The German Weissenhofsiedlung housing estate was one of the most significant architectural landmarks erected by the Neues Bauen movement. Within the Weissenhof Estate is an amazing semi-detached house designed by the Swiss-born architect Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris who preferred to be known as Le Corbusier.
Apart from it’s striking exterior that was pretty much at the vanguard of modern architecture, La Corbusier’s house is as amazing in its clever use of internal space and storage.
Known as the “Transformable Double-House” (it doesn’t have such a ring to it when translated into English!), Le Corbusier designed the interior with flexibility and efficient use of space in mind. Each internal area was carefully thought-out to allow adaption for different uses of the space at differing times of the day and indeed also offer multifunctional roles at the same time for it’s occupants without the feeling of being surrounded by clutter.
Family space in the Le Corbusier house is axially arranged on a single floor. During the day the space is not delineated by walls, only by columns. By night, sliding partitions sub-divide the space into “sleeping cells” which can be configured as the resident wishes. As in a steam train sleeper carriage of the time, the beds fold away during the day into multifunctional storage cupboards. Le Corbusier also planned to add a range of compact bent wood space saving furniture that would equip all areas for both day and night use but was sadly compromised by budget and time.
Le Corbusier’s vision was for a modular house to which more bays could be added as and when additional space was required (sounds rather like our elfa shelving!). The addition of extra space could be easily achieved as the stairs were placed perpendicular to the main body of the building. To save further space this in turn backed onto a shared garden.
This visionary house was flexible both in design and in social relations but at the time Le Corbusier was criticised for his “romantic use of technology” and the “focus on a bourgeois clientele” which I think was a tad unfair.
What I find amazing about the interior of this 1920’s house was the visionary thinking when it came to multifunctional use of space. Today we live in much smaller houses and often have to make our rooms and family space work much harder for us by giving them multifunctional uses, e.g. a modern living room that may also have a small desk providing a quasi home office in the corner. Le Corbusier was way ahead of his time when it came to how we actually use our space rather than what we officially designate it for and lovers of modern architecture & interior design plus storage & decluttering geeks like me would find the Weissenhofsiedlung estate and the preserved 1927 Le Corbusier house well worth a visit.
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