Le Corbusier Museum in Poissy Gets Green Light

The town outside Paris is home to Villa Savoye, one of his most famous projects.

View of the west and south facades of Villa Savoye, designed by Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret, and built between 1928 and 1931. Photo by Valueyou, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License, GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2.

Plans for a museum in Poissy, a small commune outside Paris, devoted to the work of the Swiss architect Le Corbusier have been given the green light.

According to Le Parisien, an agreement towards the creation of the museum was signed on Monday by the mayor of Poissy, Karl Olive, representatives of the Le Corbusier Foundation, the Center for National Monuments, and the Urban Community of Greater Paris Seine & Oise.

“The foundation had the long-standing ambition to create a place in tribute to [Le Corbusier]. This has crystallized in recent years because there is a real political will to go in this direction,” Antoine Picon, president of Fondation Le Corbusier told Le Parisien.

“The idea is to combine the paintings, drawings, sketches, and expertise of the architect [under one roof],” said Olive, who added that the museum should be ready between 2022 and 2023.

Rémi Le Roux, coordinator of cultural projects of Poissy, stated that the new museum could prompt the relocation of the Fondation Le Corbusier from Paris to Poissy.

The foundation is currently located in Villa La Roche, a house in Paris’ 16th arrondissement designed by Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret for Raoul La Roche, a Swiss banker and collector of avant-garde art.

Le Parisian reports that a plot of land, spanning 12,000 square meters, opposite Le Corbusier’s world famous Villa Savoye could be the perfect spot for the museum.

“We don’t know yet what the building will look like […] but it will also include a documentation center containing all the known archives,” Le Roux added.

This past July, at a meeting of the World Heritage Committee in Istanbul, the work of Le Corbusier was granted World Heritage Status for “Outstanding Contribution to the Modern Movement,” following two failed bids in 2009 and 2011.


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