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Villa Savoye

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Villa Savoye

1931 · Le Corbusier · Poissy, France

Three masters

How to read the modernist masters, and their buildings

Le Corbusier
1887–1965
The Five Points stick better as movement—from pilotis up to the roof—than as slogans to memorize. Villa Savoye is the textbook entry. Modulor can be read as linking human scale to standardization. Comparing Unité and Cabanon—large collective living versus a tiny cabin—deepens that idea. The National Museum of Western Art translates the Museum of Infinite Growth into a Japanese site. Reading master–pupil ties with Maekawa, Sakakura and others shows paths of influence into Japanese modern architecture. Swiss-born architect and planner who worked in France. He led the modern movement across houses, chapels, housing blocks, and capital planning. In Japan he is known for the National Museum of Western Art; Kunio Maekawa and Junzo Sakakura trained in his office.
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
1886–1969
The relation of structural frame to thin enclosure is the theme. Following how columns, walls, and glass divide roles at the Barcelona Pavilion and Seagram makes it stick. Universal space: a large room not over-fixed by function. Comparing how roof and columns make “void” at Crown Hall and the Neue Nationalgalerie deepens understanding. Joints of marble, travertine, steel, and glass become the design core. At Tugendhat and Farnsworth, observe material honesty at house scale. German-born architect who later worked in the United States. Clear construction in steel and glass, universal space, and refined curtain walls internationalized modern vocabulary. After directing the Bauhaus, he taught and practiced at IIT in Chicago.
Frank Lloyd Wright
1867–1959
Prairie houses emphasize connection to the land with low eaves and horizontal lines. Robie House is the textbook entry. Organic architecture blurs inside and outside and starts from site and materials. Fallingwater and Taliesin West are useful poles for comparing relationships to nature. Jacobs House reads as a middle-income experiment (Usonian); the Guggenheim as public architecture where the path itself is the exhibition experience. American architect spanning Prairie style, organic architecture, Usonian houses, and late public buildings—always linking site, materials, and living. In 2019, eight major works were inscribed as UNESCO World Heritage.

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38 buildings (Le Corbusier / Mies / Wright and others)