Villa Savoye Case Study: Plans, Five Points and Construction (Le Corbusier)

Villa Savoye is a weekend house at Poissy, west of Paris, designed by Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret for Pierre and Eugénie Savoye and built from April 1929 to July 1931. All five of Le Corbusier's "points of a new architecture" can be read in it at once, and its ground floor was shaped around the turning arc of the family car. This case study covers the brief, site, plan, section, construction, the leaks that followed, and what designers in India can take from it.

For the method a jury expects, see our guide on how to document a building.

The brief and the client

In late summer 1928 the Savoyes decided to build a weekend house on their land at Poissy. According to the Centre des monuments nationaux (CMN), which runs the villa, they chose Le Corbusier after seeing his Villa Church at Ville-d'Avray. The Docomomo France register entry, written by historian Gilles Ragot, describes Pierre Savoye as a financier with the insurance company that carried his name.

The brief was a short letter from Eugénie Savoye. The Cité de l'architecture et du patrimoine fact sheet says it asked for central heating, insulation on the outer walls, and a house on one level except for her own bedroom upstairs. The architects did the opposite: they lifted the living rooms to the first floor for the view and gave the ground floor to the car and the servants.

Cost shaped the design. The first estimate was too high, so the office drew five schemes, which Docomomo dates from October 1928 to April 1929. Work started on site in April 1929 and ended in July 1931. Ragot puts the cost at about 1,000,000 francs, roughly a hundred times what the architects then set for a worker's house.

Villa Savoye site analysis: a meadow above the Seine

The Savoyes owned about 7 hectares of grassland on the Beau Regard hill, ringed by trees and looking over the Seine valley, according to the Fondation Le Corbusier. Le Corbusier said, as the CMN quotes him, that the house would rest on the grass "like an object without disturbing anything".

So the house stands mid-field, seen from all sides; the Cité notes that its four facades are nearly identical, with no front or back. The living floor is raised to see over the trees, and the drive passes under the house.

In 1958 the town took land for a school and the property shrank to about 1 hectare, according to the Cité and the Fondation, and the countryside around has been built over. In a site analysis, draw both the 1931 meadow and the present plot.

Villa Savoye design concept: the five points of architecture

Le Corbusier first published the "five points of a new architecture" in 1927, in a German brochure for the Weissenhof exhibition in Stuttgart, according to the Fondation Le Corbusier, which calls Villa Savoye the work that illustrates them best. Here is how each appears:

1. Pilotis. Columns lift the house. The Cité ties this to the car: the columns are 4.75 m (about 15 ft 7 in) apart, enough for a vehicle to pass between them.
2. Roof garden. The roof carries planters and a solarium sheltered by curved walls, and a 110 sq m hanging garden sits within the first floor. The Cité notes that the Savoyes doubted the flat roof and Le Corbusier defended it on cost and upkeep.
3. Free plan. Columns and slabs carry the load, so partitions go where rooms need them. This is the Dom-ino system of the mid-1910s (Docomomo says 1914, the Cité 1915); Ragot writes that Savoye was the first time Le Corbusier could give it full physical form.
4. Ribbon window. One horizontal window runs round all four sides. Le Corbusier described the house, the Cité records, as four similar walls pierced all round by a single sliding window.
5. Free facade. The outer walls carry no floors, so they can open or close for view and light, independent of the structure.

The other idea to carry away is the promenade architecturale: the house is planned as a walk, with a ramp at its centre. The Fondation calls it the last of the Purist houses.

Villa Savoye floor plan and zoning

The plan is close to square, about 20 m a side, on a grid of exposed columns 4.75 m apart, according to Ragot. There is a ground floor of services, a first floor of living rooms, a roof with a solarium, and a cellar.

Ground floor: the car, the hall and the servants

The ground floor is set back behind the columns. Ragot lists two servants' rooms, a chauffeur's flat, a laundry and a garage for three cars around the entrance hall, which the Cité gives as about 60 sq m. He also quotes Le Corbusier's description of the route: the car goes under the pilotis, turns round the service rooms, stops in the middle at the hall door, then enters the garage or drives on. The Cité adds that the curved glass wall of the hall was set by a limousine's turning radius, so the car never reverses.

First floor: living rooms in an L around a terrace

Ragot describes the main floor as an L round an open terrace, holding a large living and dining room, a kitchen with pantry, three bedrooms with bathrooms and a study. The Cité gives the living room as about 84 sq m, painted light blue, pink and white, with sliding glass onto the terrace. Zoning follows view and sun: the living room faces north-west and the terrace south, the Cité says.

Villa Savoye circulation: the ramp and the stair

A spiral stair and a ramp link the floors. The CMN describes the ramp as two parallel flights that start inside the hall and end outside, rising through the terrace to the roof. It quotes Le Corbusier: "A staircase separates one floor from another: a ramp connects them." The CMN notes this was his second ramp, after the Maison La Roche in Paris.

Where to find the real plans with dimensions

The diagrams here are MOA's own zoning diagrams and do not trace the real plans. The originals are held by the Fondation Le Corbusier, whose archive, Docomomo says, holds 332 drawings and plans of the villa. In a college library, start with Œuvre complète volume 2 (1929 to 1934), pages 23 to 31 in the edition Docomomo cites. For how a full drawing set is organised, see our guide to a complete set of architectural drawings.

Villa Savoye section and structure

The structure is a reinforced concrete frame of columns and beams carrying slabs, with infill walls of brick or plaster, according to the Cité. Ragot notes that by 1930 this was neither original nor a technical feat; what mattered was how openly the frame was shown, with most columns standing free in the rooms.

In section there are three layers: the shaded, set-back ground floor with the car moving round it; the first-floor box, with the ribbon window cut through its walls and part of its area open to the sky; and the curved solarium walls on the roof. The ramp runs through all three, which is why most analyses explain the house in section. One detail matters for what came later: the Cité notes that the hollow flat roofs drained rainwater down through the inside of the house.

Villa Savoye materials and construction

• Frame: reinforced concrete, built by Cormier, according to Docomomo. The CMN notes that concrete was made and poured on site and that work began before the final plan was approved.
• Windows: sources disagree. The Cité describes sliding glazing in steel frames; the Fondation says the 1960s restoration replaced wooden window frames with painted aluminium.
• Colour: the interiors are polychrome. Ragot notes the dark green ground floor and evidence that the exterior once had pastel pink, yellow and blue, and calls for proper study before any restoration settles it.

Docomomo adds that the contract documents that would fix materials and colours are largely missing, so treat specification claims online with care.

Light, climate and services

The Savoyes called the house "Les Heures Claires", the bright hours, for its light, the CMN says. The ribbon window lights each room evenly and the terrace brings sun into the middle of the plan. The brief asked for central heating, but the CMN says the house proved hard to heat, and water came in through the skylights and along the ramp soon after the family moved in.

Reception: owners, critics and conservators

The owners. The Cité quotes a letter from Eugénie Savoye dated 7 September 1936: it rained in the hall, on the ramp and in her bathroom, and the garage wall was soaked. Docomomo says the house was no longer lived in by 1937; the Cité says the family spaced out their stays from 1938. The Cité adds that the war and the family's departure spared Le Corbusier a court case.

War and rescue. German forces requisitioned the house in 1940 and American troops later left it badly damaged, the CMN says. In 1958 Poissy moved to take the land for a school. Architects including Sigfried Giedion and Mies van der Rohe campaigned to save it, and the culture minister André Malraux intervened, according to the Fondation. The sources disagree on the dates that followed:

• State purchase: 1962 (Fondation) or 1959 (CMN).
• Historic monument listing: 12 December 1965 (Fondation; the Cité and CMN also say 1965) or 1964 (Docomomo).
• First restoration, under Jean Dubuisson's office: 1963 to 1967 (Cité), from 1967 (Fondation), or 1966 and 1967 (Docomomo).
• Completion: 1931 for the Fondation, CMN and Docomomo, but 1929 in ArchDaily's AD Classics entry (Andrew Kroll, 2010).

Later restorations followed in 1996 and 1997 (Cité), on the gardener's lodge in 2015 (Fondation) and on the interiors from autumn 2022 (CMN).

Critics. The Cité records that Frank Lloyd Wright called it "une boîte sur des échasses", a box on stilts. Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson put it on the cover of their 1932 book on the International Style, according to Docomomo. Ragot himself describes it as apparently rather badly built, with waterproofing problems that repeated restorations had not solved, and argues that its fame turned the five points into a caricature.

What designers in India can take from it

This is our reading for Indian practice, not a claim made by the sources above.

1. Design the stilt floor; do not leave it over. Most new Indian buildings give the ground floor to parking. Savoye plans that floor around the car's movement and still makes a proper arrival. Fix the column grid and the turning path together at concept stage.
2. Treat a flat terrace as a drainage problem first. Savoye's roofs drained through the house and leaked within a few years, in a far milder climate than a monsoon city. Give an RCC terrace clear falls, outlets you can reach and clean, and downpipes you can repair without breaking a finished wall, and test the waterproofing before finishes go on.
3. Adapt the ribbon window to the sun. An unshaded strip on all four sides suited a meadow near Paris; in most of India it lets in heat and glare on the east and west. Shade it, set it deep or vary it by facade. Copy Savoye's habit of orienting each room, not the window itself.
4. Use a ramp for both experience and access. A gentle ramp gives step-free access for older family members as well as a promenade. It costs floor area, so let it double as a corridor or courtyard edge.

The same UNESCO listing includes the Capitol Complex in Chandigarh, according to the Le Corbusier World Heritage site, which lists all 17 works across seven countries, India among them. Pairing Savoye with his work in India makes a strong comparison; our B.Arch thesis topics guide helps you choose. Our Unité d'Habitation case study is coming soon.

Visiting Villa Savoye

The villa is at 82 rue de Villiers, 78300 Poissy. The CMN's practical information page says to take the RER A or line J to Poissy, then bus 6503 to the "villa Savoye" stop. It opens 10 am to 6 pm from 2 May to 31 August and 10 am to 5 pm from 1 September to 30 April, and closes on Mondays, 1 May, 25 December and 1 January. Tickets are €9 at the full rate (rates from 1 January 2024), free for under-18s, sold online; groups of eight or more must book. Check before you travel.

We use diagrams rather than photos here: Wikimedia Commons' country guide lists France as having no freedom of panorama for buildings, and Le Corbusier's work stays in copyright for 70 years after his death in 1965.

See how Indian architects handle stilts, terraces and light: See projects by MOA members.

FAQ

When was Villa Savoye built?

It was designed between October 1928 and April 1929 and built from April 1929 to July 1931, according to the Docomomo France register. The Fondation Le Corbusier gives 1928 to 1931 including design. Some websites list 1929, the year construction started.

Who designed Villa Savoye?

Le Corbusier and his cousin Pierre Jeanneret, for Pierre and Eugénie Savoye. Le Corbusier was the pseudonym of Charles-Édouard Jeanneret.

What materials were used in Villa Savoye?

A reinforced concrete frame of columns, beams and slabs, with infill walls of brick or plaster, according to the Cité de l'architecture. Sources disagree on whether the original window frames were steel or wood; the 1960s restoration replaced them with painted aluminium, according to the Fondation.

What are the five points of architecture in Villa Savoye?

Pilotis (columns lifting the house), a roof garden, a free plan, a ribbon window and a free facade. Le Corbusier first published them in 1927, and the Fondation calls Villa Savoye the house that illustrates them best.

Why is Villa Savoye important?

It shows the five points, the architectural promenade and a car-shaped ground floor in one small house, and it was widely published from the start, including on the cover of Hitchcock and Johnson's 1932 book. Its leaks teach as much as its plan.

Sources

• Fondation Le Corbusier: Villa Savoye and Gardener's Lodge, Poissy, France, 1928 to 1931 and the French page (accessed 3 Nov 2026)
• Fondation Le Corbusier: Weissenhof-Siedlung Houses, Stuttgart, 1927 (accessed 3 Nov 2026)
• Centre des monuments nationaux, Villa Savoye: History of the villa Savoye (accessed 3 Nov 2026)
• Centre des monuments nationaux, Villa Savoye: An architectural promenade (accessed 3 Nov 2026)
• Centre des monuments nationaux, Villa Savoye: Practical information (accessed 3 Nov 2026)
• Cité de l'architecture et du patrimoine: Villa Savoye, 1929 to 1931, Poissy, fact sheet (PDF) (accessed 3 Nov 2026)
• Docomomo France: Villa Savoye, international register entry, rapporteur Gilles Ragot (PDF) (accessed 3 Nov 2026)
• Le Corbusier World Heritage: The Architectural Work of Le Corbusier, the 17 sites (accessed 3 Nov 2026)
• Sites Le Corbusier: Villa Savoye et loge du jardinier, Poissy (accessed 3 Nov 2026)
• ArchDaily: AD Classics: Villa Savoye / Le Corbusier, Andrew Kroll, 2010 (accessed 3 Nov 2026)
• Wikimedia Commons: Freedom of panorama (accessed 3 Nov 2026)