Maisons Jaoul are a celebrated pair of houses in the upmarket
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...
suburb of
Neuilly-sur-Seine, designed by
Le Corbusier and built in 1954–56. They are among his most important post-war buildings and feature a rugged aesthetic of unpainted cast concrete "
béton brut" and roughly detailed brickwork.
History
The buildings were drawn in 1937 but were only built postwar for
André Jaoul and his son Michel. They were for a time owned by English millionaire
Peter Palumbo, Baron Palumbo
Peter Garth Palumbo, Baron Palumbo (born 20 July 1935) is a property developer and art collector. Palumbo was the last chairperson of the Arts Council of Great Britain and a life peer. He sat as a Conservative in the House of Lords from 1991 ...
. They now belong to two sisters who live there with their families. The Maisons Jaoul have been protected by the French government as historical monuments since 1966, at the request of
André Malraux
Georges André Malraux ( , ; 3 November 1901 – 23 November 1976) was a French novelist, art theorist, and Minister of Culture (France), minister of cultural affairs. Malraux's novel ''La Condition Humaine'' (Man's Fate) (1933) won the Prix Go ...
.
Design and Construction
The son Michel (or Jacques Michel) Jaoul worked as an architect in Le Corbusier's office and in 1988 was in charge of the renovation of the houses. The construction of these vaulted houses signals a new trend in Le Corbusier's work, and the Maisons Jaoul can be considered his first "
New Brutalist" work.
"...Shallow concrete vaults cast against a permanent framework of thin bricks set in place without the use of centering. These brick spans served as permanent molds for the shell concrete vaults cast in place on top of them. Tied with transverse steel rods, the vaults bear on continuous concrete beams that extend the length of each house at every floor. These beams in turn transfer the weight to load-bearing brick walls that enclose the houses on every side."[ ]
References
Further reading
* Frampton, Kenneth, and Roberto Schezen. 2002. Le Corbusier: architect of the twentieth century. New York: H.N. Abrams.
* Jeanneret-Gris, Charles-Édouard, Alberto Izzo, and Camillo Gubitosi. 1978. Le Corbusier: disegni = dessins = drawings. Roma: Officina Edizioni.
* Sampò, Luca, ''Le Maisons Jaoul di Le Corbusier. La petite maison e la città contemporanea'',
FrancoAngeli
FrancoAngeli is one of the largest Italian publishing houses specialized in books and journals for university and post-university studies, as well as for professionals.
Based in Milan and founded in 1955, it has one of the largest Italian catalog ...
, Milano 2010, .
* Schezen, Roberto, and Susan Doubilet. 1998. Private architecture: masterpieces of the twentieth century.
ew York, N.Y. The Monacelli Press.
External links
Maisons Privées - non-profit organization dedicated to promote and safeguard modern and contemporary private architecture.
Houses in France
Neuilly-sur-Seine
Le Corbusier buildings in France
Houses completed in 1956
Brutalist architecture in France
Buildings and structures in Hauts-de-Seine
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