Villa Berque, Villa Besnus, Ozenfant studio, Villas La Roche and Jeanneret-Raaf, House projects for Marcel, Casa Fuerte and Mongermon, Lipchitz and Miestchaninoff studios, Ternisien house, Villa Church, Planeix house, Villa Meyer (and Ocampo project), Villa Cook, Villa Stein-de Monzie, Villa Savoye, De Beistegui apartment.
A classic account of the villa—from ancient Rome to the twentieth century—by “the preeminent American scholar of Italian Renaissance architecture” (Architect’s Newspaper) In The Villa, James Ackerman explores villa building in the West from ancient Rome to twentieth-century France and America. In this wide-ranging book, he illuminates such topics as the early villas of the Medici, the rise of the Palladian villa in England, and the modern villas of Frank Lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier. Ackerman uses the phenomenon of the “country place” as a focus for examining the relationships between urban and rural life, between building and the natural environment, and between architectural design and social, cultural, economic, and political forces. “The villa,” he reminds us, “accommodates a fantasy which is impervious to reality.” As city dwellers idealized country life, the villa, unlike the farmhouse, became associated with pleasure and asserted its modernity and status as a product of the architect’s imagination.
le Corbusier: "La Roche, when one owns such a splendid art collection as yours, one must construct a house that does it honour." - La Roche: "Very well then, build this house for me." This was the genesis of the Villa La Roche (1923-1925), a brilliant synthesis of residence and private gallery, as recounted by the Swiss banker and collector of Cubist art, Raoul la Roche. The developmental leap which Le Corbusier made in his architecture and the liberty of expression in his use of colour, light and spatial organisation which he discovered during the final stages of this project inaugurated his rise to one of the giants of 20th century architecture. This guide leads the reader through both the Villa La Roche and the attached Villa Jeanneret, which houses the Fondation Le Corbusier.