A visit to La Villa Savoye is a pilgrimage, it took me three hours of train from and to Paris, and as I spent four hours there, visiting the villa took an entire day. When I exited the train station, there was a long walk in a generic suburb, and upon entering the large site, I was not prepared at all, and was struck by the appearance of the object, suspending commonsense and reality. And I say object here, because it was not a house, but rather a sculpture. I paused for a long time, and only later on the train back, I recalled that same shivering experience with Brante’s Tempietto. The rain had just stopped that day, and the mistery was striking against a green grass field and the blue sky washed by white clouds in the background, the intensity of the abstract pure white object was surreal. Then only appeared the elements of the modernist language, what appeared was some genetic phenomenolenogy, with the order of the columns, their rythm, their placement, and the classical, take no prisoners proportions. A full phenomenological artefact, indeed it embodies the psyche of the time, but the psyche of yesteryear more so. The fortress is intriguing as to what lays behind. So my mind was set to discover the Eidos of this work of art, its true being beyond the surreal phenomenon.
I spent almost four hours there, and my biggest regret was not to sleep inside. Now it is a museum, visited by architecture students and architects from around the world. But I wanted to sleep inside and discover its true self. That true self does not appear easily. The house sits on an ancient domaine, on the top of a hill in Poissy, overlooking at far range the whole valley. But for some reason, Le Corbusier did not site the house for views and turned its back instead. The site is large and the trees and the bushes obfuscate the views. I had to walk far from the house outside of the house grounds and into the bushes to see some magnifcent views. But none of this is visible on the driveway leading to the house. The view is the house. The journey to Poissy is long. You need to fly to Paris, then take a metro, then another train, and then in Poissy, walk from the train station. I travelled in time and imagined I am with Le Corbusier in a car in 1930 and we are driving from Paris to Poissy, taking small roads as highway did not exist at that time; a long journey indeed. The road follows the property ancient wall, a very long thick ashlar wall, ten feet high, all around the property, which is probably 300 years old. Finally, the car enters the site, a track made of small grey pebbles, and not asphalted, which of course Le Corbusier designed to make the car slow down, the sound of the tires undulating and rolling on the small grey pebbles, so the house scale, the monumentality of the temple is on full display when the speed is reduced. Then the car goes in the porticco between the white columns and the recessed house walls, circle around below the house second floor slab, and drop us at the back of the house, under the porticco. Here again phenomenology in full display, but no sign yet of being. Being. Eidos, Plato’s name for the essence of being. I am longing for the Villa’s Eidos. I need to strip out everything of that house. I want to know.
Inside at the entrance, the staircase and the ramp are in front of the main door, on the right and on the left, five feet away from each other, as if the ground was to be left immediately, as if moving through the house was the Eidos, ‘la promenade architecturale’as a mean to discover the power of space, alter your mood, take either the ramp or the stair depending on your mood, and you shall be altered. And in both means, fine and elegant details, lights and shadows subtly accents the powdery promenade, soft spoken, intriguing, but powerful. At every floor, openings in the walls create a series of vertical planes, obfuscating the view and hinting at the life behind. The journey extends outside, up to the roof terrace. The house is mysterious, as it achieves so much with so little artefacts. An ode to the power of architecture to transform life. Villa Savoye Eidos or demonstrating the power of architecture to change behaviour .
There are altogether austerity, mistery, playfulness, and contradiction as the house is cut off, yet open, the paths and points of view in Villa Savoye constantly bifurcate. Upon leaving I notice another building on the site, much smaller. It is the keeper’s house. There, the journey continues.
