Benton, Tim (2010). Le Corbusier e il vernacolare: Le Sextant a Les Mathes 1935.

In:
Canziani, Andrea ed. Le Case per artisti sull'Isola Comacina. Quaderni fondation montandon.
Como: NodoLibri, pp. 2243.

Tim Benton_Le Corbusier and the vernacular plain

archivio.archphoto.it /2011/01/25/tim-benton_le-corbusier-and-the-vernacular-plain/
The house known as Le Sextant designed by Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret for Albin Peyron has
been little discussed in the technical literature (Figure 1 and Figure 2)[1]. Pushed back from the street
as far as the plot allowed, the house carefully preserved the existing pine trees. None of the Five Points
for a New Architecture, coined as recently as 1927, appear to be visible here.

Figure 1 View of Le Sextant from the North West (the street side)_copyright Tim Benton

Figure 2 Le Sextant viewed from South_copyright Tim

Benton
Concrete pilotis, the free plan, free faade, long
windows and flat roof with roof garden have been
replaced by wooden posts and beams, rubble walls, a
rigidly compartmented plan, discreet windows and a
double-pitch roof. Le Corbusier could claim, in the
Ouevre complete (volume 3) that this was due to a
very restricted budget and the use of a local mason,
but this is not the end of the story [2]. Le Corbusier had
always considered the vernacular and the classical to
be on a par. When he made his long voyage to the East
in 1911, he wrote as much on the vernacular buildings
of the Balkans, Greece and Italy as on the famous
temples of Greece and Rome. As a young man in the
Swiss watch-making town of La Chaux-de-Fonds, he
had turned away from the industrialised city, with its
apartment blocks and grid of streets, to seek out the
high slopes of the Jura, spending several months each
winter snowed into a vernacular farm-house with its tu
(a snug built around the fireplace)[3]. Following his
move to Paris in 1917 and throughout his Modernist period in the 1920s, Le Corbusier retained his
fascination with vernacular architecture, sketching details and taking measurements on his travels [4].
His very important book La Ville Radieuse begins with the words: I am attracted to a natural order of
things and contains many images of natural objects and vernacular architecture. And Bruno has written
about Le Corbusiers discovery of natural materials around the time of the Maison de Mandrot (192932) and the possible links with the regionalist style [5].
For Le Corbusier, no architect could match the judgement and skill of the humble peasant who builds
his own house around his daily actions [6]. He shared many of the ideas of the Austrian critic and
architect Adolf Loos, who famously declared Peasants have culture architects have no culture [7].
By this, he meant that architects had been trained in a set of artificial skills drawing plans and
elevations divorced from the real practice of building, the skills of construction and a respect for
materials. Furthermore, despite the series of Purist Villas he designed for his clients in the 1920s, his
own idea of a perfect vacation was an unbuttoned existence in the open air, living in and around a
modest wooden house or cabin (Figure 3). For several years, from 1928, he had taken his summer
vacation on the Bay of Arcachon near Bordeaux, staying in a wooden guest house at Le Picquey.

Figure 3 Postcard of Villa Berthe, Bassin dArcachon, in Le Corbusiers collection, as an object of

admiration. (FLC L5(5)35)_copyright FLC_ADAGP
Le Corbusiers moving account in Une Maison un Palais of the fishermens houses in the pine forests
of the Bassin dArcachon is his most heart-felt piece of writing on domestic architecture (Figure 4).

Figure 4 Amdee Ozenfant, sketch of fishermans hut on the Bassin dArcachon, illustrated in Une
Maison un Palais, 1929.
Le Corbusier noted the isolation, the separation from the rest of the world of the tongue of sand-dunes,
between the lagoon of Arcachon and the Atlantic. The fishermen, who worked there in the summer,
only came there with the idea of living from day to day. This precariousness puts them into the
paradigmatic situation of the house builder; they are making a shelter for themselves, somewhere to
live, no more, in all simplicity and honesty. They are carrying out a pure programme unencumbered
with claims to history , to culture, to the taste of the day. Theyre building a shelter, somewhere to live,
with the materials that come to hand [8]. And suddenly, says Le Corbusier, he realized that these

houses were Architecture (or as he puts it, they were palaces). There are other signs of Le
Corbusiers preference for the most simple and primitive conditions for relaxing and living in the
summer.

Figure 5 Sketch of rented vacation

home at Esbly, 10 July 1932
(Sketchbook B6, Le Corbusier
Sketchbooks, MIT, vol 1, p.389)
On 10 July 1932 he sketched a
wooden shack, raised on stilts,
rented by friends of his for a
vacation (Figure 5 and Figure 6).
He noted: life enfolds entirely
under the pilotis and he clearly
considered this casual existence
idyllic [9]. And in his book La Ville
Radieuse (1935) he illustrated the interior of one of the traditional stone houses which his friend Jean
Badovici and his then partner Eileen Gray had converted with the following captions: In Vzelay, 16th
century and modern times and modern peopleWhy this astonishing freedom? Why this sweeping
generosity? and this intimacy? Because a proper human scale (that which has the true dimension
of our gestures) has conditioned each thing. There is no longer old or modern. There is what is
permanent: the proper measure [10]. And in the text he attacked the Existenzminimum mentality which
he had helped to promote:
The minimum home, as it has spread so tremendously these past few years in Germany, in
Czechoslovakia, in Poland, in Russia, is no longer a place to live in: it is a cage. It is harmful, it is
inhuman, it imprisons life within minimum limits, life that needs room [11].
Alvar Aalto and many other Modernist architects, never lost their enthusiasm for vernacular
architecture and, in a sense, measured everything they did against this standard [12]. From 1929 Le
Corbusier had begun to try to incorporate some of these values in his own architecture, just as he had
already abandoned the geometric discipline of Purism for a more voluptuous and earthy style of
painting [13]. He designed a house in stone and wood for a Chilean friend Errazuriz in 1929 and built
another for his Swiss friend and patron Hlne de Mandrot (1929-31). He began to understand the
vernacular as being the secure link between man and nature, the direct expression of instinctual
human needs, uncontaminated by abstract reasoning. Above all, it was Pierre Jeanneret who was
becoming increasingly fascinated by vernacular architecture. With Charlotte Perriand he spent two
years (1934-5) photographing and surveying old farm houses in the Jura mountains [14].
Alongside the rediscovery of vernacular architecture and the simple life, Le Corbusier and Pierre
became very interested in the aesthetic stimulus of natural found objects. Surrealism clearly
stimulated this interest in the late 1920s, but many architects had collected shells, stones and driftwood as domestic exhibits for some time. By 1928, Le Corbusier began to collect objets trouvs more
systematically, for exhibition in his and his clients houses and for inclusion in his paintings. His canvas
La, for example (1930) plays on the erotic implications of a sea shell and a bone, contrasted with the
traditional female icon of a violin [15]. We know from sketches he made that these objects were
imagined in an open-air setting on a metal table and close to a tree trunk at the vacation house he
stayed in on the Bay of Arcachon. Thus, close proximity to nature, natural objects and artistic invention
are brought closely together.
But, how could Le Corbusier rescue natural materials from his sworn enemies in the Style
Rgionaliste? The French art critic Camille Mauclair had attacked Le Corbusier in a series of articles in
Le Figaro, in part for putting stone masons and other craftsmen out of work. These honest hommes de
tas (craftsmen) were threatened by the supposed mechanisation of building which Le Corbusier
appeared to favour. Furthermore, clean-cut masonry belonged to the world of the Beaux-Arts

architects, who were the natural enemies of Modernism. The answer lies in the notion of objets
trouvs or objets raction potique. The avant-garde could recuperate the vernacular only if it was
stripped of its nationalist and traditionalist associations and rediscovered as a fragment of nature. So,
instead of dressed stone and decoration designed by architects, Le Corbusier used the modest
moellon , a simple, honest, local material, comparable to the pine trunks of the fishermans log cabin
and assembled by local masons.
The first attempt to use a local builder and natural materials, the Villa de Mandrot at Le Pradet (192932) had not been easy[16]. The project began in December 1929 as a reutilisation of the Maison
Loucheur type house, which used a 45cm stone wall, built locally, to which two prefabricated steel
sections were attached. Between March and April 1930, this project was eventually replaced by a
scheme which marked the definitive end of the Purist villas. Walls of local stone were interspersed with
large steel framed windows manufactured in Paris. Instead of being raised above the ground on pilotis,
the house was buried in the ground, with a large terrace on one side. The local maison, signor
Aimonetti, did not understand the primitivist aesthetic of the Parisian architects, who refused to allow
him to render the stone walls, nor to line the doorways and other opening with brick. In the event, the
house leaked badly, from water penetrating the soft local stone and its joints and through the window
seals.
Just back from Venice in August 1934, where he had been lecturing on art, Le Corbusier received a
letter from Albin Peyron, Commissioner General of the Salvation Army in Paris. Le Corbusier and
Peyron had become close friends during the three construction projects for the Salvation Army: the
dormitory wing, Cit de Refuge and the houseboat dormitory. Peyron had bought a plot on the road to
the beach through the pine forest at Les Mathes, 20 kilometres North of Royan. His sister had already
bought a plot there. He had told Le Corbusier at the inauguration of the Cit de Refuge in December
1933 that he wanted to build a summer house, and this was his chance. Peyron sent some
photographs of the site and some sketches of his own, which he claimed to be in accordance with Le
Corbusiers manner of thinking. He labelled some of these with the name he had decided for his villa,
Le Sextant [17].
Il va sans dire que, si dans vos cartons vous avez quelques projets de peites villas rpondant aux
desiderata suivants: une grande chambre commune, une chambre pour deux filles, une chambre pour
un garon, une chambre pour les parents, une chambre pour deux domestiques, ventuellement une
chambre pour amis, et qui me permettent dapercevoir la mer de la chambre commune, cest--dire
la hauteur des yeux par rapport au sol 3m50 a 4m, je serais trs heureux de venir les consulter chez
vous [18].
The site (c.32m80 x 34m50 on one side and 44m25 on the other) was on the East side of a road
heading almost due south to the beach through pine trees on sandy soil. Peyrons sketches showed a
two storey L shaped plan with a belvedere on the third floor.

Figure 6 Albin Peyron, sketch of a villa for his site at Les Mathes, dated 27 July 1934 and sent to le
Corbusier on 1 August (FLC H2(19)288)_copyright FLC_ADAGP
In this perspective sketch, we can assume that the kitchen, servants rooms and guest bedroom would
have been on the ground floor, with a staircase rising to a balcony with bedrooms for the children and a
bathroom. The master bedroom and living room (salle commune) would have been on the right (South
side), with a window which in true Modernist fashion turned the corner facing the view to the sea. A
belvedere on the third floor would have allowed a better view to the sea. In a variant, the salle
commune turned into a large circular living room with the master bedroom perhaps on the roof, up the
spiral staircase. A guest bedroom would have been attached to the South East. Peyron amused himself
by imagining the interior of this living room.

Figure 7 Albin Peyron, sketch plan for a villa at Les Mathes, dated 27 July 1934 (FLC H2(19)287)
copyright FLC_ADAGP

Figure 8 Albin Peyron, sketch of living room in his design of 27 July 1934 (FLC H2(19)289)
copyright FLC_ADAGP

Figure 9 Albin Peyron, Belvedere on top floor of his project for a villa at Les Mathes, probably sent to
Le Corbusier on 1 August 1934 (FLC 290)_copyright FLC_ADAGP
A sketch for a belvedere on the top floor may indicate this bedroom (Figure 9).

Le Corbusier replied on 7 August warmly accepting Peyrons challenge: Je serai, personnellement,

trs heureux de pouvoir vous loger dans une belle petite maison Le Corbusier but suggesting that they
talk about this again in September [19]. Peyron then sent a letter and some more sketches of a third
and fourth project on 17 October 1934, to try to prompt a response from his friends [20].

Figure 10 Design by Albin Peyron,

dated 7 October 1935, for a third
project for his summer house at
Le Mathes, sent to Le Corbusier
on 17 October (FLC
H2(19)158_copyright
FLC_ADAGP
The third project, like several
others of these sketches,
incorporates an L shaped plan,
with a salle commune for Albin
Peyron and his wife and
bedrooms for his son and two
daughters above a kitchen and
bedrooms for two maids and a
guest room. A terrace on the first
floor would give a view of the sea
through the pine trees, while also
providing shade below to eat out.
An extraordinary fourth project
would have aligned the childrens
bedrooms, above, and servants
rooms, kitchen and guest room,
below, along the East side, with a
double height Salle commune all
along the West side [21].
On 8 December, Peyron visited Le
Corbusiers atelier in the rue de Sevres and there, judging by his letter of 12 December, he was shown
a lightweight prefabricated project, a weekend house, which he admired but rejected [22]. The identity
of this project is mysterious. Here is Peyrons description.
Cest avec la plus grande attention que jai tudi depuis samedi votre projet de maison week-end.
On y retrouve les ides trs originales dont vous avez toujours t les instigateurs, et dont je suis un
trs fervent admirateur. Ce projet rpond parfaitement aux desiderata auxquels doit prtendre lhomme
dsireux de passer un, deux ou quelques jours en un semi-camping au bord dune rivire, dun lac. La
construction lgre, la cellule assez rduite, mais qui se continue sur la terrasse ou un terre-plein grce
son mur basculant, les matriaux lgers (bois, ternit, aciers et fers), le tout concourt un habitat
construit pour quelques annes bon march, et que lon dmolira ou abandonnera quand les
rparations importantes se feront sentir par lusure normale du temps.
Mon programme nest pas essentiellement le week-end, mais plutt les vacances, cest--dire maison
abandonne 10 mois lan, mais o lon vit deux mois sans arrt, une poque o lon recherche le
repos, la sant et le confort galement.
Le repos vient des sens, de la vue qui aime se reposer sur ce qui est beau, simple, naturel, de loue
qui dsire un peu de silence aprs lappartement tumultueux de Paris, la sant ncessaire de bons
sommeils, des bains de soleil au besoin, des siestes labri de la chaleur estivale ; le confort requiert
une belle pice, claire, are sans excs. Pour ces raisons ma femme et moi attachons une certaine
importance au cachet extrieur car en vacances on vit beaucoup autour de sa maison. Il faut de

lharmonie entre lhabitat et lenvironnement, le sable et les bois de pins Une maison qui se ferme
bien lhiver, et qui rsiste lembrun sal, aux pluies de lautomne[23].
And he went on to fear for the heat in the cellules of their project, the unfunctionality of the windows
and the large movable panels. He suggested that they abandon the weekend house idea and design
an Ocean house, using one of the two local builders.
What could Peyron have been shown when he visited the atelier in December 1934? In fact, Pierre
Jeanneret was hard at work on a weekend house for Mister Flix, the accountant of Carlos de
Beistegui, for whom Le Corbusier had designed a Surrealist apartment overlooking the Champs
Elyses (1929-33). The Felix house, often referred to as the petite maison de weekend La Celle St
Cloud, in the suburbs of Paris, was at an intermediary stage in December 1934. A first set of projects
by Pierre Jeanneret was in the process of being altered radically by Le Corbusier. What Peyron could
have seen in December 1934 was a little house on a triangular site, made of stone rubble walls
alternating with walls of Nevada glass tiles, surmounted by concrete vaults [24].

Figure 11 Pierre Jeanneret, intermediary project for Villa Felix, La Celle St Cloud, December 1934
(FLC 9280)_copyright FLC_ADAGP
The Felix project bears no resemblance to Peyrons description of what he was shown on 8 December.
Much more comparable, surprisingly, was a design produced by Charlotte Perriand with Pierre
Jeannerets assistance, for a weekend house competition organised by LArchitecture dAujourdhui in
the autumn of 1934 [25]. This project was for a lightweight demountable steel construction resting on
simple stone piers with two rows of rooms facing each other across a sun deck. Large wooden baffles
could be hinged out to perform three possible functions. Angled upwards, they allowed ventilation at
night while protecting the sleepers, while swung out into a horizontal position they could provide shade
on the sun deck. Finally, they could be closed up completely when the visitors were away. The birds
eye view shows a possible location near a river or lake. There are so many points of contact with
Peyrons description that we must assume that it was this project which he saw. It is possible that
Peyron was received in the atelier not by Le Corbusier (although he had placed the date in his diary)
but by Pierre Jeanneret [26]. It would certainly have been surprising for Le Corbusier to show a project
by Charlotte Perriand, who was not supposed to work on her own schemes in the atelier. Tensions
were already developing in the atelier between Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret, which were
exacerbated by the latters close personal relationship with Charlotte Perriand.

At any rate, by 6 February 1935, a project had been worked up by Pierre Jeanneret for Peyrons villa.
On 19 January Peyron visited Le Corbusier again, and may have been shown some sketches for his
villa [27]. A set of drawings were prepared on 6 February which, with various modifications, were
submitted to two local masons, William Vallot and H. Bran on 16 February, with an accompanying
letter of 14 February [28]. Although Peyron recommended Vallot as plus la page, his tender came
out slightly higher and Pierre Jeanneret opted for Bran, who turned out to be a conscientious,
thoughtful and reliable builder. Le Corbusier, who rarely had a good word to say for the builders of his
villas, called him honnte et consciencieux [29]. When the house suffered war damage, it was Bran
who made the repairs, which seem to have involved replacing the roof and virtually all the structural
woodwork. Close inspection can find very little difference from the original details.
The origins of the Villa Le Sextant are not hard to find. The project is closer to Pierre Jeannerets range
of interests than Le Corbusiers, and there are very few interventions on the drawings by the master
[30]. As an indication of Pierres own work at this time, there are a number of projects for houses using
stone and wood or steel, some of them in collaboration with Charlotte Perriand.
The holiday centre Charlotte designed for a competition launched by LArchitecture dAujourdhui in
1935 was submitted with drawings prepared by Pierre Jeanneret and include a number of his favourite
themes, including the walls of moellons, the double-pitch roof with a valley gutter and a separate
wooden structure inside. Most of the decisive drawings for the Villa Le Sextant are by Pierre Jeanneret,
with the assistance of Zunzo Sakakura, Polak, Duntzer and Miquel. The first sketch plan by Pierre,
probably dating to mid January 1935, was of a highly compressed house, measuring a mere 14.80m x
5.10m [31]. The minor bedrooms measure a mere 1.90m across, the width of a bed, and the two
daughters are accommodated in bunk beds, overlapping at right angles at different heights, as are the
servants and guest room beds on the ground floor. In its essentials, this is the house as built, but it is
reversed, with the terrace on the right (to the North), rather than the South [32]. There are other
significant differences, such as the wall separating the Salle commune on the first floor (and the dining
room below) from the terrace, which in the first drawings is shown as a wooden partition rather than a
stone wall. All the remaining drawings indicate a house of between 17.80 and 19.14 in length, to allow
for a little more space in the bedrooms and on the balcony. An important drawing is 08431, where Le
Corbusier sketched the house front and back and in birds eye view.

Figure 12 Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret, preliminary plans and sketches for the villa Le Sextant,
mid January 1935. (a) sketches by Le Corbusier of West and East sides of the villa, (b) plan of ground
floor, with East side on top (FLC 8431)
copyright FLC_ADAGP
The measured plans indicate the wall to the terrace as a wooden partition, but Le Corbusiers sketches
shows it as a solid masonry wall. The plans are unique in the series in being drawn with the East side
on top, instead of the West. A distinctive feature of the plans here are that Pierre has devised large
hinged wooden panels, 90cm wide, which could fold away in the summer and close off windows and
doors in the winter. These can be seen in an ink perspective of the house published in the Oeuvre
complete volume 3 and in Jean Petits Le Corbusier lui-mme [33]. Like many of the drawings
published in the latter book, the original has disappeared into the dealer circuit.

Figure 13 Pierre Jeanneret,

perspective of preliminary project
for Le Sextant, from SE (reversed
in the Oeuvre Complete vol 3 p.
135)_copyright FLC_ADAGP
The full height pivoting panels can
clearly be seen in this perspective. As we have seen, Peyron was insistent about the need to close his
house off securely during the winter months. In the end, the system for protecting the house was
extremely basic, a set of wooden panels cut to the size of the windows, which fit into channels and are
held in place by metal studs with a locking key. A number of details associate this perspective with the
preliminary designs [34]. The representation of the landscape makes it clear that this is the back of the
house and not the front. In the Oeuvre Complte volume 3, and in Le Corbusier lui-mme, this
perspective view was reversed, to match the orientation of the finished building.

Figure 14 Pierre Jeanneret, perspective of the preliminary project for the house from the North West
(street side) before the reversal of the design (FLC 8397)
copyright FLC_ADAGP
The matching perspective, which may also have been shown to Peyron on 19 January, shows the view
from the street [35]. This sketch curiously omits the staircase to the upper storey, as well as the
wooden post supporting the terrace. This may have prompted Peyron on 3 March to suggest getting rid
of the post supporting the balcony (see below).Then, a plan (8444) and two elevation drawings (8391
and 8460) were simply turned over and re-dimensioned and relabelled on the other side in ink,
reversing the orientation. There were probably two main reasons for placing the terrace at the South
end. Entrance from the road was at the North end and Peyron several times alluded to the need for
privacy from passersby on the road to the beach. Furthermore, all his own projects had placed the
main living areas and windows to the South and West, with the view to the sea. It is quite possible,
therefore, that this change was made after Peyron had seen the first sketches on 19 January. Both
versions had turned the bedrooms away from the street, to the East, with a nearly blank wall on the
West side.

Figure 15 Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret, plans of project of Le Sextant (13 February 1935) used
for tendering on 14 February 1935. (FLC 8443)
copyright FLC_ADAGP
Peyron was an attentive and critical client. He made detailed comments on the technical description
which Pierre had sent the builders on 14 February with the plans, in a letter of 3 March [36]. For
example, he criticised the narrow band of concrete outside the bedrooms on the East side, ground
floor. He suggested that this should be extended almost to the overhang of the balcony. In the end, only
part of this extra screed was laid by Bran, and it was not until the repairs after the war that Peyrons
request was carried out.

Figure 16, View of East side from South with the dining room and kitchen on the ground floor and the
salle commune on the floor above. The additional strip of concrete screed added by Bran after the
war, and the two additional posts can clearly be seen.
copyright Tim Benton
This can clearly be seen today, along with the two additional posts which Bran placed at the outer end
of the balcony to stiffen the supports.
Another feature of the devis descriptif which Peyron rejected was an extraordinary system of
fenestration on the East side. Pierre described this as: une sorte de treillage en bois dont les mailles
auront environ 50cm par 50cm (5050) poses a 45 et recevant des verres mastiqus a lintrieur
[37]. Drawings exist of this system.

Figure 17 Elevation drawing of fixed windows covering the bedrooms on the East side of Le Sextant,
drawn by Duentzer, dated 4 March 1935 (FLC 08395)
copyright FLC_ADAGP
These diagonal windows would have been fixed, leaving the ventilation only to the doors. Peyrons
comment was acerbic: Le grillage faade sud-est me parait peu pratique, cher, les carreaux (240) sont
difficilement lavables, cassables etcPrevoir une faade plus simple. This had immediate effect and

no more was seen of this system of mur neutralisant. It will be remembered that the hermetically
sealed window of the Cit de Refuge had created drastic problems of over-heating in the summer. The
Salvation Army had to force Le Corbusier to open ventilating windows in the faade with a police order.
It seems that here at least, Pierre gave up without a fight. Another point of criticism on the part of
Peyron was the wooden post supporting the West terrace, which, as we have seen, Pierre
inadvertently left out of the perspective sketches. Peyron suggested that this support could be left out
and replaced by a braced truss consisting of two beams forming a balustrade from whch the edge of
the terrace should be hung [38]. Pierre wrote in the margin suppression du poteau, and in a letter of
12 March to Bran he wrote: Sur la grande terrasse de ltage nous supprimerons le poteau cot sudouest et nous le remplacerons par une solive assemble qui franchira la porte de 5 mtres environ ,
vu la facilite que nous avons faire ce genre de construction. ce sujet, vous recevrez des croquis
[39]. In the event, Bran put in the post anyway, admitting that he had not read the revised drawings
carefully enough [40]. Even with the wooden post, the terrace has noticeably sagged.

Figure 17 View of terrace on South West side, showing the post supporting the terrace and roof which
Bran added against Peyrons wishes.
copyright Tim Benton
Another point which raised a difficulty was the colour of the stone, which is very white, even today.
Peyron and Pierre would have preferred a more mellow colour, and Peyron sent the architects a
photograph of a house Bran had built on the other side of the road.

Figure 18 Villa Malatrapp, built by Bran opposite the villa Le Sextant

copyright Tim Benton
Pierre asked Bran to use the same colour and texture as he had used on this villa. Bran replied
saying that unfortunately, he had used recuperated stone which was now unavailable for this house.
He recommended the local stone, moellon dur de Saujon, which he claimed to be resistant to water
infiltration and much better than the alternative, pierre de St Palais. Bran insisted on 31 March that
half the stone for the house had already been delivered and that no other was available [41]. The white
colour of this stone continued to cause anxiety, and Pierre had to reassure Peyron that it would weather
to a warmer tone. When Bran offered a compromise, proposing to use some salvaged stone to create
a warmer effect at the corners and around the windows and doors, Pierre refused absolutely [42].
It was the builder Bran who insisted that the walls should be 45cm thick and not 40cm as indicated in
the drawings. But if Pierre accepted this change, he would not give in to Brans practical suggestion to
plaster the internal walls [43]. Since Le Corbusier had discovered his neighbours wall in his
penthouse studio at 24 Nungesser et Coli, he had insisted on leaving the bare stone pure, inside and
out (Figure 25). In Le Sextant plywood was to be used for the ceilings and partitions, and it was
eventually decided to insulate these with cork to control the transmission of sound.

Figure 19 Interior of girls bedroom. This would

originally have had two beds in it
copyright Tim Benton

Figure 20 Flue in the party wall of Le Corbusiers

penthouse suite studio 1932-3
copyright Tim Benton
A detail which strikes an odd note is the flue of the
fireplace in the Salle Commune. Le Corbusier had
made a feature of the pink firebricks lining the flue in
his studio. Admiring the contrast with the golden stone
of the wall.
There are some intriguing drawings, both for Le
Sextant and for the villa Flix, where a masonry wall
and red fireplace flue are celebrated in a coloured
rendering, usually with a man standing by it in a
manner redolent of homeliness [44]. The
reintroduction of the warm foyer as the heart of the
Corbusian home was a new invention of the 1930s
and, in my opinion, owes a great deal to the influence
of Pierre Jeanneret, since these emblematic drawings
are in his hand.

Figure 21 Pierre Jeanneret, drawing of the hearth

in the salle commune, showing arrangement of
firebricks inserted into the stone wall (FLC 8409)
copyright FLC_ADAGP

Figure 22 Le Sextant Salle commune with fireplace

copyright Tim Benton

Figure 23 Terrace, showing the flue of the fireplace in the salle commune
copyright Tim Benton
Bran has not understood the informal effect which Le Corbusier and Pierre wanted with this detail. He
has organised the firebricks in a symmetrical, hard-edged structure, like a corss of Lorraine. The view
of the terrace (Figure 29) also shows the blue painted panels (n the right), used to cover up the
windows in the winter months. These slot into grooves in the window frames and are held in place with
steel studs and a metal key. The twin beams gripping the posts which rise right up to support the roof
can also be seen, as well as the Eternit panels closing off the lower half of the window walls. Originally,
none of the windows were meant to be openable, but an opening window in the kitchen, at the end, was
introduced for ventilation.

Figure 24 View of window wall of bedrooms on the

ground floor, East side, showing the Eternit panelscopyright Tim Benton
The wooden details in Le Sextant are intriguing
because they suggest a Japanese influence which
makes sense when you realise the interest of Junzo
Sakakura in the project. He drew many of the
presentation drawings and may have suggested many
of the wooden details in the house.

Figure 25 Detail of twinned beams on the balconies

copyright Tim Benton

Figure 26 Detail of staircase showing hand rails

probably designed by Sakakura
copyright Tim Benton
The villa Le Sextant owes a great deal to its client, Albin
Peyron and to the interest of both Le Corbusier and
Pierre Jeanneret in the vernacular. Their approach was
a staunchly modernist one. Natural materials had to be
used in a pure form, even if this meant ignoring much
local wisdom about sound construction. The builder
Bran managed to persuade them to avoid some of the
pitfalls, stiffening the roof structure against the wind,
ensuring reasonable insulation (Pierre wanted to use
wood shavings between the plywood panels) and
protection from water penetration. Le Corbusier and
Pierre showed, in this project, how to adapt the
fundamental principled of the Modern Movement to new
materials, sites and circumstances.
[Tim Benton]
[1]- The villa was published in LArchitecture
dAujourdhui, No 9, September 1935, p. 65 and
discussed in Ragot, G. and M. Dion (1997) Le Corbusier en France. Paris, Le Moniteur, p. 205-7
[2]-{Le Corbusier, 1964 #17329}, p. 138.
[3]Brooks, H. A. (1997), Le Corbusiers formative years : Charles-Edouard Jeanneret at La Chaux-deFonds, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, p.5 and 185-190.
[4]Passanti, F. (1997), The vernacular, Modernism and le Corbusier. JSAH, 56:4, December 1997, pp.
438-45
[5]Reichlin, Bruno, Cette belle Pierre de provence La villa de Mandrot, Le Corbusier et la
Meditarrene, Marseilles, 1987, pp. 131-140
[6]Le Corbusier (1989), Une maison, un palais, Paris, Editions Connivences, pp.48-52
[7]Loos, Adolf, Architecture in {Loos, 2002 #13520}, pp. 73-85
[8]Le Corbusier, Une Maison un Palais, Paris, 1928, p. 46
[9]The original sketches are in Le Corbusier Sketchbook I, B6, pp. 389 and 390 (redrawn later and
included in La Ville Radieuse The Radiant City, (Le Corbusier (1967), The radiant city; elements of a
doctrine of urbanism to be used as the basis of our machine-age civilization, New York, Orion Press,
p.29.
[10]Le Corbusier (1967), The radiant city; elements of a doctrine of urbanism to be used as the basis of
our machine-age civilization, New York, Orion Press, pp. 53-5
[11]Le Corbusier (1967), The radiant city; elements of a doctrine of urbanism to be used as the basis of
our machine-age civilization, New York, Orion Press, p.53
[12]In addition to Le Corbusier and his friends, Andr Lurat and the Italian modernists looked to the
white-painted vernacular of the Mediterranean, while German architects valued the half-timbered barns
and collective houses of their regions.
[13]Christopher Green, The architect as artist, in Le Corbusier Architect of the Century, Arts Council of
Great Britain, 1987, pp. 110-157.
[14]{Barsac, 2005 #5626}, p. 146
[15]{Green, 1987 #10580}, pp. 115-6
[16]{Benton, 1984 #1486}
[17]For example, his sketch of projet no 3 (FLC H2(19)158)
[18]Albin Peyron to Le Corbusier, FLC H2(19)154
[19]H2(19)156

[20]H2(19)157
[21]H2(19)159 and 160.
[22]H2(19)161
[23]Albin Peyron to Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret, 12 December 1934 (FLC H2(19)161)
[24]For a detailed history of the Flix house see {Benton, 2001 #10080}, also in {Benton, #1496}. A
plan closely related to FLC 9280, but without the top storey (FLC 9275), was dated 17 December 1934
[25]See {Barsac, 2005 #5626} p. 152-3 and {Benton, 2005 #11922}p. 21-2
[26]The diary entry for 8 December reads Samedi 3h Peyron bureau (FLC F3(5)9 p. 51).
[27]The diary entry reads simply 3 Peyron (FLC F3(5)9 p. 59).
[28]FLC H2(19)179, 191, 239. Vallots estimate came out at 79,183 frs, while Brans was a round
60,000 frs (FLC H2(19)183 and 192.
[29]{Le Corbusier, 1964 #17329}, p. 135
[30]One of the few sketches in his hand are the perspective views of the house in its preliminary form,
reversed with respect to the project of 6 February 1935 (FLC 08431).
[31]FLC 08429
[32]The North point on FLC 8425 and other plans, as well as various perspectives, makes clear that all
these plans are drawn with the West facade, facing the road, on top and the North to the right.
[33]{Le Corbusier, 1964 #17329}, p.135 and {Petit, 1970 #11499}, p. 81.
[34]For example, the staircase is reversed, the waterspout and the balcony balustrade were detailed
differently in all the subsequent designs.
[35]FLC 08397.
[36]H2(19)238
[37]H2(19)239
[38]Two drawings show these trusses (FLC 08413 and 08432).
[39]H2(19)201
[40]Bran to Pierre 19 June 1935 (H2(19)234
[41]H2(19)203
[42]Pierre Jeanneret to Bran, 20 March 1935 (FLC H2(19)206).
[43]Bran to Pierre Jeanneret, 15 March 1935 (FLC H2(19)203).
[44]FLC 9270
Bibliography
Barsac, J. (2005) Charlotte Perriand : un art dhabiter, 1903-1959. Paris, NORMA
Benton, T. (2003) The petite maison de weekend and the Parisian suburbs. Le Corbusier and the
architecture of reinvention. M. Mostafavi. London, AA Publishing: 118-139
Benton, T. (Oct, Nov, Dec 1984) La villa Mandrot i el lloc de la imaginacio Quaderns darquitectura i
urbanisme 163: 36-47
Benton, T. La maison de weekend dans la banlieue parisienne IX Rencontre de la Fondation Le
Corbusier, Paris, 2001
Benton, T. (2005) Charlotte Perriand: Les annes Le Corbusier. Charlotte Perriand. Paris, Editions du
Centre Pompidou: 11-24
Green, C. (1987) The architect as artist. Le Corbusier architect of the century. London, Arts Council of
Great Britain: 110-130
Le Corbusier and P. Jeanneret (1964) Oeuvre complte 1934-1938. Zurich, Les Editions dArchitecture
[Editions H. Girsberger, Edited Max Bill, 1938]
Loos, A., A. Opel, et al. (2002) On architecture. Riverside, Calif., Ariadne Press
Petit, J. (1970) Le Corbusier lui-meme, Paris
An Italian translation (curated by Andrea Canziani) of this text is published in Le Case per artisti
sullIsola Comacina, Andrea Canziani, Stefano Della Torre (a cura di), Quaderni Fondazione
Montandon n.7, Nodo Libri, Como 2010
Thanks to Mr. Michel Richard/Director of Le Corbusier Foundation_Paris
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