Although many now see it as a museum, the Fondation suisse is above all a place to live. From the outset, its architecture and residents have made it a concourse for intellect, culture and everyday life, blurring the line between Le Corbusier “architect” and Le Corbusier “philosopher”. These walls embody Le Corbusier’s “machine for living in” – the theoretical principles he conceived for the ideal urban space and went on to apply throughout his work.
In his architecture, art and writing alike, Le Corbusier was always ahead of the curve, driven by his wish to define a new art de vivre. The Swiss Pavilion’s Salon courbe exemplifies the omnipresence of pictorial and literary poetics in this building and in his work in general. Curved walls, murals, multicoloured ceilings and raw concrete; the interplay of materials and colour give the space a sculptural dimension.
A few moments in this building, seated in front of the mural in a chair designed by Charlotte Perriand, and you cannot help but grasp that Le Corbusier was also a great artist, a composer of coloured form, a poet and a theorist of well-being.
