Nir
buras

Traditional architecture, classic planning, man-machine futures, & urban biometrics at the Classic Planning Institute.

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Nir
buras

All for Purism, and Purism for All!! Let’s all be blind in one eye, just like Corbu.

I wrote this in a tapas place in Granada, a few days after I visited the super-iconic Villa Savoye (1931) by Le Corbusier just outside Paris. I was having too much to drink. For reasons of lasciviousness, the following is only for people aged 50 and over.

Villa Savoye is not a house. It is a weekend place, and a great party house.
The kitchen is huge.
It can feed hundreds at a time.
The architecture is of a highly elaborated multi-space, where people can strike the full gamut of flirting poses, i.e., lean against pilotis, lean over railings, lean against walls, sit on railings, rest their butts on windowsills, on the ramp, and on stairs.
Although the bedroom corridors are narrow and you really have to know where you are going…
The little bedrooms are great for nookie. A couple can even hide in the closets (she [or he] must be very little) and make out if another couple barges in.

Corbu really worked hard on all the angles. He pulled closets into the middle of rooms, tucked behind them well-screened clean-up places (toilet and sink peeking on the right), and used the combo to provide warning to the people on the beds so they could cover up (or disappear).

There is an element in the bathroom that provides the full spectrum of possible supports for the ultimate act. It is functional and easy to hose down after.

By comparison, Philip Johnson’s polite, Miesian Glass House is merely about the most basic missionary/ sodomy positions. Definitely Puritan, but nice, though. 

I have to hand it to Le Corbusier. The damn place is infinitely photogenic. I could see how someone could make a career out of a second-floor landing like this one.

Space after space fits in the camera like it was made for it. Maybe that’s because Corbu had only one eye.

The lens devours the first-floor landing.
The saving grace of the house is a utility room with a claw foot, cast iron bathtub, tucked into it, …to recover from the inevitable hangover.
The laundry is decidedly 3rd world.

BTW, in Vaux Le Vicomte, Fouquet got much more value for money than Louis did in Versailles. That’s the difference between private and state sponsorship.

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