Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Le Corbusier


Designed and built in the 1920s, Corbusier has several homes he designed scattered around Paris, primarily on the outskirts of the city.  We first attempted to reach this home by bus with no success and then finally succeeded the following day traveling by metro to the end of Line 4 in the 14th.


Another example of his work located in the 13th on the periphery of the city.



We visited the Le Corbusier Foundation (Maison Jeanneret) in the 16th and had an opportunity to go inside one of his homes adjacent to the Foundation called Maison La Roche.



Raoul La Roche set up an outstanding collection of modern art, including works by Picasso, Braque, Leger, Gris and Lipchitz.



To house his collection, he commissioned from Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret a combined house and art gallery, which was built in Square du Docteur Blanche.


When Le Corbusier was given the commission for Maisons La Roche and Jeanneret, he was 36 years old and had already completed several buildings in the town of his birth, la Chaux-de-Fonds, in Switzerland.  He was an architect, town planner, painter and theorist and deeply committed to developing housing for the working man but, paradoxically, what established his reputation  as an avant-garde architect was the work he undertook for an enlightened middle-class clientele. 


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