names from his books and his Oeuvre Complète , discontinuities are annulled and the discourse is now not only unified and coherent but also a marketable product. Then, after 1929, he could fly all over the world trying to sell his ideas. Now Le Corbusier himself becomes a marketable product. Probably Le Corbusier knew that, as Jencks suggests, “to invent and reinvent yourself is a way of keeping ahead in a capitalist world.”34

Ibid., Jean-Louis Cohen. Introduction. p.11. Jencks, op. cit., p.118. 29 Ibid., p.124. 30 Colomina, op. cit., p.142, note 1. 31 Le Corbusier, Toward an Architecture. op. cit., p.43. 32 Benton, op. cit., p.24. 33 Colomina, op. cit., p.195. 34 Jencks, op. cit., p.105. 28

References Benton, Tim (2014). Dom-ino and the Phantom “Pilotis”. London: Architectural Association. AA Files, No. 69. Benton, Tim (2009). The Rhetoric of Modernism: Le Corbusier as Lecturer. Basel: Birkhäuser Publications. Brooks, H. Allen (1997). Le Corbusier’s Formative Years, Charles-Edouard Jeanneret at La Chaux-de-Fonds. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press. Banham, Reyner (1980). Theory and Design in the First Machine Age. Massachusetts: MIT Press. Colomina, Beatriz (1994). Privacy and publicity. Massachusetts: MIT Press. Forty, Adrian (2000). Words and Buildings. London: Thames & Hudson Ltd. Foucault, Michel (1989). The Archaeology of Knowledge. London: Routledge. Jencks, Charles (2000). Le Corbusier and the Continual Revolution in Architecture. New York: The Monacelli Press, Inc. Le Corbusier (1923) Vers une architecture. Collection De "L'Espirit Nouveau". Paris: Les Éditions G. Crès & Cie. Le Corbusier (1925) Almanach d'architecture moderne. Collection De "L'Espirit Nouveau". Paris: Les Éditions G. Crès & Cie. Le Corbusier (1925) L'Art décoratif d'aujourd'hui. Collection De "L'Espirit Nouveau". Paris: Les Éditions G. Crès & Cie. Le Corbusier (1925) Urbanisme. Collection De "L'Espirit Nouveau". Paris: Les Éditions G. Crès & Cie. Le Corbusier (1995). Oeuvre Complète. Vol.1 1910-1929. (11 Edition) Basel: Birkhäuser. Le Corbusier (1987). The Decorative Art of Today. Massachusetts: MIT Press. Le Corbusier (2008). Toward an Architecture. Jean-Louis Cohen, introduction. John Goodman, trans. London: Frances Lincoln Ltd.

Ozenfant, Amadée and Jeanneret, Charles Edouard (1925) La Peinture Moderne. Collection De "L'Espirit Nouveau". Paris: Les Éditions G. Crès & Cie. Rowe, Colin (1976). The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa and Other Essays. Massachusetts: MIT Press. Schubert, Leo (2006). La Villa Jeanneret-Perret di Le Corbusier 1912. La prima opera autonoma. Venezia: Marsilio. Spechtenhauser, Klaus & Rüegg, Arthur (Eds.) (2007). Maison Blanche. Basel: Birkhäuser. Von Moos, Stanislaus (2009). Le Corbusier. Elements of a Synthesis. Rotterdam: 010 Publishers. Von Moos, Stanislaus & Rüegg, Arthur (Eds.) (2002). Le Corbusier before Le Corbusier. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. Illustrations A – Matrix created by the author of all the projects that appear in Le Corbusier’s books: Vers une architecture, Urbanisme, L'Art décoratif d'aujourd'hui, La Peinture Moderne, Almanach d'architecture modern and Oeuvre Complète Vol.1. B – Chart created by the author of the amount of images that appear for each project in all the above-mentioned books. C – Chart created by the author of the amount of images that appear for each project in Oeuvre Complète Vol.1. D – Le Corbusier (LC). Villa Schwob, La Chaux-de-Fonds. Graden Façade photograph (1916-1917). Biblioteque de la Ville (BV), La Chaux-de-Fonds. Graden Façade with context retouched for publication in L’Esprit Nouveau (1920). Foundation Le Corbusier (FLC), Paris. Edited out form Vers une architecture. E – LC. Villa Schwob street facade in Le Corbusier (1923) Vers une architecture. Collection De "L'Espirit Nouveau". Paris: Les Éditions G. Crès & Cie. P. 143. F – LC. Dom-ino perspective,1915. FLC. Villa Schwob under construction 1916. FLC. In Von Moos, Stanislaus & Rüegg, Arthur (Eds.) (2002). Le Corbusier before Le Corbusier. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. P. 216 G – LC. Dom-ino and Villa Schwob in Benton, Tim (2014). Dom-ino and the Phantom “Pilotis”. London: Architectural Association. AA Files, No. 69. P.44. FLC.

H – LC. Maison Blanche south façade in Spechtenhauser, Klaus & Rüegg, Arthur (Eds.) (2007). Maison Blanche. Basel: Birkhäuser. P. 55. Domino House façade and Villa Schwob façade in Le Corbusier (1923) Vers une architecture. Collection De "L'Espirit Nouveau". Paris: Les Éditions G. Crès & Cie. P. 262 and P.141. Regulating Lines highlighted in red by the author following Le Corbusier’s application. I – LC. Maison Blanche floor plan redrawn by Leo Schubert in Schubert, Leo (2006). La Villa Jeanneret-Perret di Le Corbusier 1912. La prima opera autonoma. Venezia: Marsilio. P.59. Dom-ino floor plan in Benton, Tim (2014). Dom-ino and the Phantom “Pilotis”. London: Architectural Association. AA Files, No. 69. P.34. FLC. Villa Schwob floor plan from L’Esprit Nouveau, no.6, 1921; in Von Moos, Stanislaus & Rüegg, Arthur (Eds.) (2002). Le Corbusier before Le Corbusier. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. P. 90. Columns and axes highlighted in red by the author. For Dom-ino, a sketch of the floor plan is used here to emphasize the similarity in how Le Corbusier was thinking and furnishing the spaces. J – Choisy, the Acropolis in Athens in Le Corbusier (1923) Vers une architecture. Collection De "L'Espirit Nouveau". Paris: Les Éditions G. Crès & Cie. P. 121. Le Corbusier, Maison Blanche garden redrawn by Leo Schubert in Schubert, Leo (2006). La Villa Jeanneret-Perret di Le Corbusier 1912. La prima opera autonoma. Venezia: Marsilio. P.55. “Promenade Architecturale” highlighted in red by the author. K – LC. Maison Blanche perspective drawing no.21, 1912. FLC. Maison Blanche photograph, 1913. FLC. Digitally retouched by the author. Even though Schubert sustains that the perspective drawing no.21 above mentioned, was used by Le Corbusier in the design process to verify a design for the “fenêtre en longueur” of the second floor (op. cit. p.41), the perspective in itself becomes highly interesting for the fact that the pitched roof is not represented. Then, the question of the cornice, or even more, the speculation of the flat roof arises: what would have happened if Le Corbusier, as he did with other photographs, had edited the image? L – LC. Floor plans of the “House of the Tragic Poet”, Villa La Roche, Maison Blanche and Villa Schwob analyzed by Leo Schubert in Schubert, Leo (2006). La Villa Jeanneret-Perret di Le Corbusier 1912. La prima opera autonoma. Venezia: Marsilio. P.162. M – LC. Page spread from Le Corbusier (1923) Vers une architecture. Collection De "L'Espirit Nouveau". Paris: Les Éditions G. Crès & Cie. pp.140-141.

Federico Ortiz Readings of Modernity MA History and Critical Thinking Architectural Association January 2016