Villa Savoye free essay sample

Villa Savoye The Villa Savoye, a building designed by a Swiss architect named Le Corbusier, is located in the city of Poissy, France. The building was finished between the years 1929-1931. It is most known for a private weekend retreat about thirty miles outside of France. Le Corbusier believed that ornament had no place in the modern life world. The building structure is based of the International Style. Most forms of the International Style lack surface ornament and involve the use of modern, industrial materials. Le Corbusier said that the house should be used as a ‘machine for living. The building itself is surrounded by a forest and it looks like it is in the middle of nowhere. It is held up by pilotis, also known as columns, to lift off the ground to show the green grass more. There is also a rooftop terrace above the house that contains a garden. The walls of the Villa Sovoye are all white and the surface is really smooth it looks like. The white walls show me that it is a sign of cleanliness. From the pictures that show the inside of the house it looks like the house is too abstract because of all the elements that the house contains. Rectangle windows, cylinder columns, and other shapes with all plain white make it seem so abstract. There are two excerpts about this architectural building that each have their own aspect of the artwork. The first author, William J. R. Curtis, is most fascinated by the symmetry and shapes of the Villa Savoye. He talks about the building itself and not really the in depth details that the house acquires. The second author, Mark Wigley, finds the white walls of the house most significant. He talks about how much color has an effect on the way people look at things in the world in the modern day. Both authors show evidence making their argument about the Villa Savoye. William J. R. Curtis starts off giving a brief description of the Villa Savoye and the environment around the building. Shapes are one of the main topics that Curtis talks about. He mentions a cubic gate for the entrance of the driveway. Another shape reference is when he describes the house as a horizontal white box supported by pilotis. Symmetry is fascinating to Curtis as well. He talks about how the building is completely symmetrical in every aspect. Curtis finds the horizontal emphasis intriguing and how the main upper level windows glaze down to the lower level showing congruency. There is a square plan in the Villa Savoye that contains the central ramp and curvature of the drive that shows a symmetrical armature. Modern architecture is something that Curtis finds most interesting. He believes that the Villa Savoye might be related to Cubist paintings from looking at the illusions and transparencies of the building itself. Curtis’s view of the artwork varies in many ways from the next excerpt from Mark Wigley. Wigley’s views on the Villa Savoye building is all based on the white walls all over the house. He describes the walls as brilliant, delicious, and dazzling. Wigley says Le Corbusier uses the white from his own past usage of vernacular whitewash. The white walls show that the house is very clean and neat. He states that Le Corbusier may have painted these walls all white to show certain actions of his personal experiences. The whitewashed house was just about his experiences though. Wigley believes that Le Corbusier made it just for a social construction with its own past history and agenda. The white walls also show a sign of organization and pureness. When a couple goes on a retreat there for a weekend they do not want to see dark walls which may have a possible effect on their mood because black colors show a sign of depression. White brings out the best of everyone and it is a color that will not have a negative outcome. Curtis and Wigley both have points that agree and disagree. They both are intrigued by the way the house was built and the organization of it. Curtis liked how the rectangle windows and the pilotis raised the house up showing more of the environment around it rather than just the building. Wigley is similar describing how the white walls show off a sense of cleanliness and organization. There are a couple differences that the two excerpts have on each other. Curtis talks about shapes and how they have more of an effect on the way the building is perceived rather than Wigley’s view of just the white walls and how they can be looked at in many ways. Wigley does not really talk about anything outside the whitewashed wall like Curtis does. The strength of Curtis’s article is that he loved both the house and the nature surrounding the modern architecture building. Wigley lacked giving detail outside of the white walls of the Villa Savoye. A strength of Wigley was how he described Le Corbusier’s past experiences and tied it in with the white walls of the house. He gave the reader an in depth analysis of the white walls making the reader’s imagery increase. Curtis did not really get into Le Corbusier’s life and just talked about the horizontal aspects and the building’s texture. In conclusion, the authors’ arguments are persuasive. Evidence showed that their conclusions of their views of the Villa Savoye were supported. The information that they gave were very in depth in certain aspects. Curtis did an entire description of the house while Wigley did great detail on just the white walls. My own observations of the artwork confirmed both authors’ conclusions. I mentioned the white walls that Wigley found most significant and the rectangles and the environment surrounding the Villa Savoye like Curtis did.