Le Corbusier's apartment with studio

“I am known only as an architect; no one wants to acknowledge me as a painter, although I arrived at architecture precisely through painting.”
The beginning of the 1930s was the busiest period for Le Corbusier, as his Paris office in the former convent cloister at 35, rue de Sèvres was handling a number of commissions for the French capital. His cousin Pierre Jeanneret significantly assisted him in managing the office, allowing Le Corbusier to retreat to a rooftop apartment with a studio amid the flood of projects. When a client wanted to meet the famous architect Le Corbusier, the maid would politely direct them to the office at 35, rue de Sèvres, since the painter Le Corbusier resided there and did not wish to be disturbed during his morning artistic meditation.
Le Corbusier lived in the apartment building Immeuble Molitor on the southwestern edge of Paris from its completion in 1934 until his death. The project for the building with fifteen apartments was commissioned to the then forty-four-year-old Le Corbusier by the private construction company Société Immobilière du Parc des Princes, which had selected a plot directly on the city limits. While the entrance to the building from the eastern street is still in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, the western facade faces the street in the city of Boulogne-Billancourt. The complicated site situation slightly delayed the construction. In his design, Le Corbusier was able to apply most of his modernist principles. The skeletal structure allowed for free layout of the floor plans. For the first time, glass blocks were used in the facade of an apartment building. Ultimately, Le Corbusier had to reassess his vision of a translucent house from the Radiant City (La Ville Radieuse) project, correcting the sunlit interior occasionally with solid panels on the facade. In addition to bold construction elements, the design also featured new operational solutions such as a basement garage, servant quarters on the ground floor, separated personal and service elevators, central heating, and laundry services.
Before moving into the new rooftop apartment, Le Corbusier lived with his wife in an old overcrowded apartment in the Saint-Germain-des-Prés district in the city center. After the house was completed in 1934, Le Corbusier moved into the rooftop apartment on the highest 7th and 8th floors with his wife Yvonne, their dog Pinceau (Brush), and a maid. The 240 m² apartment features a painter's studio that occupies half of the space, arching twelve meters wide with a ceiling height of over two stories. The clean white surfaces inside are disrupted by the exposed fire wall of the neighboring building, made of raw stone and bricks, which Le Corbusier decided not to enclose and left visible. Earlier fire codes were probably not as puritanical. Similarly, the sculptural staircase lacking a handrail could be viewed with the same perspective.
Despite its generous size, the apartment does not feel grand. It is practically divided into four functional parts: studio, apartment, guest room, and rooftop garden. The apartment was intended to be a confession of modern human life, best exemplified by the bed elevated to a height of one meter, where one had to leap to get into it rather than lying down like a corpse in a coffin. The elevated position of the bed also allowed for a view over the outdoor ledge, enabling admiring the cityscape while falling asleep. The greatest luxury is the light flooding into the interior from all sides. Not only from both street facades but also through two inner courtyards and roof skylights.
The elevator ends on the sixth floor. Therefore, it is necessary to climb further up through a narrow staircase to reach Le Corbusier's rooftop loft. The custom-designed furniture was moved in via a pulley in the skylight. A number of details reflect Le Corbusier's desire to bring as much Mediterranean atmosphere into the apartment as possible, where he drew strength during the summer in his Le Cabanon. The room for writing letters, lined with wooden veneer, even has the dimensions of a ship's cabin.
In addition to Corbusier's own works, the apartment was also adorned with paintings by Fernand Léger and sculptures by Jacques Lipchitz.
One of the residents of the building was also the art dealer and gallery owner Louis Carré, who commissioned a villa from Finnish architect Alvar Aalto 40 km from Paris in the mid-1950s. When this information reached Le Corbusier, he was very upset that Carré had not first contacted (his) architect, whom he had in the building. Thanks to Carré's choice, the French can owe their appreciation for the only building by this Finnish modernist on French territory.