1. Introduction
• Architect: Le Corbuiser
• Materpiece: Maisons Jaoul
• Years of Construction: 1954 – 1956
• Location: Neuilly-sur-Seine, Paris, France.
• In 1951, L.C. design two houses: one for Andre Jaoul and his wife, Suzanne (House A),
and one for their eldest son, Michel and his wife, Nadine (House B).
• Both houses share a building system.
House B
House A
3. Timeline
Born Switzerland on October 6,1887.
Designed his first house, in 1907, at age 20.
Le Corbusier traveled through central Europe and the Mediterranean,
His travels included apprenticeships with various architects,
Auguste Perret and Peter Behrens.
In 1917, he moved to Paris and assumed the pseudonym Le Corbusier concrete
structures under government contracts.
4. In 1918, Le Corbusier met Cubist painter Amédée Ozenfant, who encouraged
Le Corbusier to paint. pair published the book Après le cubisme(After
Cubism), an anti-cubism manifesto, and established a new artistic movement
called purism.
In 1923, Le Corbusier published Versune Architecture (Toward a New
Architecture).
In 1922, he proposed a new architecture that would satisfy the demands of industry,
hence functionalism, and the abiding concerns of architectural form. His
proposals included his first city plan, the Contemporary City, and two
housing types that were the basis for much of his architecture throughout his
life: the Maison Monol and, more famously, the Maison Citrohan.
5. In 1925-1926, he built a workers’ city of 40 houses in the style of the Citrohan
house at Pessac, near Bordeaux.
In the 1930s, Le Corbusier reformulated his theories on urbanism, publishing
them in La Ville radieuse (The Radiant City) in 1935.
7. Le Corbusier’s Five Points of Architecture
• Pilotis – Replacement of supporting walls by a grid of reinforced concrete
columns that bears the structural load is the basis of the new aesthetic.
• The free designing of the ground plan—the absence of supporting walls—means
the house is unrestrained in its internal use.
• The free design of the facade—separating the exterior of the building from its
structural function—sets the façade free from structural constraints.
• The horizontal window, which cuts the façade along its entire length, lights rooms
equally.
• Roof Gardens on a flat roof can serve a domestic purpose while providing
essential protection to the concrete roof.
13. Materials
• Bricks, concrete, stone, glass and natural wood.
• Exterior gives the concrete view of the structure and rustic red brick
materials are combined with unpainted wood and glass.
• In the interior finishes of the same materials with brightly painted walls,
vaulted brick ceilings and floors unpolished overlap.
• The exterior walls are unplastered on the outside, and on the inside
plastered to avoid condensation.
Exterior Interior
14. BRUTALISM
• Was designed in 1951 and built between 1954 and 1956.
• The brutalist stage of Le Corbusier began after the end of World War
II and was characterized by the use of reinforced concrete without
paint or decorate.
• L.C. left the gray concrete exposed and strict each of the five points
for a new architecture compliance.
16. Contribution
• Quality of light in interior spaces.
• Fenestration.
• Opening in wall structure.
• Drama and subtlety.
• Serenity & Emotional content.
• Changing of light throughout the day
adds to the sense of animation.
The structure of Maisons Jaoul implied cellular planning, with brick-cross wall.
The circulation of Maisons Jaoul shows that the entrance and organization of the house emphasizes the long proportion of the rectangle. Service spaces are also placed along side living space, which is not a traditional way to divide a house, (with a infront and a back).
Cars drive straight off the road into the garage, a large underground cavern from which separate stairs rise through to each house.
Walking circulation is above the garage on what appears to be natural ground level which in actuality is a raised terrace on which the house stand. Rising from the underground garage through to the top of each house are cast in situ dog-leg stairs that confine vertical circulation towards one portion of the house, away from the main open living space (Stirling, 1955). The private spaces are removed by a floor change.
House A contains a double height living room on the ground floor. The first floor features two bedrooms and bath along with office and chapel, and the third floor has two additional rooms. House B on the other hand has no double height space, due to the requirement of having four bedrooms on the first floor, each with bathroom. The second floor is devoted to an artist’s studio and a small bedroom. There is an overall static quality to the house, due to the lack of rhythm and repetition.
The floor slabs are vaulted in accord with the plan subdivision, vault are contained within the slab in a ‘sandwich’ statement of horizontal stratification.
Vault expressed, each configuration is transformed by the curvature of the roof and by the expression of the vaults at roof level only. Horizontally remains the dominant idea with the main contrast between the rectilinear slab floors and the curvilinear roof.
The generic cubic mass is divided into horizontal layers which are transformed by the curved roof and vaulted expression at roof level. Additional curved roofs and the alignment of the blocks add vitality to the configuration.
