LA CHAUX-DE-FONDS, WORKING CITY AND ART DECO jewel

© Benjamin Vial

Le Corbusier and his city

A key house, a white house

The Maison Blanche is a witness to the pioneering architecture of the twentieth century and the evolution of Charles-Edouard Jeanneret (Le Corbusier); its neoclassical character breaks with the regional Art Nouveau and refers in particular to the experiments made in Paris with Auguste Perret and in Berlin with Peter Behrens: "It is a question of showing L'Eplattenier another architecture. Previous houses had a picturesque exterior image. Villa Jeanneret-Perret will go from within to go outside. "
(Jacques Gubler, Professor, Department of Architecture, EPFL, for Architecture, 15.11.1987).

"The construction of the house includes only the outer walls and four internal piles 50 x 60 cms. All the rest is formed only of light partitions that can be moved without incurring significant [...] costs, the proportions of all the parts have been studied very closely and some of the [...] parts even obey, by their very nature. proportion, to certain laws of architecture, completely lost today and which were used formerly in the great epochs of the art of antiquity (numerical ratio, width, depth, height). "
Charles-Edouard Jeanneret, sales manual, 21.01.1919.

" ...Je suis un constructeur
de maisons et de palais
je vis au milieu des hommes
en plein dans leur écheveau
embrouillé
Faire une architecture c'est
faire une créature. Être
rempli se remplir s'être
rempli éclater exulter
froid de glace au sein des
complexités devenir un jeune
chien content.
Devenir l'ordre.
Les cathédrales modernes
se construiront sur cet
alignement des poissons
des chevaux des amazones
la constance la droiture la
patience l'attente le désir
et la vigilance.
Apparaitront je le sens
la splendeur du béton brut
et la grandeur qu'il y aura
eu à penser le mariage
des lignes
à peser les formes
A peser... "

Le Poème de l'Angle droit, LE CORBUSIER, 1955