LE CORBUSIER was amused by Marguerite Tjader Harris’s proposition but could not entertain it. “You Americans are extraordinary, men and women both!” he responded. He had ideas for these houses but had constant travel ahead and too much work in every direction as it was.
On the other hand, how could he refuse her even if she lived in the greediest country on earth? With one of his usual barbs at America, Le Corbusier declaimed, “I’d be delighted to draw up these plans for you if such a project didn’t depend on the future collapse of your dear country’s industrial stocks, i.e., a depression whose effect would be to stick us with the same damn collapse over here! Once again, I’m at your disposal if you give me the time I need, i.e., at least a year.”37 He also suggested that she approach José Luis Sert about the project and advised her to tell Sert she had little money.
Unaware that this was merely his recommendation for a tactical maneuver, Tjader Harris wrote back that he must have misunderstood what she said, since she could easily afford the four houses that, to use his word, would enable her to construct a “Unité.” “On the contrary, I have so much money now that I can’t imagine how to do anything reasonable,” she wrote.38 Moreover, like him, she had lost faith in the capitalist system; therefore she did not want her funds in investments.
Tjader Harris was willing to wait for the moment when he might come, however briefly, so that they could realize the dream with which their relationship had been initiated in the early thirties: “I’d like them to be Corbusier houses…4 little houses at one with the site: the rocks, and the sea in front of them—like the little house which you imagined for me among the vines of Lake Leman, and which never saw the light of day.”39 If he was en route to South America, she would fetch him from the airport in New York, so he could spend at least two days with her. If it were in September, the sea would still be warm, the large house nearly empty.
Le Corbusier replied that he was developing a housing prototype in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin that might serve her needs. Perhaps they could find someone who could execute the idea in America—“and keep whoever it is from robbing me all over again!”40 Her response was to insist that he at least glimpse the actual setting in Connecticut. Even if he could give her no more than a couple of hours, even if it was not until next spring, nothing would thrill her more.
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A film was in the works about Le Corbusier’s building in Marseille; he wanted Albert to compose music for it that was possessed of the inventiveness and spontaneity with which he had tried to imbue the building. Everything was to be approached in a fresh way; when Le Corbusier’s friend and gallerist Denise René had no idea how to title some of his drawings in an exhibition, the artist, deliberately insouciant, proposed that they select titles from the telephone book. They named the work with street names that appealed phonetically.
Le Corbusier now wrote his mother of Marseille, “It’s triumphant and triumphal. Besides, the wind is shifting and we’re entering a period of enthusiasms, the opposite of the dirty tricks that have been our constant lot.” Once he was in this state of mind, everything else followed. Galerie Denise René had a show of tapestries by twelve artists, with one by him, and he told his mother that “everyone claims mine is the best.”41 More books by and about him were coming out right and left.
That July, Le Corbusier went to Corsica, where he had a meeting in Ajaccio to discuss a project along the lines of the one in Marseille and the second Unité d’Habitation he was designing for Nantes. Again he wrote Yvonne to convince her of his devotion, while begging plaintively that she go easy on him: “I’m writing this letter with all my heart…. You still don’t realize how deeply you’ve been anchored in my heart all these years—my guardian angel. You’re constantly in my thoughts—at home or away. Each time I return home I find you as beautiful as ever—or even, as we grow older, more beautiful still. There’s something extraordinary in your face. You know perfectly well—I keep telling you—that I discover it anew each time, and I look for your wonderful smile, sometimes hard to find. Why should that be? You must smile, my darling, and smile at your man who is a soldier on the battlefield from morning to night and all his life long. I’m overwhelmed by all I have on my mind, and all I must do, the commitments I’ve made and the duties I must fulfill with regard to others. I must constantly give and produce, I’m not allowed to fail.”42
Le Corbusier wanted her to appreciate his having stopped to work on their getaway at Roquebrune-Cap-Martin before going to Corsica, but it wasn’t easy to placate a wife who was now completely fed up with his absences. With another of his bizarre analogies, he reminded her that for thirty years he had always returned to Paris, “like the cab-horse to the manger, galloping and (silently) whinnying for joy.”43 Never over all those years had she seen him look regretful when he was with her. Now, with their new house, he hoped she would start smiling again.
Beyond struggling to appease an unhappy wife, Le Corbusier was also battling to salvage his role in the UNESCO project. He wrote his mother that August was “the Lamp of Sacrifice!”44 It’s unlikely that she understood this reference to John Ruskin, but she was meant to appreciate his martyrdom.
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That August, the cabanon came into being. At last, Le Corbusier could compensate Yvonne for her loneliness on the rue Nungesser-et-Coli. Here, she could have her husband all to herself and drink her pastis in view of her birthplace. He had built a low-cost masterpiece that honored her innocence and simplicity and her affinity for nature. The joy was immense for both of them.
After Le Corbusier had made his sketches in those pivotal forty-five minutes on December 31, 1951, he had taken the plan back to 35 rue de Sèvres. Those first renditions for the cabanon look like late Mondrian sketches more than architectural blueprints, but the abstract flurry was not hard to translate into something that could be built. Minimal lodging had always been an obsession of Le Corbusier’s; here, he took it to a new extreme, with exterior walls that would simply be pine planks nailed onto a wood frame, with a roof constructed of tiles of “fibro-cement.”
Le Corbusier had the main elements prefabricated in Ajaccio—another reason for the trip to Corsica—and dry-mounted on-site. He had arranged with his friend Claudius-Petit to have all the materials brought by special train, routinely making the last leg of the journey between 2:00 and 4:00 a.m., when the tracks were free from normal use. Locals did the simple construction and electrical work. Thomas Rebutato put in the plumbing. The architect delighted in that rudimentary process as much as in the straightforwardness of its product and the low cost.
When Le Corbusier and Yvonne moved in on August 5, 1952, the expenses had totaled four hundred thousand francs—or approximately $6,800—for the perfect human dwelling.
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At a glance, Le Corbusier and Yvonne’s getaway in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin looks like a run-of-the-mill summer-camp cabin. The split pine logs that encase the rectangular box belong on a Swiss mountain hut or beside a Scandinavian lake. Le Corbusier had chosen them at the last minute, a replacement for the siding he had initially planned. This rough sheathing is not what one expects to find at the edge of the Mediterranean.
For Le Corbusier, it must have felt like home, but for the visitor it is startling. Nothing prepares you for its utter simplicity. Most people expect glistening surfaces, jazzy ramps, and bands of windows framed in taut steel. Having arrived in the town of Roquebrune, they take the footpath—the only means by which the cabanon is accessible—imagining at least some kinship to the known classics of modernism. They discover that the architect of the Villa Savoye, the modern palace at Garches, and the monuments of Chandigarh himself lived in the equivalent of a solid pup tent.
Tucked into the hillside where the sound of the surf is continuous, the deliberately rough and austere cabanon appears completely lacking in design. The chestnut door seems haphazard in relation to the split pine logs. But the coarseness and randomness befit the task of the house, which was to confront t
he demands of earthly life.
Basically, the cabanon was an add-on to the Rebutatos’ little restaurant, to which it was joined by a doorway. It was a highly unusual living arrangement, as if Le Corbusier were annexing another family’s daily existence. By building his getaway so that it shared a wall with the restaurant, the architect was joining himself to a place where they could have lunch and dinner every day, where they could even shower. With the complicity of the former plumber and his wife, Le Corbusier was also guaranteeing a degree of caretaking for himself and Yvonne as he was for the house—a private “assisted living” arrangement. This, too, was a way of facing the truth.
If we did not know that the cabanon was made by a world-famous architect at the peak of his power and international success, it would not seem so profound and moving. But this bare-bones dwelling, perfectly encapsulating the essence of human needs—with a consciousness and deliberateness so bold as to be perverse—is completely poetic.
THE SUNSHINE that August was superb as Le Corbusier and Yvonne settled into their dream house. The property Rebutato had sold them was dominated by an enormous fig tree that kept it cool in the shade; everything was perfect. “Our seaside cabanon, 3.66 meters by 3.66, is a masterpiece,” Le Corbusier wrote his mother on August 20.45 With its height of 226 centimeters, it corresponded perfectly to the dictates of the Modulor.
When Le Corbusier and Yvonne were standing outside of the cabanon, the only sound they could hear—unless there were people dining at l’Etoile de Mer or the Rebutatos were cleaning up after a meal—was the sea lapping on the rocks below. Most of the time, a coastal breeze wafted through the open windows and the cracks between the boards. The garden contained cacti, cypress trees, and lemon trees, their blossoms giving off a pungent smell.
It was a tough walk down a narrow path to the pebbly beach. There were train tracks only twenty meters or so away from the cabanon, but even the cars clanking by did not bother Le Corbusier and Yvonne. In this pocket of nature, the architect may have enjoyed a reminder of Alfortville and of steel and speed. And if the walking was difficult for his lame wife, for him it demanded the physical vitality essential to healthy living.
LE CORBUSIER had seen similar structures ever since he had stayed in hikers’ shelters with his father, brother, and mother on their Alpine outings. When he traveled on Mount Athos, he had come to know the crude dwellings for those monks who wanted solitude while facing the infinite horizon separating sea from sky. Now, on his own modest parcel of land, Le Corbusier designed a structure where, similarly, you entered with the sea behind you. Then you turned around in the living room and faced the view through a large window.
It’s debatable whether the proportions and placement of the other windows represent complete eccentricity or a strong sense of purpose. These openings vary from thin vertical slits to perfect squares. They are all of a simple type known as “summer-banin,” consisting of glass panels, framed in wood, that open outward and are hinged on one side while having a large latch on the other, with wooden shutters for protection against winter storms. Some are as small as peepholes, others ample.
To be inside the cabanon is like being in a monk’s cell; there is denial, a call to work, and also one to contemplation. The minimal furniture announces life’s essential activities as writing, eating, washing, sleeping, and, perhaps above all else, thinking. There are no soft surfaces.
The fittings are as functional and purposeful as those in a train car or boat cabin, or on board an airplane, even if the space is not quite as tight or compact. The cabinets, shelves, and drawers are built in, and there is suitcase storage abutting the painted ceiling. The stainless-steel sink is determinedly small, and the simple light fixtures are frankly purposeful. The plain bunk that served as Yvonne’s bed has the toilet enclosure right next to it—separated not by a wall but only by a red curtain. That red is the scarlet of a theatre curtain, as if to announce a spectacle on the other side. The wall next to the plain white porcelain toilet is a vibrant green. These bold colors—the floor is painted a golden yellow, the ceiling panels in bright hues—confront the neutral tone of the rudimentary plywood of which the room is made.
The rigor and the deliberate economy and sparseness provide a rich experience—akin to that offered by an apple, the unadorned fruit of the earth with its delicious flavors and textures made only by nature. Along the south wall—the front of the cabanon, its side nearest the sea—the table for writing and eating juts out as a simple plane at a right angle, clearly stating its purposes like the energetic dining tables at Mount Athos. It is supported by one leg, a miniature piloti. Its top made from olive wood, a tribute to the splendors of the Mediterranean forest, has the sort of low-cost opulence that Le Corbusier interjected even in the most austere of worlds (see color plate 13).
Details within the simple cabanon encapsulate various sides of Le Corbusier’s creative life. The door handles suit a factory—his streamlined, straightforward, practical, industrial aspect. The entrance door, only seventy centimeters wide, reveals his infatuation with trains and ships. His Rabelaisian side also looms large. The modest dwelling, after all, was a love song to his wife and to male/female sexual magnetism. There is the powerful presence of sex, although it is relegated to the wooden window shutters, which are painted with figurative imagery and decorative patterns that are a mix of bawdy humor, Matissean joy, and Picasso’s painterly evocation of the libido. The subject of one is mainly a penis, the other a vagina. They bring sensualism into the monastery; if the act of sex was no longer practiced within the house, those murals put the pleasure of cavorting in broad sunlight and give it primal power rather than make it illicit.
Abutting those colorful murals, hinged to the shutters as their other wings, are mirrors: the vehicle for looking at one’s self physically and a metaphor for psychological exploration. The house is all about the act of looking—intensely and with maximum clarity—at nature, at the fundamentals of human habitation, at the organs of human reproduction, at the self. But above all else, the getaway provided a calm communion with the splendors of the earth and cosmos.
This simple hut is surrounded by exotic trees called caroubiers. The air is redolent with honeysuckle. If the murals suggest Adam and Eve, this is the garden of Eden.
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Fifteen meters from the cabanon, Le Corbusier eventually built a little shed for work. It was simply a construction shack covered in rolled roofing. Le Corbusier put it in place in 1954, after receiving the pieces from the Dordogne. Following the opening of an exhibition of his painting in the grand and imposing Kunsthalle in Bern, Le Corbusier flew to Nice, and then, with a young architect from his office, erected the prefab units. He wrote to his mother and brother ecstatically that August to say that this two-meter by four-meter structure was his “ideal studio royally arranged by the miracle of proportion.”46 The bigger and grander the scale on which he was building worldwide, the more modest his own needs became.
Inside the little work space, Le Corbusier had a drawing table, a stool, and a wastebasket. He also had a collection of bones lined up on shelves: some came from animals, others from human beings. The sea breeze drifted in through the two windows and the slots underneath the roof. He wanted nothing more. Here, he could focus on the essentials of habitation.
IN THE CABANON and this work shed less than a minute’s walk away, Le Corbusier had created his dream compound. Stripped down, devoid of cushiness, the living and working spaces were a reduction to diamond-hard truths.
In spite of the total disparity of scale, Taliesin West, the elaborate village in Arizona where Frank Lloyd Wright spent the last years of his life, reflects many of the same desires. So did the small lakeside house in which Alvar Aalto ended his days in central Finland. These very different masters of modern architecture all sought proximity to pure nature, to what was universal. Their chosen environments offered uninterrupted views of spectacular geological formations, of the earth as it was carved by melting glaciers.
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Le Corbusier belongs to the tradition of complex thinkers who ultimately wished to pare down the ingredients of their own lives. Palms and lemons, the sea and the sky, what one needs to live and nothing more: this was what counted. The architect’s legacy would be pretentious white villas in East Hampton, Long Island, and other chic watering holes—the antitheses of this simple cabanon. But the rudimentary dwelling overlooking the Mediterranean indicates who he really was and what he cared about.
Here one feels the perpetual presence of the sun in all its life-giving power. By day, this force that does not change or alter its position, the sun, is there as the giver of heat and light; at night, it lingers via the moonlight and the reflection of that light on the water. The deliberately simple architecture of the cabanon recedes before Le Corbusier’s deity. And because the austere hut does not distract or conspicuously announce its presence, it serves to facilitate contemplation, reverie, and joy.
Few people could dare to pare things down so extremely, to return to the scale of childhood. Sartre in his small apartment, Giacometti in his plain studio—these existentialists partook of this same drive to get to the essence of life and to divest themselves of all that is superfluous. Like Le Corbusier, they also enjoyed being perceived for their deliberate rejection of bourgeois comforts. The refutation of majority values, the self-conscious alliance with peasant life, was intentional. Le Corbusier called the cabanon his “château” or “palace” he was making a point.
Looking out of the small windows or standing on the modest terrace in front of the cabanon, facing the large bay or the open sea, one has the sense of being nearer the cosmos, of being part of what has been here for ages and should be here ages from now, whatever other changes have occurred on earth. Even with the views from the terraces and roof at rue Nungesser-et-Coli, one cannot forget the frantic getting and spending of the city as one can here on the Mediterranean. The man obsessed with urbanism always saw the importance of connecting to the eternal beauties.
Le Corbusier Page 69
