Case Study - Curutchet House

The Curutchet House (also known as Casa Curutchet), designed by Le Corbusier, is a small modernistic residential building located in La Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina. The building was created and designed in the early to mid 50s which later became the headquarters of the 'College of Architects of the Province of Buenos Aires' (CAPBA).

Interestingly, the Curutchet House echo's and mimics many of the design features of Le Corbusier's earlier Villa Savoye. This is most likely due to his application of his 'five points', three of which can be seen very clearly-
1. The use of ground-level pilotis which elevates the building from the earth
2. A freely designed façade which serves only as a skin, the wall and windows of which are unconstrained by load-bearing factors
3. Long horizontal windows that provide both ventilation and illumination.

Physical architectural similarities between Casa Curutchet and Villa Savoye involve the utilization of a centralised ramp, elongated horizontal windows and the elevation of the majority of the architecture from the ground. Casa Curutchet unlike Villa Savoye however, was designed to be integrated into the surrounding urban and (at the time) contemporary context by integrating the existing ground floor, fragmented spaces and various transparencies with the architecture. Le Corbusier also took into account the needs of the its future inhabitants and split the architecture into two distinctly different volumes: a front office area, and the remaining area situated behind the house. Both spaces are articulated and connected by the access ramp which expresses the internal movement and circulation upwards to the higher levels of the architecture (much like Villa Savoye).

Casa Curutchet can then be elementarily seen as a form of adaptation of Villa Savoye into a contemporary more urban populated environment as opposed to a more countryside retreat context. The architecture exemplifies Le Corbusier's design approach through his 'five points' and by extension, also echo's the same design approach that Le Corbusier utilized for Villa Savoye.