Modern Man: The Life of Le Corbusier, Architect of Tomorrow by Anthony Flint

Author:Anthony Flint [Flint, Anthony]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: New Harvest
Published: 2014-11-03T21:00:00+00:00

In the quest for his vacation home, Le Corbusier had capitalized on connections with others—Lipchitz’s fisherman’s cabin in Le Piquey, Badovici’s house in Vézelay and Villa E-1027, and now Thomas Rebutato’s plot of land around L’Étoile de Mer. There was something parasitic about the way he turned from houseguest to adopting places as his own, like marrying another man’s woman: letting someone else make the great discovery and then moving in. Brilliantly, he arranged it so no one could make the same maneuver with him. The cabanon was so small, he could never have an overnight guest.

The very idea of a second home also was antithetical to the housing he was designing for the masses in cities. Not everyone could have a country house or a beach house; that was reserved for the elite. Still, at Unité d’Habitation, he attempted to create homes that had many of the benefits of the country: the light and fresh air, and easy access to recreation. And he had allowed himself the tiniest possible vacation home.

The five bungalows he built offered affordable efficiency, and for a time, he sought to provide a way for even more people of average means to enjoy Roquebrune-Cap-Martin. The project known as Roq and Rob—“Roq” for Roquebrune and “Rob” for Robert Rebutato—called for some two hundred apartments, or “cells,” as he referred to them, each with a little balcony and a view to the sea, cascading down the slope near L’Étoile de Mer and Villa E-1027. It would have been a slice of Unité d’Habitation, slapped on the hillside. Though it was never built, the design concept was ultimately mimicked in resort hotels up and down the French Riviera.

It was the view—to the Mediterranean, to Monaco, the wild green growth and the craggy rocks—that Le Corbusier sought to provide to others. But he was well satisfied to enjoy it all for himself. It was a view that always seemed fresh, and it seemed to him that no one could possibly ever grow tired of it. The natural porch in front of the cabanon was an ideal promontory, a front-row seat for the theater of nature, the buckshot sunbeams poking down through the clouds by day, the moon shining a fat spotlight on the dark water by night.

So much of the rest of his life was torture amid the triumphs. At Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, he had landed, unequivocally, in a good place. He had good friends and delicious food, and Yvonne was happy. He had built a minimalist beach house that would be coveted for years to come by all those who dreamed of a simple, low-cost getaway of their own. It was modern architecture at its best. But mostly, it was home away from home.

“I’m so comfortable in my cabanon,” he told a friend, “that I’ll probably end my days here.”21

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