Villa Berque refurbishment

In autumn 1921 Charles Berque approached Le Corbusier to rework his house in the Villa Montmorency, in Paris's 16th arrondissement. He already knew the architect's work: on the advice of his son Jean, a painter and friend of Amédée Ozenfant, he had become a shareholder of L'Esprit nouveau. The architect Georges Brochart ran the building site, and the work ended in July 1922.

Between 1925 and 1926 Berque and Le Corbusier were in touch again: the terrace surface coped badly with the weather, and Berque wished to have it repaired or altered. In September 1926 Le Corbusier suggested adding a garage at the back of the plot, then building a development of four or five houses in the garden.

The house sits at the rear of a triangular plot. Le Corbusier's drawings explore a new interior layout with furniture, a bigger drawing room and a wide terrace edged with a metal railing; others consider redoing the garden and adding a pergola. The terrace and the decoration of the drawing room were carried out.

The terrace is concrete, finished with brick paving. In the drawing room, the scheme respects the existing decor. Colour has a prominent place in the project: Le Corbusier's chalk drawings bring out the walls and full-height curtains, partly to make the space larger. In a February 1922 letter to Georges Brochart, Le Corbusier also mentions a bathroom, a bedroom, the kitchen and the pantry to be refitted; modernisation work, including central heating, was planned as well.

Privately owned from the start, it lies inside the Villa Montmorency, which is closed to the public and cannot be seen from the street.