Le Corbusier--Maison La Roche

 

Maison La Roche

During our tour of a beautiful house designed by Le Corbusier, we were asked to take a critical look at how Corbusier’s talents overlap throughout his different mediums. Le Corbusier, is a sculpture, an architect and a painter, some vastly different mediums and ways of thinking. As I was moving throughout the house, keeping his paintings and his sculptures in mind, I felt like this was going to be an impossible task. His paintings and his sculptures have a lot going on, its very jumbly (a word used by our class to describe busy).  His house was clean and strict, with harsh lines and angles, some curves here and there, but for the most part it was very modern. Below are the three photos that I felt best describes his work.

After taking in my surroundings, looking for Le Corbusier's eye, I started looking in my own way. Below are a couple photos of things within the house that really got me. 

^a view from windows in the gallery inside the house^

Natalie_La Corbusier Home

Natalie Eichers

Looking at Photography in a Painterly Way

The La Corbusier Home was located in a small residential neighborhood. It began our walkthrough of modern architecture, beginning with Art Nouveau and moving toward contemporary structures. 

Our assignment prompt was to look at Corbusier's painting which was hanging within the house. Initially I looked at the assignment in the wrong way. The prompt was to photograph in a way that reference the painting as a whole, however I photographed in a way that referenced PARTS of Corbusier's painting. Even though the prompt wasn't followed the correct way I do feel like the photographs that came out of the assignment are valid representations of the way the architecture of the home allowed light to interact so successfully with its furnishings and interior space. It still also allows many similarities to be revealed between Corbusier as the architect and Corbusier as the painter. 

                                               

The following photographs are sometimes simplistic but are relevant to the aforementioned painting by the colors they include, the shapes they draw attention to and the intersection of line and shape. 

Minimalism...what the hell?

Going to the La Roche house confused me at first. It was so minimal compared to other museums such as Rodin and Versailles, that I was disgusted. Walking inside, it was completely bare. Of course there was photos to show what the house look like before, but I was wishing it was still all-intact. It would have made me a lot more interested in it. The first room I went into was the dinning room. Here was a table, a couple of chairs and a shag rug from the 60’s. Then I wanted to find the gallery space. In my mind, this was the best room since it was filled with furniture. I didn’t get why only the dinning room and gallery space only had a full interior.

In class, we were asked to discuss how Corbusier used his paintings as motivate for his designs. I only truly found this through his gallery space. Here, it held the same color in his painting that was hung on the wall. The dark brown, white, black and cerulean blue that was seen in the painting was found in either the interior space or furniture. Even the gallery space included the circular and linear quality that was found in the painting. The roundness of the room reminded me of the head in the painting. The curvature and black table reminded me of the lines and circles included in the painting.

Museum People Watching

Time lapse drawing of people standing in front of me at Monet's Water Lilies

Throughout this trip, I’ve been able to view and appreciate so many amazing pieces of art.  Unfortunately, so have a lot of other people and they do it right in front of my face.  Some museum visitors, especially those on an audio tour, have a tendency to walk right in front you viewing, drawing, or taking a picture of a piece, and stand.  Most of the time it’s not even at the appropriate distance to view the work or it’s details.  It’s a strange in between where you’re not getting the full picture but you’re not seeing any artist marks.  This provides a good opportunity for people watching.

The constant mob in front of the Mona Lisa

Not looking at the piece, but right in front of it

Crowded view of the Hall of Mirrors

Seeing people interact with the work is really interesting.  At Manet’s Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe, there was a woman who came with an audio tour guide group that was clearly viewing the piece, and sat down on the bench.  Normally, that would be ideal, but there was a swarm of people in front of the work and the piece wasn’t visible.  At one point in time, she started texting and looking at other pieces in the room.  At l'Orangerie, on several occasions, people came in, stood right in front of our group sitting on the benches viewing Monet’s Water Lilies, and whipped out city or museum maps, as if walking into the room for a brief second gives the full experience.  Of course there were many other people actually interacting with the work.  Some people had conversations about it, others just sat quietly and observed.

Keri - Le Corbusier House & Art Nouveau

Hello! Today we walked to a more residential part of Paris to see a house designed by Le Corbusier for a painter. Also, I learned that Le Corbusier was a painter himself. Our artsy task today was to find the painter in the architecture and to define his painting style using pictures of the house (in 3 pictures).

This is a zoomed in picture of Le Corbusier's painting which hangs in the gallery. 

I thought this picture of the gallery space looking out a window followed similar lines of his panting. It also has mimics the color and the curved lines. 

The last photograph is of a foyer on the second floor. I chose this picture because of the color blocking and black lines that outline the colors also in his painting.

Laws of architecture adopted by Le Corbusier seen all throughout the house

Art Nouveau Walking Tour

Curves all over this window. Whimsical. 

Whole building done by Hector Guimard

Musée de l'Orangerie

Lily pads by Monet. This time I found a few more artists that I really liked.  

deliciousness