Maison La Roche, the entrance hall.

Photograph byFred Boissonnas 1926 – FLC L2(12)78

Villa La Rocca
1923-24

“ “The Villa della Rocca” or, to be precise, the villa belonging to M. Raoul
La Roche, built adjoining that of Albert Jeanneret, in Square du Docteur
Blanche in Paris. The expression “Villa della Rocca” was meant to suggest
that, with building materials used for working men’s houses, we had succeeded
through invention and proportion in creating an undeniable architectural
event. The villa housed Raoul La Roche’s famous cubist collection.
These twin houses marked the appearance of a completely new “architec-
tural polychromy”: white, black, red, blue, pink, etc.
Architectural polychromy is a specific event; it is the natural and – for an
enquiring mind – spontaneous consequence of the “free plan” introduced
by concrete and steel and by the “biological” conception of modern
architecture.
” Le Corbusier
L’Atelier de la Recherche patiente

Portrait of Raoul La Roche
Photograph by Sartiny
25 Rittergasse, Bâle
2 • Raoul A. La Roche collector and client Villa La Rocca
Raoul A. La Roche
collector and client
PHILIP SPEISER
Raoul La Roche in the gallery 1930 – FLC L2(12)104
t was in 1962, at the age of
I eleven, that I went to the villa La
Roche for the first time in the
company of my father, the nephew of
Raoul La Roche. We found the master
of the house seated in his armchair
in the gallery, as he is seen in the
famous photograph by Frédéric
Boissonnas. The weather was cloudy
that day and the many modern paint-
ings, some of them placed directly on
the floor, gave the room a medieval
look. With his white hair, Uncle Raoul
seemed to me to be very old; he
spoke French with a strong accent.
He was always very kind to the chil-
dren and at Christmas showered us
with presents.
Raoul Albert La Roche was born in
February 1889 and grew up in a mid-
dle-class family in Bâle with his elder
brother Louis and his sister Émilie.
The family background tended to be
conservative, while at the same time
keeping an open mind towards cul-
ture and art. Like many young citizens
of Bâle at the time, after finishing
school he made a stay in French-
speaking Switzerland, at the busi-
ness school at Neuchâtel, not far
from Le Corbusier’s birthplace at La
Chaux-de-Fonds. In 1912, at the age
of 23, he left for Paris to work in the
Banque Suisse et Française, which in
1917 became the Crédit Commercial
de France. He was to remain there
until his retirement in 1954.
 La Roche with his sister's family
(Speiser-La Roche), and with
his sister, his great niece and
his great nephews

He greatly appreciated the French Originally made up solely of works the quality of the Kahnweiler collec-
way of life. In his free time, he would belonging to the Purist movement, tion, resulted only in selling off mas-
go on long rambles among the beau- the La Roche collection developed terpieces for a song. While La Roche
ties of Paris and its surroundings, considerably from 1921, under Le took no direct part in the auctions, he
often accompanied by compatriots Corbusier's guidance. This was the undoubtedly discussed beforehand
who, like him, had chosen to live and period of the notorious “Kahnweiler with his two advisers the choice of the
work there. auctions” – held under disgraceful pieces to be bought. In the account
conditions, as Pierre Assouline left by La Roche, Le Corbusier, urged
He remained faithful to the country of reports in his book on the gallery him not to buy Impressionist works,
his birth and attended the Swiss owner. These mass sales, instead of which were already fetching high
Luncheons held once a month at the raising the bids to a level worthy of prices at the time, but to wait until the
Hôtel Roncery. In 1917 he met the
engineering contractor Max Du Bois.
Through him La Roche met Charles-
Édouard Jeanneret in 1918. He was
much taken with the latter’s paintings
(at the time still signed “Jeanneret”)
and those of his friend Amédée
Ozenfant; the two were then working
together to lay the foundations for
Purism. He became enthusiastic over
the refined colours and shapes of
their art and he appreciated its rest-
ful qualities. These works were later
to occupy a special place in his col-
lection. A well-to-do but extremely
modest man, La Roche identified Catalogue of the Kahnweiler
them with the simplicity of his way of collection auction
life and made them his companions. (Raoul La Roche’s copy)
He formed a friendship with the two
artists, began buying their paintings
and at times helping them financially,
among others for the publication of
the review l’Esprit Nouveau, brought
out between 1920 and 1925.

Villa La Rocca Raoul A. La Roche collector and client • 3

 Le Corbusier,
Nature morte au violon
rouge, 1920, oil on canvas
FLC 137
really modern ones came up for sale,
particularly Cubist canvases. Thus he
was able to purchase cheaply and
with no real competition works of the
first order, reputed art dealers and
collectors having already used up
their available funds in buying
Impressionist paintings. Le Corbusier
turned out to be have made an astute
calculation. Thus the two artists,
excellent connoisseurs of the artistic
milieu, were able to acquire paintings
of the highest quality by Picasso,
Braque and Léger covering the peri-
od from 1907 to 1914 which were to
make up the first Cubist group of the
La Roche collection. On the 21st May
1923, La Roche wrote to Le Corbusier,
“… I am most anxious to present you
with a token of my gratitude for your
precious help in putting together my
little collection of paintings over the
last few years. You will give me the
greatest pleasure in accepting as a
memento a painting by Braque that
you chose from the recent acquisi-
tions in the Kahnweiler sale.”
Following these purchases, La Roche
met Fernand Léger on several occa-
sions, probably through the good
offices of the gallery owner Léonce
Rosenberg, who encouraged him to
purchase canvases by Juan Gris and
sculptures by Jacques Lipchitz,
artists also belonging to the Cubist
Movement. Their works naturally
came to take their place in the collec-
tion. Somewhat oddly, several land-
4 • Raoul A. La Roche collector and client Villa La Rocca
scapes by the naïve painter Bauchant
were also added to it.
La Roche lived at the time in a flat at
25 bis rue Constantine, near the
Dôme des Invalides in the 7th arron-
dissement, surrounded by traditional
furniture but increasingly also by
contemporary art. A propos of this,
he wrote to Le Corbusier in 1923, “I
have hung your large painting oppo-
site my bed; it is really admirable and
gives me great joy. The Purist paint-
ings are gathered in the bedroom and
form a group that is almost more per-
fect still than the Cubist paintings in
the drawing room.” It should be
noted that he was to distribute the
works in the same manner in his new
house. His apartment was probably
not very spacious and in no way
formed an ideal setting for the hang-
ing of all his new purchases.
It was in 1922, on a trip with Le
Corbusier to Venice and Vicenza, that
La Roche considered having a villa
built by his friend, who was acting as
his guide in a tour of the region’s vil-
las and palaces, most of them built by
Palladio. They probably saw the villa
della Rocca, built by Scamozzi, since
the name “la Rocca” was to become
a code name for La Roche’s new res-
idence (he sent Pierre Jeanneret a
post card from Italy saying that he
had just ordered a “La Rocca”
Havana cigar). Many years later, on
7th December 1960, Le Corbusier was
to send him a copy of L’Atelier de la
recherche patiente with a dedication,
“Here, dear Raoul La Roche, is the
house we set out to build 37 years
ago. It marked the beginning of our
friendship. We baptized it “villa della
Rocca” in order to imply that we had
put into it certain intentions, wholly
intense ones, wholly innovative,
wholly creative ones…”.
La Roche had thus made the decision
to make a complete change in his
surroundings and to have a villa built
by his architect friend at N° 10 Square
du Docteur Blanche in Auteuil, a dis-
trict that at the time was still on the
edge of Paris. La Roche was the per-
fect client; he gave his architect a
free hand and was ready to be taken
by surprise. The result was a Gesamt-
kunstwerk, a perfect application of
Le Corbusier’s principles, with his
leather, wood and steel furniture; the
floors were covered in Berber car-
pets, the traditional tablecloth was
replaced by coloured mats and
champagne was served in flat gilt-
rimmed glasses. This concrete and
metal prototype was of course fre-
quently in need of repair and adapta-
tion in the years following its con-
struction. The owner would discreet-
ly allude in remarks made to mem-
bers of his circle: “My villa really is
like a beautiful woman, temperamen-
tal and expensive.”

The work commissioned by La Roche
immediately aroused the admiration
of numerous architects and artists,
especially among his compatriots.
Proof of this can be found in the visi-
tor’s book. It is said that La Roche
was rarely present on days when the
house was open to visitors. True, he
was taken up by his work, but he was
really a rather shy person who dis-
liked being disturbed. He must
nonetheless have been present at
some visits since he used to remark
with some amusement that most of
his guests were interested only in the
house and not in his collection of
paintings.
La Roche had remained very fond of
his younger sister Émilie and her fam-
ily. Every year his sister would come
to stay with him for several weeks.
She used to seek advice on renewing
her wardrobe from Germaine Bongard,
a friend of Ozenfant’s and a well-
known milliner. Her husband Andreas
Speiser was a mathematician and
Le Corbusier was later to consult him
on the MODULOR. He fully understood
La Roche’s interest in contemporary
art and architecture and encouraged
him in his passion for collecting. He
E2(7)469
Information Card for visits
to Maison La Roche
FLC P5(1)207
dedicated one of his books “Die
Mathematische Denkweise” to his
brother-in-law. It is likely that Speiser
discreetly intervened to obtain for Le
Corbusier the commission to build
the famous Swiss Pavilion at the Cité
Universitaire Internationale in Paris
en 1931. The President of the Devel-
opment Committee, the mathemati-
cian Édouard Fueter was in fact his
opposite number in Zurich.
Mention is rarely made of La Roche’s
religious disposition. A native of Bâle,
he was a strict man and a convinced
protestant. This explains the fact that
he attended church in the protestant
parish of Poissy and was very close
to Pasteur Boegner.
He was fond of making regular cul-
tural trips. He would sometimes send
Jeanneret post cards that are evi-
dence of the bond between the two
men. Already on 31st May 1920, on a
visit to La Chaux de Fonds, he was
writing to Le Corbusier – Saugnier “In
short, I am filled with admiration for
this sample of your architecture and
having you as a dear friend with best
wishes.” He is certainly referring to
the Villa Schwob also known as the
E2(7)136
Post cards sent to
Le Corbusier by La Roche
Villa La Rocca Raoul A. La Roche collector and client • 5
“Maison turque”. On 26 May 1928
La Roche wrote to him from Frankfurt,
“… brought me to Niederrad to see
M. May’s housing estate…” He is
amused to relate that the chauffeur
had told him that he would refuse to
live there. On an undated card sent
from Seville which he was probably
visiting with Ozenfant, “We have
found some little houses that are sim-
ple and charming (rather Purist), an
exquisite Moorish alcazar and a Gothic
cathedral that would, I believe, find
grace in your eyes.”
During the Second World War, La
Roche was determined to stay in
France, but not in occupied Paris. He
left the capital on 11th June 1940 and
followed his employer to set up
house in Lyon. His precious collec-
tion, most of which was in the villa,
he left in the care of the devoted
Bénain couple. In a letter dated 15th
April 1941, La Roche wrote from Lyon,
“from our friend Montmollin, here on
a visit, I learn that you are in Vichy. Ill
health? This can hardly be the case.
And supposing that you are not in this
celebrated cure resort for health rea-
sons, could there be something else?
Could it be that you have been
“Friendly greetings from this city,
which had skyscrapers
long before New York”
Raoul La Roche
“I recommend the Havana cigars
of Villa La Rocca!”
entrusted by our new government
with some bold plan for reconstruc-
tion? I would be most eager to know
…” Not only this letter but also his
almost complete collection of Le
Corbusier's books clearly demon-
strate his continuing interest in the
architect's work and that he shared
his ideas on art, architecture and
town planning.
With the Armistice he returned to
Auteuil. Shortly afterwards he was
affected by chronic arthritis. This
particularly painful disease made it
progressively more difficult for him to
remain at La Rocca. He asked Le
Corbusier to fix handrails along the
stairways, but the architect merely
fastened ropes in two places, which
did not really answer the needs of the
master of the house. In like manner,
the architect responded with a shrug
of the shoulders to plumbing disor-
ders, impossible to repair as the
pipes had been set in concrete.
6 • Raoul A. La Roche collector and client Villa La Rocca
La Roche had ceased his activity as a
collector at the end of the 1920s. On
several occasions he had raised the
question of the future of his collec-
tion, “These paintings have given me
much joy, but I wonder what is to
become of them.” In the 1950s, when
approached by Georg Schmidt, the
dynamic director of the art museum
in Bâle, he decided to part with some
of his Cubist collection and a number
of Purist paintings, 90 works in all, in
the form of three donations to the
Kunstmuseum in Bâle. In his usual
generous manner, the donor
attached no conditions to this noble
gesture. Some other paintings went
to the Louvre and later to the Centre
Pompidou, in gratitude to the city in
which he had lived for so long, and
another work went to Lyon. The
museum in Bâle at the time pos-
sessed very few works of the period
in question and its department of
modern art was enormously enriched
by these donations.
Letter from La Roche to Le Corbusier, New Year 1927 – FLC P5(1)51
La Roche was soon increasingly
obliged to spend the winter months in
a clinic near Bâle. In 1962, as his
health declined, he resolved to return
to the city of his birth to be near to his
family. He died in June 1965, a few
months before his architect friend.
Since the 1950s, Le Corbusier had
been trying to persuade him to make
over his villa to house the foundation
he proposed to set up. In his last let-
ter to the architect on 18th March
1963, La Roche wrote, “It is my wish
that Villa la Rocca may continue to be
act as an example that will inspire
many architects. I imagine that the
Le Corbusier association, which is to
become its owner, is in the process
of being set up.”
 Revisiting
the Villa La Roche
TIM BENTON

efore Le Corbusier’s death in

B 1965, a train of events ensured

that the Villa La Roche would be
preserved as physical testimony of
Le Corbusier’s contribution to the
very early years of Modern Architec-
ture. Raoul La Roche, who had com-
missioned the house and lived in it
since 1925, returned to his native
Switzerland in 1962, donating the
house to Le Corbusier.
Simultaneously, steps were taken to
purchase the neighbouring house,
which Le Corbusier had designed for
his brother Albert and his new wife
Lotti Raaf and her three daughters.
This would lead to the setting up of
the Fondation Le Corbusier in the
Jeanneret-Raaf house, with the
adjoining La Roche house open to the
public.

From the moment when the first

Director of the Fondation Le Corbusier,
Christian Gimonet, carried out the
first major restoration of the building,
in 1970, the Villa La Roche has been
exhibited as a pure work of architec-
ture. Its function as a home for La
Roche and his servants was largely
obscured, above all because the
original furniture had been removed
and La Roche’s bedroom on the sec-
ond floor was taken over by the
offices of the Fondation Le Corbusier
and closed to the public. The aim of
the present restoration is to give the
house back to Mr La Roche and
remember the original purposes
which the house served.
To uncover the original purpose and
uses of the house is to discover some
fundamental contradictions. Raoul
La Roche summarised these very
clearly in a letter to Le Corbusier.
Do you remember the origins of
my enterprise: “La Roche, when
you have a fine collection such
as yours, you must build a house
worthy of it.” And my reply: “OK,
Jeanneret, make me such a
house”. Now, what happened
then? The finished house was so
beautiful that when I saw it, I cried:
“ It’s almost a shame to put paint-
ings in it.” Nevertheless, I did so.
Could I have done otherwise? Do
I not have certain responsibilities
to my painters, in which number
you yourself are included? I com-
missioned a “frame for my col-
lection.” You supplied me with a
“poem in walls. » Which of us
was most at fault? (1)
Figure 1 – Villas for La Roche (at the end) and Jeanneret-Raaf (on the right)
Photograph by Charles Gérard, 1927 (FLC L2-12-23)
The functions of ‘frame for a collec-
tion’ and ‘poem in walls’ were there-
fore contradictory. Another function,
that of providing a comfortable home
for this wealthy but solitary bachelor,
also suffered, both from the exigen-
cies of a pioneering architectural
expression and from the need to
share his space with a collection of
paintings which was accessible to
public visits on request. It is never-
theless in the richness of the interac-
tion between these three functions
that the Villa La Roche can be best
appreciated.
The Villa La Roche
as architecture
The Villa La Roche and its neighbour,
the Jeanneret-Raaf house (Fig. 1),
constitute not only a turning point in
Le Corbusier’s architecture, but a sig-
nificant moment in the development
of modern architecture in Europe.
When they were completed, in 1925,
only a handful of buildings could
match their sophistication of articula-
tion and innovation. For example, this
was one of only a few completed
buildings to be illustrated in Walter
Gropius’s book Internationale Archi-
tektur, one of the first compilations of
the Modern Movement, in 1925 (2).
Writing in 1929, Le Corbusier, with
characteristic lack of diffidence, was
ready to admit its significance:
Here, alive once more before our
modern eyes are historic archi-
tectural events: pilotis, long win-
dows, the roof garden, the glass
wall. Again we must learn to
appreciate, when the bell tolls,
what is available and you have to
be able to abandon things you
have learned, to follow up the
truths which emerge relentlessly
from the new techniques at the
instigation of a new spirit born in
the profound upheaval of the
machine era (3).

(1) La Roche to Le Corbusier, 24 May 1926 (FLC P5(1)209)

(2) Gropius, W. (1927). Internationale Architektur. [Second, revised edition, first edition 1925] München, A. Langen.
(3) Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret, Œuvre Complète 1910-1929, (First edition 1929) Les Editions de l’Architecture, 1964, p. 60

Villa La Rocca Revisiting the Villa La Roche • 7

 Figure 2
Villa La Roche,
with gallery on left,
published in L’Almanach de
l’Architecture Moderne,
Summer 1925
Photograph by Charles Gérard
(FLC L2-12-25)
The separation of structure from
enclosure – a cardinal point of
Modernism – was demonstrated in
the alarming form of a single, thin
white column supporting the curved
mass of the first floor gallery (Fig. 2).
A long window on the first floor
unites the two houses and appears to
defy the force of gravity; only thin ten
inch (25 centimetres) piers support
the wall above. The flat roof was laid
out with a garden, and the floor plans
are unconstrained either by symme-
try or by the floors above or below. Le
Corbusier’s effects would have
appeared magical and not a little
uncanny in the 1920s.
Not that all the effects were part of a
single, coherent act of creation. The
design evolved from stage to stage,
from April to November 1923, and
construction did not begin until
February 1924 (4). Some of the puzzling
features of the design become clear-
er after understanding this process.
Figure 3
Villa La Roche,
the hall, published in L’Almanach
de l’Architecture Moderne (1925)
(FLC L2-12-74)
(4) See Benton, T. (2007). The villas of Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret 1920-1930. [Rev. and expanded], Basel ; Boston, Birkhäuser for
a detailed description of the design process.
8 • Revisiting the Villa La Roche Villa La Rocca
For example, the early designs con-
ceived of a second house, exactly
symmetrical with the Jeanneret-Raaf
house, each between 12.00 and
12.40m long and each equipped with
its bay window. In September 1923,
however, Le Corbusier learned that
5.45m of his site had disappeared,
through the refusal of one of the
neighbours to sell a strip of land. This
strip is empty to the present day, to
the right of the Jeanneret-Raaf
house. The second semi-detached
house now became a rump only 7.8m
long. At first, Le Corbusier tried to fit
a tiny house into this space, which he
labelled, perhaps humorously, as ‘My
aunt’. Then, in the absence of a client
for this unlikely house, he persuaded
the patient La Roche to buy the site of
the Aunt’s house.
Then, on 22 September 1923, he
transferred most of the living func-
tions of the La Roche house into the
‘Aunt’s house’ leaving the rest as a
mainly public venue for presenting
La Roche’s collection of paintings.
Between the public and private parts
of the house, the vast empty space of
the hall (which had previously
housed the salon on the first floor)
was left open, crossed by a bridge
(Fig. 3). La Roche’s bedroom, which
had been under the gallery, was later
transferred into the guest room suite
on the third floor of the former ‘Aunt’s
house’. From this very rapid transfor-
mation, then, emerged not only the
isolated piloti and empty space under
the gallery, but also the three storey
hall and bridge.
These changes radically altered the
composition and added to its avant-
garde allure. But they also complicat-
ed the internal circulation of the
house, placing the bedroom and
library at the opposite ends of a cir-
cuitous route. And they left some baf-
fling anomalies in the fabric. For
example, the corridor leading to La
Roche’s bedroom on the second floor
(Fig 4) has a parapet aligned with the
top of the hall window. This makes it
only knee-high, leading to the provi-
sion of a tubular steel grill to stop the vantage point of this balcony. As At each level, the eye returns to the
people falling into the hall. The ceil- you move through the house, a series three storey hall, which forms a uni-
ing of this corridor is also higher than of surprising perspectives open out. fying motif.
the ceiling of the hall, since the sec-
tion of ‘the Aunt’s house’ matches
that of the Jeanneret-Raaf house and
was never intended to join onto the
La Roche house.

As built, the house surprises from the Figure 4

Hall, seen from the bridge,
point of entry (Fig 5). From a low and looking towards the
dark entrance space, the eye opens dining room and, on the
onto a spectacular void, three second floor, the bedroom
storeys high, flooded with light. Photograph by Fred
Instead of using this space to house a Boissonas
monumental staircase, Le Corbusier (FLC L2-12 81)
decided to tuck the main and service
stairs out of sight, confronting the vis-
itor with a pure white wall 5 metres
wide. In a lecture in Buenos Aires in
1929, he demonstrated this coup de Figure 5
theatre (Fig. 6). La Roche house, hall,
taken under
Le Corbusier’s direction
Also in 1929, introducing the house to
in 1925 for publication
the readers of the first volume of his in L’Almanach de
The Complete Works Le Corbusier l’Architecture Moderne
coined the phrase ‘architectural Photograph by
promenade’. Charles Gérard
(FLC L2-12-73)
This second house, therefore,
will be a bit like an architectural
promenade. You enter: the archi-
tectural spectacle immediately
presents itself to your gaze: you
follow an itinerary and the per-
spectives open out with great
variety. There is a play with the
flood of light lighting the walls or
creating shadows. The window
bays open out perspectives to
the exterior where you rediscov-
er the architectural unity (5).

The hallway demonstrates this con-

cept (Fig. 6). We see a balcony thrust-
ing out into the space, which alone
tells us that the circulation is in this
direction. We might imagine Raoul
La Roche welcoming his visitors from

Figure 6 – Sketch of the hallway in the Villa La Roche, in notes preparatory for his fifth lecture in Buenos Aires, 1929
(Getty Research Institute 920083-1(1)7)

(5) Œuvre complète, 1910-1929. p.60

Villa La Rocca Revisiting the Villa La Roche • 9

 Figure 7
La Roche house, view from
dining room towards gallery
published in L’Almanach de
l’Architecture Moderne, 1925
Photograph by Charles Gérard
(FLC L2-12-85)

The effects of transparency created
by the windows produces the effect
of interior and exterior blending into
one. In all these ways, the Villa La
Roche laid the basis for the modern
architecture of the 1920s.
Le Corbusier himself insisted that his
buildings had to be experienced from
a moving viewpoint, rather than in
photographs, and Raoul La Roche
confirmed this. Writing to present
Le Corbusier with an album of photo-
graphs taken by the well known
Swiss photographer Fred Boissonas
for publication in Vogue, he reflected:
I have to confess that, despite the
art of Mister Boissonas, the Villa
‘La Rocca’ is more beautiful in
nature than ‘painting’. Why is
this? It is certainly due to the fact
that even the best reproduction
can only imperfectly reproduce
the emotion promoted by direct
contact with this symphony of
prisms. Ah, those prisms; I have
to believe that you have their
secret, you and Pierre, because I
search in vain to find them else-
where. You have shown us their
beauty and taught us to under-
stand them and, thanks to you,
we now know what architecture
is (6).
This is what Le Corbusier wanted to
hear, being the whole argument of
Vers une Architetcure, the book of
articles he published in October 1923.
The task for the modern architect
was not to create novelty but to find
ways of using the new sensibility and
the materials provided by industriali-
sation to create an architecture com-
parable to the great work of the past.
But what really moves me are
those constants which are found
in all great works of architecture
but which are so rarely to be
found in modern buildings. Your
merit in unifying in this way our
age with the preceding ones is
particularly great. You have ‘gone
beyond’ the problem and created
a work of sculpture (7).
In more senses than one, as we shall
see, the Villa La Rocca can be
thought of as architecture, art and
sculpture.
The house
of an art collector
The articles of which Vers une Archi-
tecture were composed had been
published in the journal L’Esprit
Nouveau in 1920 and 1921. In the
summer of 1923, however, Le Corbu-
sier and Amédée Ozenfant were writ-
ing the nine articles which would
form the basis of another book La
Peinture Moderne (8). Ozenfant was
listed before Le Corbusier (under his
real name Charles-Édouard Jeanne-
ret) as the authors of these articles
and most of the ideas originated with
him. But Le Corbusier seems to have
played the main role in preparing the
articles for publication (9). The first of
the articles, ‘L’Angle Droit’ (The Right
Angle) was published in L’Esprit
Nouveau in November 1923.
The articles composing La Peinture
Moderne present an art-historical
argument claiming a place for Purism
– the art movement founded by Le
Corbusier and Ozenfant – as the legit-
imate successor of the heroic Cubism
of Picasso and Braque of 1911-12.
Since the war, they argued, Cubism
had become decorative. Only one
tendency, that of ‘Crystal Cubism’
maintained the rigour of the original
Cubist revolution. Unsurprisingly, this
‘Crystal Cubism’ turns out to have
architectural qualities not unassoci-
ated with the ‘prisms’ which La
Roche so admired.
The cristal grows and develops
according to the theoretical rules
of geometry. And man is attract-
ed to these forms because he
finds in them justification for his
abstract conception of geometry.
Man’s mind finds in nature a
common factor, a place of agree-
ment, in crystals as in cell forms,
wherever order can be per-
ceived to the point where it justi-
fies the human attempts to pro-
vide rational explanations of
nature. (10)
Le Corbusier and Ozenfant therefore
picked out from the work of Picasso,
Braque, Gris, Léger and Lipchitz
those works which seemed to incor-
porate the principles of ‘Crystal
Cubism’. They then argued that their
own Purist paintings, with their rigor-
ous geometric discipline had perfect-
ed what Crystal Cubism had begun. In
fact, it was on this basis that they had
advised La Roche on the formation of
his art collection (see article by
Philippe Speiser). (11)
Raoul La Roche also invested heavily
in Ozenfant’s and Le Corbusier's
paintings, paying prices above those

(6) La Roche to Le Corbusier, 1 January 1927 (FLC P5(1)151)

(7) La Roche to Le Corbusier, 13 March 1925 (FLC P5(1)193)
(8) Jeanneret, C.-E. and A. Ozenfant (1925). La peinture moderne, Paris, G. Cres. The articles were published in L’Esprit Nouveau
between November 1923 and November 1924.
(9) Manuscript and typescript texts, with corrections, for most of the articles are in his hand.
(10) Ozenfant and Jeanneret, “Vers le cristal”, L’Esprit Nouveau, N° 25, July 1924, p. 4 (unnumbered)
(11) Most of the paintings in this collection are now in the Kunstmuseum, Basel, or in private collections in Switzerland ; eight works
are in the National d’Art Moderne, Paris, see Schmidt, K., H. Fischer, et al. (1998). Ein Haus für den Kubismus : die Sammlung
Raoul La Roche : Picasso, Braque, Leger, Gris-Le Corbusier und Ozenfant, Ostfildern, Hatj.

10 • Revisiting the Villa La Roche Villa La Rocca

 Figure 8 – Braque’s La Musicienne, Léger’s La femme et l’enfant and Lipchitz’s Composition à la guitare.
Collage of photograph by Fred Boissonnas (winter 1926) – (L2-12-102) – Colorisation T. Benton
paid for Picasso and Braque. (12)
Picasso’s Le Guéridon, for example,
was bought by Ozenfant for La Roche
for 1,650 Francs plus tax, roughly half
the asking price, while Le Corbusier's
Nature morte verticale was sold to La
Roche for 2,200 Francs. Four other
paintings and a drawing by Le
Corbusier were bought by La Roche
for 7,500 Francs, at a time when no
one else was buying Le Corbusier’s
work. To put these generous pay-
ments in context, Le Corbusier’s fees
for the Besnus house in Vaucresson
(1922-3) amounted to only 4,795
Francs in total. Other paintings (in
particular those by Gris and Léger)
were bought from Léonce Rosenberg
and other dealers.
It is evident that the building of La
Roche’s collection and the argu-
ments of La Peinture Moderne follow
the same logic. As displayed in the La
Roche house, the collection was
designed to compare pre-War Cubist
paintings with some post-War Crystal
Cubist works and the work of Fernand
Léger (as an honorary Purist) and
Ozenfant and Le Corbusier.
The visitor would have been present-
ed directly with the art historical
argument of La Peinture Moderne.
The Cubism of Braque’s La Musi-
cienne, on the left, points towards
Lipchitz’s coloured relief (illustrated
as an example of crystal cubism in
La Peinture Moderne), on its purpose
built concrete shelf, and the way for-
ward is indicated by the splendid
(12) Gee, M. (1981). Dealers, critics, and collectors of modern painting: aspects of the Parisian art market between 1910 and 1930, Garland Publishing.
(13) Letter of Le Corbusier to Ozenfant, 16 April 1924 (FLC P5(1)208)
painting by Léger, indicating the art
historical promenade to be followed.
It is significant that this arrangement,
not stage managed by Le Corbusier
himself, probably represents the way
the house was normally shown to the
public. When Le Corbusier himself
orchestrated a series of photographs
for his book L’Almanach de l’Archi-
tecture Moderne in 1925, most of the
paintings were removed, to show the
pure walls of the architecture (See
Figs 1,2 and 4).
Different approaches to hanging the
paintings caused a row between
Le Corbusier and Ozenfant, in which
Le Corbusier accused Ozenfant of
cluttering the walls with too many
paintings, resembling the ‘house of a
collector (postage stamps)’.
Villa La Rocca Revisiting the Villa La Roche • 11
I insist absolutely that certain
parts of the architecture should
be kept absolutely free of paint-
ings, in order to create a double
effect of pure architecture on the
one hand and painting on the
other. (13)
But how could the conundrum be
resolved? One solution, which Le
Corbusier explored at length
between 1925 and 1928, was to cre-
ate a large painting store, six feet
high, where the paintings could be
kept neatly out of sight, ordered by
size, and then taken out one at a time
for close attention. It was La Roche
who had to point out that this con-
crete fitment would seriously inter-
rupt the spatial flow of the gallery and
create yet another vestibule. There is
Figure 9
Gallery, showing the provisional lighting
and the location of Lipchitz’s bronze
relief Nature morte aux instruments
de musique, on its concrete shelf,
Braque’s Le guéridon, leaning up
against the wall of the ramp and
Ozenfant’s Nature morte directing
the visitor up the ramp to the library
Fred Boissonnas photograph,
winter 1926 – (L2-12-144)
 Figure 10 – “Place of contemplation” at the top of the ramp, overlooking the gallery, with Ozenfant’s Nature morte
au verre de vin rouge, Picasso’s small collage Pipe, bouteille de Bass, dé and his Bouteille de Bass, clarinette, guitar,
violon, journal, as de trèfle (on the right) Fred Boissonnas photograph – (L2-12-146) – Colorisation T. Benton

here a conflict between a public and
private notion of the purpose of art.
The public role allowed Le Corbu-
sier’s and Ozenfant’s works to be per-
manently displayed in the distin-
guished company of the masters of
Cubism. This is clearly what most
attracted Ozenfant. The private func-
tion was that of the disinterested,
solitary contemplation of works of high
artistic quality in a pure and unconta-
minated architectural framework.
Le Corbusier allowed for this private
contemplation of works of art at vari-
ous points in the house. For example,
in the gallery (Fig. 9), a table and two
chairs are always organised around
a concrete ledge with a bronze relief
by Lipchitz. The Lipchitz is always
shown here and a number of photo-
graphs confirm the position of the
Braque, standing against the wall of
the ramp. These works are clearly
meant to be inspected carefully, as
La Roche sat and read at the table
(La Peinture Moderne, along with Le
Corbusier’s Urbanisme are shown on
the table). Another place for the
close contemplation of paintings was
at the top of the ramp.
and collages are stored, ready to be
taken out and studied, like the
Picasso collage leaning against the
chimney flue. This mezzanine space
was a kind of extension to La Roche’s
library, on the right. In 1928, a glass
wall and door were inserted to divide
these spaces, probably to conserve
warmth in the library.
The library (Fig. 11) and the bedroom
(Fig. 14) are the two highest rooms in
the house, arranged at the opposite
ends of a winding circulation. Both
are dedicated to Purism and to the
idea of an austere, elevated and soli-
tary life dedicated to modern thought,
art and architecture. This was what
the client wanted, and this is what Le
Corbusier thought all modern men
and women should aspire to. So, the
villa La Roche was a true frame for La
Roche’s collection, and a spokesman
for the theory and art history pro-
posed by La Peinture Moderne.
The villa combined art and architec-
ture in another sense as well: its
polychromy. Decribing the colour
scheme of the house in 1929, Le Cor-
busier used a language derived from
Purist colour theory. Colour could be
deployed in a kind of dialogue with
volume, either to ‘camouflage’ them
or to make them stand out:
The interior of the house must be
white, but, for this white to make
an impact, we must use a well
regulated polychromy : shaded
walls will be blue, those in full
daylight can be red ; we can
make a whole part of the building
disappear by painting it in pure
burnt umber, and so on. (14)
This colour scheme evolved consid-
erably after 1928, as Arthur Rüegg
demonstrates ; most of the walls in
1925 were white.

Here (Fig. 10), a divan is placed in the

light of a window, with Ozenfant’s
Nature morte au verre de vin rouge
behind it. On the right is a concrete
fitment where a number of drawings

Figure 11
La Roche’s library, with Léger’s
Les deux femmes à la toilette and, on the
left, Le Corbusier’s Livre, pipe et verre.
Fred Boissonnas photograph
(L2-12-109)

(14) Œuvre complète, p. 60

12 • Revisiting the Villa La Roche Villa La Rocca


La Villa as home
It is true that La Roche required the
patience of a saint to accept what he
was given to live in. Six months after
he moved in, there was no practical
lighting in his dining room, the light-
ing of the gallery consisted of naked
light bulbs hanging from a wire (See
Fig. 9).
The hall had no fixed lighting at all,
except for a low wattage tube light at
the foot of the service staircase (see
Fig. 4). Moving around the darkened
house at night must have been quite
an adventure. Even the daylight illu-
mination, dramatic as it was, created
problems. The South East facing win-
dow in the gallery projected a stream
of light onto the paintings which was
damaging to the canvases. The win-
dows created so much condensation
when the heating was turned up that
a system of little gutters was provid-
ed under each window to catch the
water and expel it to the outside via
tiny gargoyles. To make matters
worse, two radiators in the gallery
burst in the winter of 1927, creating a
flood. In 1928, a major redesign of the
gallery resolved some of these prob-
lems. Charlotte Perriand and Alfred
(15) Perriand, C. (2003), Perriand, C. (2003). A life of creation: an autobiography, New York, Monacelli Press, p. 26. Electrical recording,
introduced, in 1925, quickly replaced the old acoustic system, but a good quality gramophone was an extremely expensive
investment at the time.
Figure 12 – Dining room, painted pink, with two Braque still lives of 1919
Fred Boissonnas photograph – (L2-12-146)
Roth worked on an ingenious sus-
pended light fixture along the South
East side, which worked both as a
baffle to interrupt the daylight and as
electric lighting, projecting both
upwards and downwards. A book-
case was added to the parapet of the
mezzanine overlooking the gallery
and a glass window and door intro-
duced to insulate the library from the
cold of the gallery at night. Charlotte
Perriand removed the old painting
store under the ramp and replaced it
with an elegant fitting with curved
frosted glass doors and a nickelled
column to support the head of the
ramp. This fitment was designed to
include La Roche’s gramophone –
symbol of mechanised modernity.
Charlotte Perriand described the role
of this instrument in her conversion
to Modernism:
Entering this space, enveloped
by cantatas by Johann Sebastian
Bach (Corbu had plugged in the
gramophone), was like stepping
into an unknown world throbbing
with music, in total communion
with the whole. Le Corbusier had
me well and truly hooked. (15)
Villa La Rocca Revisiting the Villa La Roche • 13
Le Corbusier also installed an expen-
sive gramophone in the living room of
his brother Albert’s house, designing
a concrete shelf to fit it.
And yet, Le Corbusier did make an
effort to make the house pleasant to
live in. The addition of polychromy to
the house added a certain warmth
missing from the stark impression
created by black and white photo-
graphs.
The dining room was coloured a
salmon pink, despite Le Corbusier’s
mocking references to the ‘pink
boudoirs’ beloved of Art Deco interior
decorators. Le Corbusier and Ozen-
fant seemed to have allowed La Roche
some indulgence here in the choice
of paintings. Here were hung two of
Braque’s sensuous post-war still-
lives, Le guéridon noir and Guitare et
compotier (both of 1919), of the kind
that were criticised in La Peinture
Moderne as ‘decorative’. Both paint-
ings celebrate the pleasure of eating.
Although Spartan, his bedroom was
well organised, with fitments designed
by Le Corbusier and a separate
dressing room.
 Figure 13 – La Roche’s bedroom (the Purist room), with Carafe, bouteille, guitare dans une cave and Nature morte by Ozenfant
and Le Corbusier’s Nature morte à la cruche blanche sur fond bleu over the bed head
Fred Boissonnas photograph – (L2-12-145) – Colorisation T. Benton

La Roche’s long-suffering man ser- If there was a tension between the

vant and his wife also had to put up
with difficult conditions. In a space of
less than 30 sqm, next to the garage,
they were expected to sleep, wash
and prepare meals for La Roche and
his guests, for delivery to the pantry
by a dumb waiter. La Roche took pity
on them and allowed them to move
into the guest room suite to the left of
the hall on the ground floor.
But all these privations were accept-
ed in good spirit by Raoul La Roche.
aims of art, architecture and domes-
tic comfort, it was a productive ten-
sion which created a masterpiece of
architecture and a symbol of modern
life in the fast lane. Remembering La
Roche’s collection, restoring house
and its polychromy and making all the
rooms of the house accessible
makes it possible once again to
engage with the full richness of this
extraordinary Gesamtkunstwerk of
Modernism in the fast lane and to
show its human face.

In a letter of 13 March 1925, on taking

possession of the house, La Roche
offered Le Corbusier as a ‘little sup-
plement’ the gift of a 5HP Citroen car,
‘both as a souvenir and as a very use-
ful work tool for a Parisian architect’. (16)
Needless to say, Le Corbusier found a
way of doing better than this.
Profiting from a lucky deal on the
unused site next to the Jeanneret-
Raaf house, he was able to persuade
his friend Mongermon to let him have
the much more racy and powerful
(8HP) Voisin touring car, called ‘La
Lumineuse’,which was subsequently
to appear in many of the photographs
of his later houses.

(16) Letter of Raoul La Roche to Le Corbusier 13 March 1925 (FLC P5(1)193)

(17) Important preliminary research for this restoration was carried out by Tiziano Rinella Aglieri, first in a doctoral thesis and then in
Aglieri T., Case La Roche-Jeanneret di Le Corbusier. Riflessioni per un progetto di restauro, Officina, 2009.

14 • Revisiting the Villa La Roche Villa La Rocca


25 bis rue de Constantine, Paris
Photograph by Arthur Rüegg
efore moving to Square du
B Docteur-Blanche in 1925, Raoul
La Roche had been living in a
Haussmann-style neoclassical buil-
ding overlooking the Esplanade des
Invalides in Paris. In about 1923, he
had entrusted Le Corbusier with the
job of redesigning this flat, the idea
being to make it suitable for the
important cubist and post-cubist art
collection he had begun putting toge-
ther in 1921. When in the following
year he came to commission Le Cor-
busier to build a new collector’s
house, it went without saying that it
too should be designed specifically
to hold these avant-garde treasures.
Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret
seized the opportunity to treat the
whole building, including the living
areas, in a matching innovative
architectural language.
Furniture and interiors:
1923 – 1925 – 1928
ARTHUR RÜEGG
As regards furnishings, some of the
objects chosen or designed for the
“Villa La Rocca” and the neighbou-
ring house built for Lotti and Albert
Jeanneret were loaned for the set-
ting up of the Pavillon de l’Esprit
Nouveau exhibition in 1925. Others,
originally conceived for this exhibi-
tion alone, ended up in the two adjoi-
ning houses in Auteuil. At that time,
the Pavillon and the maisons La
Roche and Jeanneret were a perfect
illustration of the strict programme
set out in L’Esprit Nouveau. Visitors
were struck by the deliberately pro-
vocative arrangement of the inside of
the Pavillon - a curious mixture of
spartan severity and a miscellaneous
throng of objects. This installation
was the deliberate antithesis both of
the overwhelming majority of art
deco type objects in the Exposition
Drawing for the 1928 refurbishing – FLC 15290
Villa La Rocca Furniture and interiors: 1923 - 1925 - 1928 • 15
des arts décoratifs et industriels
modernes and of the “integral solu-
tions” at that time advocated by Paris
department stores and interior deco-
rators.
While on the one hand the original fit-
tings of the maison La Roche in 1925
indeed represent as a whole a deci-
sive step in the history of interior des-
ign, the modifications undergone by
the picture gallery are evidence of its
gradual evolution, particularly when
the gallery was refurbished in 1928
and the polychrome purist space
punctuated by elegant solutions hel-
ping to emphasize its functional refi-
nement and to show to advantage the
æsthetic principle underlying its
machine age materials.
Seating and
tables: furniture
as “objets-type”
The original arrangement of the mai-
son La Roche is well documented.
The almost intact correspondence
between the different participants
(Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret, Raoul
La Roche and the various suppliers)
and an abundant photographic record
– among others an album containing
Frédéric Boissona’s prints for Vogue
in 1926 – have all been preserved in
the Fondation Le Corbusier archives.
Most of the furniture has also been
preserved. Several objects originally
belonging to Raoul La Roche and now
loaned for the reopening of the newly
restored house have made possible a
temporary reconstitution of what was
a scrupulously conceived dialogue
Le Corbusier, list of furniture for the house – FLC P5(1)266
between furniture and architecture.

The list of furnishings initially drawn
up by Le Corbusier was strictly limi-
ted to anonymous mass-produced
objects: Thonet armchairs, “Rongier
iron chairs”, “Maple leather arm-
chairs”, “Selmestein (sic) tables” as
well as writing desks, casier storage
units and “U.P.” beds. This choice is
no doubt partly to be explained by the
campaign being waged at the time
against the arts décoratifs, but other
explanations may also be found.
Le Corbusier had shown at a very
early stage a real ability to create fur-
niture, chairs in particular. But so far
he had confined himself to designing
variants of elegant “meubles de style”,
while endeavouring always to attain
the greatest possible simplicity. The
search for “invariables” took on a
new direction after 1918 when Ozen-
fant and Jeanneret turned towards
mass-produced objects, the formal
perfection of which was the result of
a centuries-old quest for ideal form.
The postulate of a finely honed form
was from then on to be associated
with the principles of large-scale
manufacture. In this way “objets-
types” were to acquire pertinence and
presence, making of them “objects in
themselves”.
The photographs of the interiors
of the house taken in 1925/26 show
the use of numerous objets type:

The gallery in 1926. Photograph by Frank Yerbury, Architectural association London

16 • Furniture and interiors: 1923 - 1925 - 1928 Villa La Rocca


Thonet/Kohn 1009 (B-9) bentwood
office chairs for the dining room,
Thonet/Kohn 1018 armchairs for the
picture gallery, tobacco brown
morocco leather armchairs – a
“Franklin” and a “Newstead” produ-
ced by Maples of London – for the
entrance hall and the gallery, iron
chairs and tables for the roof terrace.
The same treatment was given to
electric lighting fixtures: naked light
bulbs or “Marc Chalier” mass-produ-
ced tubular elements, fixed directly on
to the wall. The little tables in nickel-
plated tubing and painted sheet
metal, manufactured by Schmittheissler
Juxtaposable tables – FLC 15167
from the designs by Pierre Jeanne- juxtaposed – for example, one table
ret, were certainly based on the “fur- lengthwise fitting another widthwise.
niture and appliances for hospitals, The largest table was used for meals,
clinics and nursing homes” produced the smaller ones as work tables or
by this firm; one was placed in the occasional tables for the salon.
entrance hall, one in the bedroom
and one in the library. For the other
tables, the architects invented a new
version of the traditional wooden
tabletop on trestles with nickel-
plated tubing as a frame base and an
“à l’antique” varnished mahogany
tabletop. Le Corbusier took great
pains to ensure that the dimensions
of these “tables Louis” were calcula-
ted so that they could be precisely
Metal tables – FLC F1(3)276
Villa La Rocca Furniture and interiors: 1923 - 1925 - 1928 • 17
 Bedroom cupboard, grey. Drawing by Arthur Rüegg

The casiers or compartmented storage units:

“equipment for the house” supplants “furniture”
Not all the furniture installed in the cesses involved (the storage units together side by side only. In contrast,
new gallery-house can be identified had originally been planned entirely the design of the “secrétaire” and
from the initial list drawn up by Le in metal). In the end, the research shelving unit gave the impression
Corbusier. Handwritten additions, carried out in close collaboration that it was made up of several sepa-
made probably as a result of discus- with the U.P. firm in Brno broke down rate elements. These units thus retai-
sions with his client, confirm howe- after several misunderstandings, and ned different features of traditional
ver the decision to include some of the modular elements planned to be storage units such as “sideboards,
the already existing furniture. This the star attraction of the Pavillon de dressers, mirror-wardrobes, chests
explains why the Maples armchair in l’Esprit Nouveau were manufactured of drawers, dressing tables, side
the Auteuil library must have been at the last minute by two firms in Paris. tables, display cabinets, desks, etc.”
part of the original 1923 arrangement, (Le Corbusier, Almanach). Le Corbusier
as well as the two so-called “Davis” Thus, when Raoul La Roche moved was gradually to eliminate them in
armchairs in dark wood and velvet in, it was with his original storage fur- favour of an abstract cubic envelope.
later to appear in the gallery, and the niture from the Rue de Constantine, The La Roche units are nonetheless a
divan placed in a niche that seems to three grey-painted linen cupboards rare example of the transition bet-
have been made to measure for it at which he placed in the “purist ween the “architectured” models
the top of the gallery ramp. This very bedroom”. A very simple white shel- designed by Jeanneret in the years
sober traditional divan covered in ving unit and a “secrétaire” were from 1910 and the neutral “casiers
velvet is an exact copy of the models placed back-to-back at the far end of standard” of 1925. The “mobilier” or
Jeanneret had had made for his the library. The “chests of drawers” moveable furniture concept, with its
clients in La Chaux-de-Fonds bet- and the library furniture were rudi- obsolete connotations, was no longer
ween 1915 and 1922. mentary in design and included side adequate to describe these objects
panels tapering and projecting at the of a new order and was consequently
Even more disconcerting is the com- base, so that they could be placed replaced by that of “équipement”.
plete absence of the many products
of the “U.P.” firm originally planned.
This was in fact a result of the
mishaps that occurred in setting up
the Pavillon de l’Esprit Nouveau.
Le Corbusier had long been working
on designs for storage furniture (“ca-
siers”), based on architectonic rules
of composition. Two versions of these
were designed: built-in elements that
became part of the architecture and
separate elements that were still
pieces of “furniture”. By 1924/25, Le
Corbusier had succeeded in develo-
ping a wholly modular system, not
however without encountering subs-
tantial obstacles. To cover up these
difficulties, he claimed to have fallen
a prey to machinations designed to
discredit the specifically “industrial”
character of the manufacturing pro- Library cuboard, white and grey. Drawing by Arthur Rüegg

18 • Furniture and interiors: 1923 - 1925 - 1928 Villa La Rocca


Colour and architecture:
“first experiments in polychromy”
The new casiers standard were used
only in the neighbouring house, that
of Lotti and Albert Jeanneret, but in
La Roche there were already built-in
casiers and concrete bookshelves.
They form an integral part of the
architecture, whereas moveable fur-
nishings, belonging to a world of
objects and tools, are by their nature
at odds with an architectonic frame-
work made up almost entirely of
planes and cubic surfaces. Simply
juxtaposing such components was to
negate the then current ideal of a
perfect fusion of walls, furnishings
and works of art into a coherent, indi-
visible whole. The principle of assem-
bling heterogeneous elements on the
lines of a compositional principle
already tried and tested in purist
Célio, list of colours for the house – FLC H1(3)254
painting was one that Le Corbusier
made his own.
“Architectural polychromy”, which
actually used the same pigments as
painting, played an essential role in
this compositional method. Colour
itself was introduced as a comple-
mentary element, modifying spatial
qualities and producing “ambiances
colorées” able to make up for the
almost complete absence of visible
materials. Even the bentwood chairs
were more or less “enlisted” into the
scheme; applying a coat of grey
colour and thus made them part of
the composition.
Adopting multiple strategies in his
choice of colours for each room,
Villa La Rocca Furniture and interiors: 1923 - 1925 - 1928 • 19
Le Corbusier gave to “La Rocca” a
fifth dimension, thus helping to rein-
force the unique character of each
space. The dining room, all of whose
walls are painted pink ochre (pale
sienna), thus becomes the central
element of a traditional “corps de
logis”. The gallery, a temple to avant-
garde painting located at the other
side of the crystalline entrance hall,
is the diametrical opposite of this
traditional image. It is the perfect
“elastic rectangle” (Fernand Léger),
with each wall appropriating its own
colour.
 Glistening metal and vivid colours:
the 1928 alterations
The picture gallery is the only space
in which the original polychromy has
been appreciably modified.
After the gallery had been seriously
damaged by an accident involving
the heating system, La Roche took
advantage of the repairs being
undertaken to insist on improve-
ments, in particular to the lighting
arrangements. The light bulbs han-
ging from a web of cables were
replaced by a huge triangular light
fitting which, together with other
contrivances at various points, provi-
ded the luminous intensity he had
long been demanding for his collec-
tion.
Charlotte Perriand, in charge of inter-
ior design in Le Corbusier’s office
from November 1927, was also wor-
king on a whole series of other impro-
vements to the comfort and space of
the house. The “horrible” parquet
was covered over with a new rubber
flooring in pink (grey for the ramp and
the space beneath) and certain parts
of the gallery were repainted in more
contrasting and vivid colours. The
dark brown fireplace now stood out
against a pale blue background, and
the original store cupboard beneath
the ramp was torn out and replaced
by a composition of volumes invol-
Drawing for the 1928 refurbishing – FLC 15251
20 • Furniture and interiors: 1923 - 1925 - 1928 Villa La Rocca
ving a low glazed curving shelf with
borders in glistening metal, a mirror
and coloured panels. A remarkable
daybed in painted metal, wood and
canework was placed in the little
space beside the fireplace; with its
backrest clearly separate from the
mattress, it was the first of a whole
series of bed designs probably inspi-
red by Greek and Roman models. A
splendid fixed table with a tabletop in
polished black marble added the final
touch to the gallery’s transformation.
In this new environment, the high-
backed 1018 Thonet armchairs were
eliminated in favour of prototypes of
the new tubular steel chairs produ-
ced by Le Corbusier in collaboration
with Pierre Jeanneret and Charlotte
Perriand: the armchair “à dossier
basculant” – with a reclining back-
rest – and the “Grand Confort” arm-
chair that have since acquired the
status of “classics”, much as did
certain creations by Breuer, Stam, or
Mies van der Rohe.

Le Corbusier, P. Jeanneret, living room Maison Jeanneret, in l’Architecture Vivante, automne 1927.
t had to be avoided that colours by
I a kind of vibration came to
disqualify the wall. Such a misad-
venture is always possible; at this
particular moment, the wall becomes
tapestry and the architect, tapestry
maker. I react against such a lowe-
ring. From there a dictatorial inter-
vention: to eliminate the colours that
one can qualify as being non-archi-
tectural; better than that: to research,
to choose the colours that one can
name eminently architectural, and be
restricted by saying to oneself: ”there
are enough of those, already!”
[…]
I also note this: all confusion is tire-
some. So everything that is sculpted,
modelled, as a game of volumes, lives
by the effect of shadow, of half-tone
and of light. It is my sculpture, and
sculpture (revealed by the very
means of light) spreads to a certain
architecture as much exterior as
interior. If the focus is given to light, it
would be unfortunate to give it at the
same time to colour. When everybody
talks at the same time, we do not
hear each other any more. The spirit
of clarity would drive us therefore to
stipulate that polychromy is natural
upon smooth surfaces and that it kills
volumes conceived under the sign of
light (shadow, half-tone, light).
Therefore, what is sculpted would be
Architectural Polychromy
A study made by an architect (also involved
in the adventure of contemporary painting)
for architects
monochrome; what is smooth could
be polychrome.
I remember that polychromy kills
volumes. It may be that in certain
circumstances the architect needs
to “kill” parasite volumes. It is then
camouflage.
We have all observed in the Museum
of Natural History that nature, infini-
tely diverse, uses for different pur-
poses all the resources: it does it with
a clear mind. Many species (shellfish,
butterflies, birds, quadrupeds) offer
the complete set of characteristic
variants going from one extreme to
the other. It is this richness which
spreads from one extreme to the
other that is a lesson for us all: there
are no formulas, fashions or narrow
codes; there is this eternal law of
character, which is that there are
explicit products. In this way, the very
rough shell, very sculpted, full of rich-
ness in relief, is absolutely mono-
chrome. In the same family, this shell
evolves towards the simple and pure
form; at a moment of its growth, it is
smooth and white, then setting out in
another direction, its smooth surface
becomes animated by polychromatic
decoration which goes all the way to
the greatest violence: exact counter-
balance of the very sculpted shell
that we left at the other extreme.
[…]
Villa La Rocca Architectural Polychromy • 21
We could without difficulty make the
dwelling all white or trianon-grey. But
frequently, it is impossible to make a
given room pink or blue or yellow,
because such a room is intimately
linked to the other; there is no longer
“the pink room, the “yellow room”,
the “blue room”. In this influx of ine-
vitable, organic architectural ele-
ments, polychromy arises, bringing
with it a possible lyricism, magnifi-
cent architectural sensations and a
way of ordering.
I have said it: a new frame of mind,
also, definitely diverts us from the
interior of our grandmother’s boxes.
The search for space, for light, for
joy, for strength, for serenity, invites
us to call for colour, daughter of light.
To place oneself in front of a coloured
wall is somewhat different to burying
oneself in a flowered overcoat. It is
the difference between wanting to
act and consenting to endure.
[…]
Monochromy allows the exact eva-
luation of volumes of an object.
Polychromy (two colours, three
colours, etc.) destroys the pure form
of an object, alters its volume,
opposes an exact evaluation of this
volume and, by reciprocity, allows
one to appreciate in one volume only
what one wishes to show: house,
interior, object, it is the same story.
 Maison La Roche, hall after restoration, 2009. Photo FLC
In the desire to modify the aspect,
two opposed case are presented:
to massacre the volume, the form,
to completely alter the notion of
silhouette. It is camouflage that
triumphed during the war: camoufla-
ged ships, camouflaged aeroplanes,
camouflaged cannons. […] The other
case consists, on the contrary, of
making a classification, of establi-
shing a hierarchy, of making imper-
ceptible mistakes or bothersome but
inevitable complexities; it is to attract
the eye to the essential, to what can
give the sensation of purity, reveal
the pure form; it is to proclaim one’s
best intention, beyond tyrannical and
fatal necessities of the plan, whose
effect was to bring, to provoke an
inevitable but evident turmoil. It is to
classify, to define.
Here is a hall. It contains a stair, a
gallery; it is 5 m x 5m; it is very small.
How to make a vast and impressive
room out of it? With architectural
stratagems, we will look to “steal”
space from everywhere possible;
by making the ceiling pass above a
gallery containing the bookshelf; dis-
placing to one side a modest stair-
case, but by arranging that the wall of
the staircase is contiguous with that
of the hall. This large reclaimed wall
will be painted a light tone, white; we
can see it well. But the plan of the
house imposes the interior protube-
22 • Architectural Polychromy Villa La Rocca
rance of a small courtyard; it is a
large, cumbersome volume which
draws the eye, which distracts from
the essential, simple form, that we
would like to emphasise. The walls of
this small courtyard will be painted a
sombre colour, almost imperceptible,
in absolute contrast with the white
which will cover the envelope of the
hall. Thus the eye is no longer drawn
to this disastrous protuberance. It
goes towards the white walls, this
white spreads everywhere, as far as
possible.
[…]
I conclude by repeating this truth
already recalled by Fernad Léger:
“Man needs colours to live, it is an
element as necessary as water and
fire.”
Le Corbusier
Polychromie architecturale,
Manuscrit 1931 (extraits)
Publié pour la première fois
par Arthur Rüegg
In Le Corbusier, Polychromie
architecturale
Birkhäuser, ed. Bâle 1997
 Polychromie
Maison La Roche
Cote KT Color
Nom de la couleur Liste des ouvrages et des pièces

LC 26.010 - Radiateurs
Gris foncé — - Plinthes, menuiseries intérieures des baies vitrées
- Bâti des meubles et plinthes de l’office et de la cuisine
- Porte vitrée métallique de la salle à manger
- Epaisseur des rampes d’escalier et des garde-corps
LC 26.012
- Mur côté rampe et de la mezzanine de la galerie de tableaux
Gris clair —
LC 26.013
- Mur Isorel (cimaise à droite en entrant) et plafond sous la mezzanine
Gris pâle —
de la galerie de tableaux

LC 26.015 - Portes métalliques pleines

Gris blanc huile — - Murs et plafond de l’office
- Murs et plafond de la salle de bain de la chambre puriste
- Meuble, mur dans le prolongement du meuble et tableau de la fenêtre nord
de la chambre puriste
- Tablettes en ciment des fenêtres de la salle à manger, du palier devant
la galerie de tableaux, de la garde-robe et de la bibliothèque
- Tubes métalliques des garde-corps

LC 26.020 - Murs et plafond, entrée toilettes rez-de-chaussée

Bleu outremer foncé — - Mur, passage la chambre d’amis

LC 26.030 - Murs des paliers côté hall d’entrée, menant à la salle à manger,
Bleu Charron — menant à la galerie de tableaux, menant à la chambre puriste

LC 32.032 - Mur et portes sous la mezzanine de la galerie de tableaux

Bleu ceruleum moyen 2 — - Porte métallique vitrée de la bibliothèque
LC 26.040
- Mains-courantes (tubes métalliques) des escaliers
Vert Noir —
LC 26.045
- Mur côté fenêtre et mur attenant au garage, logement du gardien
Vert Paris —

LC 26.060 - Etagère de la bibliothèque

Terre de Sienne claire — - Cheminée côté bibliothèque
- Etagère de la mezzanine de la galerie de tableaux
LC 26.071 - Murs et plafond de la garde-robe
Sienne naturelle moyen —
LC 26.072 - Mur Isorel (face à l’entrée) et plafond de la galerie de tableaux
Sienne naturelle claire —
LC 26.073 - Murs et plafond du hall d’entrée
Sienne naturelle pâle — - Murs et plafond des cages d’escalier et des paliers
- Mur attenant à la salle de bain et plafond du logement du gardien
- Murs et plafond de la bibliothèque
- Murs et plafond de la chambre puriste

LC 26.120 - Mur de la rampe de la galerie de tableaux

Brun rouge — - Allège intérieure de la mezzanine

LC 26.122 - Murs et plafond de la salle à manger

Sienne brûlée claire — - Murs et plafond de la chambre d’amis
- Murs attenants au hall d’entrée, à l’escalier et à la cuisine du logement
du gardien

LC 26.130 - Menuiseries extérieures (face intérieure et extérieure), hormis face

Terre d’ombre brûlée — intérieure des menuiseries des baies vitrées de la galerie de tableaux
- Plinthes du hall d’entrée, du logement du gardien, de la chambre d’amis
et du cabinet de toilette, des cages d’escalier et des paliers, de la salle à
manger, de la chambre puriste, de la garde-robe et de la bibliothèque.
- Tablettes en ciment des fenêtres hormis celles de la salle à manger, du
palier devant la galerie de tableaux, de la garde-robe et de la bibliothèque
- Murs et portes du palier menant à la galerie de tableaux
- Mur est de la bibliothèque
- Cheminée de la galerie de tableaux

LC 43.2 - Murs et plafond de la cuisine, du cabinet de toilette de la chambre d’amis

Ivoire — et des toilettes du rez-de-chaussée
Restauration
de la Maison La Roche
MAÎTRISE D’OUVRAGE :
_ Fondation Le Corbusier
• Jean-Pierre Duport, président
• Michel Richard, directeur
• Christine Mongin, responsable
administratif
MAÎTRISE D’ŒUVRE :
_ Agence Gatier
• Pierre Antoine Gatier, ACMH
• Bénédicte Gandini
• Fanny Houmeau
_ Bureau d’études et de contrôle :
MS Consulting
• Patrice Sanudo
_ Économiste :
• Philippe Tinchant
ENTREPRISES :
_ IPCS (Pilote, coordination, sécurité)
_ Pradeau & Morin (maçonnerie)
_ Asselin SA (menuiserie)
_ Finelec (électricité)
_ A.C.R. Etanchéité
_ E. Grenon & Fils (plomberie,
climatisation)
_ EATF Climatisation
_ Dureau SA (peinture, sols souples)
_____
_ TDFI Environnement (désamiantage)
_ CFP groupe AGS (appliques La Roche)
_ Groupe SGS Agence Parcours
(nettoyage sols)
_ Radiastyl (radiateurs anciens)
_ Rénovbain (sanitaires)
_____
_ Gastinne Sécurité (alarme œuvres)
_ Elypse (détection incendie)
_ Niscayah (détection intrusion)
RESTAURATEURS :
_ Ariel Bertrand (peintures)
_ Sylvain Oudry (ébénisterie)
_ Maison Brazet (tapisserie,
passementerie)
TRANSPORTEURS :
_ LP Art
_ Chenu
FONDATION LE CORBUSIER
8-10 square du Docteur Blanche - 75016 Paris
Tél. : 01 42 88 41 53 - Fax : 01 42 88 33 17
www.fondationlecorbusier.fr
Les travaux ont bénéficié
du concours financier
_ Du ministère de la Culture et de
la Communication - Direction
régionale des affaires culturelles
d’Île-de-France
• Dominique Cerclet
• Serge Pitiot
_ Du Conseil régional d’Île-de-France
_ De la Ville de Paris
Et des conseils du commandant
Régis Prunet
_____
MERCI
La Fondation remercie Madame Alix
Speiser et Monsieur Philip Speiser
qui ont généreusement contribué
à la restauration de la maison et
à la réalisation de l’exposition Villa
La Rocca.
Ce chantier a également bénéficié
du mécénat scientifique et matériel
de Katrin Trauwein et de la société
ktColor, fabricant officiel des cou-
leurs Le Corbusier ;
_ De la contribution de Cassina
pour la réédition des éléments du
mobilier original de la maison ;
_ De la participation de la Galerie
Thanakra et de iGuzzini illumina-
tione France.
L’aménagement de la Maison
La Roche et la réalisation de l’expo-
sition ont bénéficié du concours de
Tim Benton, Arthur Rüegg, Jacques
Sbriglio.
Documentation : Isabelle Godineau
Communication : Paula de Sa Couto
Cette manifestation a bénéficié
du soutien de Pro Helvetia et de
l’ambassade de Suisse en France.
© FLC-ADAGP – Bernard Artal Graphisme – Imprimerie Peau – Septembre 2009