1995
Le Corbusier's five points were published in L'Architecture Vivante of Fall 1927. He wrote: " La démonstration purement technique qui suivra affirme qu'il ne saurait y avoir de modification de l'esprit architectural sans la présence des plus strictes réealités constructives. On peut accepter que les grandes époques d'architecture sont assises sur un système pur de structure. Ce système pur de structure qui satisfait aux exigences insatiables de la raison apporte à l'esprit une satisfaction, un émerveillement, une joie qui suscitent l'expression spirituelle et purement intellectuelle d'un système pur de l'esthétique architecturale." Le Corbusier justifies his strict system as the pure, rational product of techtonics.
1- Le toit terrasse as a roof garden. The terrasse saves more room for the inside spaces; the garden maintains humidity.
2- La maison sur pilotis. The house is lifted above the humid soil and the garden is able to enter under the house. The view from the ground is no longer obscured.
3- La fenêtre en longueur. The window is the "élément mécanique-type" of the house. Some are fixed and some are mobile.
4- Le plan libre. Structural walls are replaced by pilotis running through the house from ground to roof. The stairs become free.
5- La façade libre. The pilotis are inside the house, the slab is cantilevered, the façade is free, the windows are no longer interrupted.
Le Corbusier's architecture is spoken in a language empowered by these constants, rules constructed towards the presentation of a major language. Gray's architecture can be read as a "zone of transition and variation"(Deleuze Reader, 146), negotiating a territory of options within that same language. She considers different treatments, usages, functions of that same language.
Eileen responds to each of these points at E.1027. 1- The roof garden is transformed into an accessible roof terrace without plantings; 2- pilotis support portions of the volume of the house. They aren't located in the same place in plan from the ground to the upper floor / are replaced by mur portants on the higher level. The view under the house is obscured by the wall of the earth terrasse. 3- The fenêtre en longueur of the house open with a completely different system than the one Le Corbusier proposed (within each band, all the windows opened, dissolving the flat surface; Le Corbusier juxtaposed fixed and mobile panes to maintain the picture plane of the wall). Some of E.1027's windows are vertical rather than horizontal bands (the anthropomorphic and mechanistic within one shell). 4- The interior stairway, though free of the exterior walls and columns, is wrapped with rectilinear storage-walls and concealed from view within the house. The cylindrical volume is revealed only on the roof, where it was originally doubly exposed as skeletal framework (a translucent skin has since been added). At Villa Savoye this procession is reversed; the stairs are exposed within the house and contained within solid walls on the roof. The free plan is transformed into a free ceiling plan. Interior partitions dividing bathing and living spaces do not touch the ceiling, resulting in a continuous plane. This ceiling detail is given special attention. Page 25 of Architecture Vivante shows a detail drawing of the roof, with beams enclosed between two slabs. The top slab is made of dry construction, the bottom slab (the ceilling) is poured in place. The duality of the two types of construction assemblages and pouring shows that she is trying to find her own language, bringing new solutions for insulation. 5- the windows are framed with columns; the slab is not cantilevered; the openings are dependent on the structure: the façade is not free.
Le Corbusier's five end points become for Gray starting points, through which she begins to mediate a middle ground, a place of unknown becoming. Thus rather than juxtaposing five alternative points, she proposes four problems, each manifesting multiple architectural strategies. "Les quatre problèmes essentiels qui ont le plus particulièrement retenu notre attention..." (Gray & Badovici, 28). These are personal insights or interests. At the same time, they acknowledge the plural authorship (notre) Le Corbusier, Wright, Mies all participated in, but publicly denied. The problems: 1 - the problem of the windows, for which they have created three types. 2- the problem of shutters, too often neglected ("une fenêtre sans volets est un oeil sans paupières.") 3- independence and privacy ("Il doit encore avoir l'impression d'être seul, et s'il le veut, entièrement seul.") 4- easy access to the kitchen but isolation of odors. They do not pose a singular (point-oriented) solution, but a field of investigation. Each problem is directed towards improved living rather than formal manipulation. Their proposals consider personal identification and interaction with the house and context, its privacy, its climate, its smells. Each point makes reference to a particular photograph or drawing -- the ubiquitous shutters, the many concealed doors, the isolated kitchen one could only construct in "un climat exceptionellement doux." It is as much about hiding as it is about viewing.
For Eileen the house is made to be experienced. Each experience creates a type, unique to its context and program. "Je crois que la plupart des gens se trompent sur le sens qu'il convient de donner à ce mot "type". Pour eux "type" est synonyne de création simplifiée à l'extrême et destinée à être reproduite en série. Mais je comprends autrement. Une maison type n'est pour moi qu'une maison dont la construction a été réalisée selon les procédés techniques les meilleurs et les moins couteux, et dont l'architecture réalise pour une situation donnée, le maximum de perfection; c'est-à dire qu'elle est comme un modèle qu'on devra, non pas reproduire à l'infini , mais dont on s'inspira pour construire dans le même esprit d'autre maisons" (Gray & Badovici, 21). Her approach is very individualistic, like a craftsman dealing with questions one by one. The plan comes out of the experience of living, making. Architecture is not a mechanical process of reproduction.
Le Corbusier's response to the émotion type is to externalize it, to locate and flatten it onto the façade. Emotion is guided by the formal aspects of the architecture, a very classical point of view. "L'émotion-type? L'émotion architecturale. C'est le jeu savant, correct et magnifique des volumes sous la lumière" (Le Corbusier, Vers une architecture, 5). It is not only the emotion, but any private experience that Le Corbusier suppresses when he writes in Précisions sur un état de l'architecture et de l'urbanisme (1930): " Nous avons noté, n'est ce pas, que l'entreprise du b‰timent doit harmoniser ses méthodes à l'esprit de l'époque machiniste par la suppression de la petite construction privée. La maison ne doit plus être faite au mêtre, mais au kilomêtre."
