Pavillon de l'Esprit Nouveau was a

model home A show house, also called a model home or display home, is a term for a "display" version of manufactured homes, or houses in a subdivision. They are used on newly built developments to show the living space and features of homes available. Show h ...

constructed for the 1925

International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts The International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts (french: Exposition internationale des arts décoratifs et industriels modernes) was a World's fair held in Paris, France, from April to October 1925. It was designed by the Fren ...

in Paris, France. The building was designed by Swiss architects

Le Corbusier Charles-Édouard Jeanneret (6 October 188727 August 1965), known as Le Corbusier ( , , ), was a Swiss-French architect, designer, painter, urban planner, writer, and one of the pioneers of what is now regarded as modern architecture. He was ...

and

Pierre Jeanneret Pierre Jeanneret (22 March 1896 – 4 December 1967) was a Swiss architect who collaborated with his cousin, Charles-Édouard Jeanneret (who assumed the pseudonym Le Corbusier), for about twenty years. Early life Arnold-André-Pierre Jea ...

Building

The Pavillon was conceived of as a modular dwelling that could be combined with others like it to form a larger block. The building measured and utilized an

open plan Open plan is the generic term used in architectural and interior design for any floor plan that makes use of large, open spaces and minimizes the use of small, enclosed rooms such as private offices. The term can also refer to landscaping of h ...

. A lower floor held living spaces and a kitchen while a second floor held bedrooms and a bathroom. In designing the building, Le Corbusier and Jeanneret aesthetically and ideologically diverged from the

Art Deco style Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

which dominated the exhibition. The architects, viewing architecture as too removed from human needs, emphasized function and sought to drastically diminish decoration. In order to reduce the need for decorative furniture, Le Corbusier and Jeanneret included a myriad of built-in-furniture including cabinets and shelves. The pavilion also included several cubist sculptures by

Jacques Lipchitz Jacques Lipchitz (26 May 1973) was a Cubist sculptor. Lipchitz retained highly figurative and legible components in his work leading up to 1915–16, after which naturalist and descriptive elements were muted, dominated by a synthetic style of Cr ...

, one of which was placed on the grass in front of the building.

Reconstruction

In 1977 Glauco Gresleri, Giuliano Gresleri and Jose Oubrerie constructed an exact replica of the building in Fiera District,

Bologna Bologna (, , ; egl, label= Emilian, Bulåggna ; lat, Bononia) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in Northern Italy. It is the seventh most populous city in Italy with about 400,000 inhabitants and 150 different nat ...

, Italy for the SAIE construction exhibition. The architects completed the project in collaboration with the

Fondation Le Corbusier Fondation Le Corbusier is a private foundation and archive honoring the work of architect Le Corbusier. It operates Maison La Roche, a museum located in the 16th arrondissement at 8-10, square du Dr Blanche, Paris, France, which is open daily excep ...

. The reconstructed pavilion was restored in 2017.

Similar Projects

When Le Corbusier designed the Fruges housing Estate at Pessac near Bordeaux, the seven houses located at the west end of the site were designed to have similar characteristics as the Pavilion de L'Esprit Nouveau. Each house consists of a rectangular block separated from the adjoining house by a space equal to the size of the house. Thus we have an A-B-A-B-A-B pattern along the length of the road. What makes this pattern remarkable is the thin arched curved concrete roof which spans over the garden in the same way as the Pavilion has a garden with a hole in its roof to let the tree out.

Reception

In a 2017 article for

CNN CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by the M ...

Stephen Bayley Stephen Paul Bayley (born 13 October 1951) is a British writer and critic, known particularly for his commentary on architecture and design. He was founding CEO of the Design Museum in London in 1989, and has been a regular architecture, art ...

named the building one of "20 Designs That Defined the Modern World."

References

External links

L'Esprit Nouveau_Biblioteca di Area delle Arti sezione Architettura "Enrico Mattiello"
{{Authority control Le Corbusier buildings Buildings and structures in the 8th arrondissement of Paris Buildings and structures in Bologna Modernist architecture in France Modernist architecture in Italy