Villa Besnus (Ker-Ka-Ré)

The client was the art critic Georges Besnus (1864-1950), who was also known under the pseudonym Georges Denoinville. Besnus had come across Le Corbusier's work at the 1922 Salon d'Automne, at which a model of the Citrohan house was displayed. Le Corbusier first offered him a plot in Paris on avenue de Reille, the future site of the Ozenfant house-studio, then one in Auteuil, and finally a cheap, sloping plot in Vaucresson.

In 1923 Le Corbusier submitted two preliminary schemes to Besnus, which differed only in the position of the stair block and of the windows. A variant on pilotis, also proposed, would have dealt with the leaks the house later suffered. The house was built that year by Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret; a plaster model, completing the sketches and plans, was shown at the 1924 Salon d'Automne.

Georges Besnus and his wife named their house Ker-Ka-Ré. As soon as they moved in, in January 1924, Madame Besnus complained of severe damp affecting the living room, the garage and the stairs. Defects, due in part to the builders' inexperience with this new type of construction, caused cracks and leaks. The couple left the house in the 1930s.

The house was then altered and enlarged: the bow window and the footbridge were removed, shops were set up on the ground floor, and a hipped roof was put over the roof terrace, which had not been accessible.

Originally, the garage occupied the ground floor. On the first floor came a kitchen, a dining room, a drawing room and a library, separated by a fireplace and fixed concrete cupboards; with a ceiling height of 2.85 m, the drawing room could serve as a studio. The second floor held the bedroom, the boudoir and, at the centre, the bathroom.

The façades were asymmetrical. On the garden side, long horizontal windows stood beside the stair block, whose vertical windows were set back. On the street side, a footbridge passed above the entrance door and gave onto the stairwell windows, and a bow window sat above the garage door.

Private house, heavily altered.