08 - Architectural Promenade

Vers une architecture and Villa Savoye
A comparison of treatise and building

8 - Architectural Promenade

The concept of the architectural promenade is very important in the work of Le Corbusier. Surprisingly, this gets very little mention in Vers une architecture. Le Corbusier does however mention:

An axis is perhaps the first human manifestation; it is the means of every human act. . . The axis is the regulator of architecture . . . Arrangement is the grading of axes, and so it is the grading of aims, the classification of intentions.

The architect therefore assigns destinations to his axes. These ends are the wall (the plenum, sensorial sensation) or light and space (again sensorial sensation).16

The architectural promenade through the Villa Savoye is an important element of the design. Fig. 8.05 highlight the central ramp and stair. In the earliest schemes, there was only a ramp for circulation, with presumably the stair being added at the client’s request. From the ground floor looking up the ramp (Fig. 8.04), one is drawn up due to the light whose source is not immediately visible. At the first floor, the main living floor, (Fig. 8.02) the ramp and stair are the main features of the "foyer". As one ascends, there in a developing view of the roof garden . . . the "courtyard in the sky" around which the plan is developed.

This use of light to draw one up the ramp and into the roof garden is a subtle, but powerful element used to define the architectural promenade.

In Villa Savoye, the spaces themselves are rather simple – for example, the first floor salon is a rectangular volume. The magic comes in the inter-relationships of the various spaces, their composition, massing, and sequence of moment through them. The sequence of movement through the Villa Savoye is more of an experience in itself. It is through this movement that one perceives the brilliant compositional arrangements. This is very different from someone such as Frank Lloyd Wright for whom the processional route prepared one to experience the principal spaces in the design. Figs. 8.13 and 8.14 show a comparison of the architectural promenade in the Villa Savoye and Wright’s Unity Temple. The procession in the Unity Temple is very controlled, and very much controls the perception of the church hall. At Villa Savoye, the procession up the ramp allows one to see and appreciate the forms and compositions from multiple vantage points.