Flirting with Surrealism: Le Corbusier's Maison de Beistegui Apartment Roof Garden

Flirting with Surrealism: Le Corbusier's Maison de Beistegui Apartment Roof Garden

by Victoria Shingleton

The Beistegui Apartment designed by Le Corbusier stands out as an outlier in his work.  While it exemplifies one of his principles with the roof garden, many fixtures are more decorative and ornate than his typical clean Modern lines, flirting with Surrealism.

The Parisian apartment was commissioned by a wealthy client named Charles de Beistegui who was a collector of surrealist art and liked exaggerated imagery and overstuffed furniture.  However, there are some spaces of the apartment which are surreal without necessarily being influenced by Beistegui, such as the roof garden.  While a roof garden does follow Le Corbusier's five principles of modern architecture, the fanciful furniture, fireplace, and grass "carpet" suggest a surrealist experience.

The purpose of the project was to create a penthouse, not necessarily for living, but for hosting parties.  While the garden was located on a rooftop with wonderful views of well-known Parisian monuments, Le Corbusier designed the garden wall so that it would actually restrict the views from the garden, turning the great monuments into tiny pieces of art sitting on the shelves of his outdoor living room.

The roof garden was comparable in size to a living room, and the walls were approximately five feet tall.

While the apartment itself was lit by candlelight, the backyard was very advanced.  All of the hedges on the rooftop were controlled by hydraulics and could be raised up and down to control the view.

The rooftop garden was also detached from the house and required a separate stair to reach.

The apartment was located in such a central location.  Above, I diagrammed the views from each facade and how the roof garden manipulates the vision of different points.  Each wall has a different monument visible beyond.  Yet, only the tops of each are visible, as if they are trinkets sitting on top of living room shelves.

I cut out just the roof garden which sat on top of the apartment.  Without the fireplace and decorative furniture, the structure appears very modern and fits in well with the rest of Le Corbusier's work.

I found the Beistegui Apartment very interesting in how it differed from Le Corbusier's typical style of architecture, and I wish there was more information available about this design.  However, this is typically omitted from collections of Le Corbusier's works.  Unfortunately, the apartment has since been destroyed, and there are many missing documents, so the most we have to remember Le Corbusier's experiment with surrealism are the black and white photos.

Le Corbusier, the Surrealist.

By Jordan Grant

Le Corbusier, a name inescapable in the study of architecture, is the topic of this next post- or, rather, to be more exact, his work on a Parisian apartment for eccentric millionaire Carlos de Beistegui. This work stands out from the fabric of Corbusier’s body of work as extremely unique since its design heavily relies on the eccentricities of the client, so it is important to understand Beistegui first before discussing Le Corbusier as a surrealist.

Beistegui came from a rich family with a history in art collections- his uncle’s collection is now displayed in the Louvre. He was a world traveler, well-studied and at the center of the social scene in Paris during his lifetime. He’s often regarded as one of the most flamboyant figures of the 20th century and his parties were considered some of the best Paris has ever seen. By the 1930s when Beistegui contacted Corbusier in regards to designing his penthouse apartment, he has already obtained a large number of surrealist portraits in his art collection, and perhaps his apartment itself can be considered one of the greatest works of surrealist art that the collector ever obtained.

Surrealism was a movement that began in the early 1920s with Paris regarded as the most important center of surrealist works.  This philosophical movement centered on the concepts of unexpected juxtapositions, non sequitur, and surprises. It sought to uncover the creative potential of the unconscious mind. As Salvador Dali mentioned himself, "Surrealism is destructive, but it destroys only what it considers to be shackles limiting our vision." When the concept is applied to architecture, it is allowed to break out of what is considered normal or necessary and become a work of art that creates an environment that removes the shackles that are limiting our vision.

Now, keeping both the client and the client's love of surrealism in mind, take a deeper look in to Corbusier’s work for Beistegui. I don't claim to be an expert of any sorts- rather, these are my own observations and ventures into guessing what they may mean. Perhaps the story is best told through photos; from the winding narrow staircases to the mirrors to the furniture, it’s surely a surrealistic experience. Corbusier’s intricate and technologically advanced additions to the house include a camera obscura in the form of a telescope and a movie screen for projection that lowers as a chandelier rises. However, the rooftop garden has always been considered the highlight of the penthouse, which is rumored to have been helped in the design by none other than famous surrealist Salvador Dali.

One of the first similarities that appears is the sparseness of landscape. The rooftop garden of the penthouse has been designed so that only two monuments appear in the skyline, something not often seen (especially from such great heights). It's similar to some of the works by Dali, in which a limited skyline is shown. The images below show the similarities of the limited skyline:

Another recurrent items is mirrors, a popular subject of surrealists. Whether the mirrors were placed by Beistegui or Corbusier I know not, but they strengthen the ties to surrealist art- where heads are often shown disconnected from the bodies similar to how a head appears to be floating in a mirror.

While I've only begun my research on Beistegui and his apartment, which is difficult to find as it is one of Corbusier's most underrated projects, I believe that it is a fascinating topic that ties together art and architecture of the time in the 1930s.

Sources:

http://www.rasa.net/writings/corbubeistegui.html

http://mondo-blogo.blogspot.it/2010_10_01_archive.html