Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris, better known as Le Corbusier, was a Swiss architect born in 1887. His most famous work, Villa Savoye, was constructed as a residential building in the late 1920’s in Poissy, France and currently serves as a museum. While the villa was a collaboration with his cousin, Pierre Jeanneret, the work is more famously attributed to Le Corbusier. While Le Corbusier was an important pioneer of the Modern Architecture movement, Villa Savoye is an equally important example of the movement’s pieces and one which exemplifies the most fundamental principles of the movement, specifically Le Corbusier’s five elements of modern architecture. Villa Savoye may not have been as significant today if Corbusier had not so confidently championed his work, and the Modern art movement would might be remembered though a very different lens without this architect’s writing’s and influence. Villa Savoye’s significance and fame come from not only its succinct representations of Le Corbusier’s ideas, but also from its tumultuous history.  
By 1928, Le Corbusier had been living in France for over a decade and had made a name for himself among the Parisian upper class through the construction of over a dozen private homes, his involvement in the establishment of the International Congress of Modern Architecture, and as co-founder of and contributor to the art magazine L’Esprit Nouveau.  
Le Corbusier’s fame led to a commission of a country home for Pierre and Emilie Savoye, a wealthy couple living in Paris. The villa was set to be built on a spacious hill in Poissy, an area about 30 kilometers from the city. Corbusier, however, had more in mind than a simple weekend living space.
The commission letter was sent in late 1928, and by spring of 1929, after the fifth draft of the villa’s layout, construction began. The relatively open set of instructions and requirements from the Savoyes would enable Le Corbusier to design a building that would come to be the flagship of his work, one clearly and concisely representing his “five points of modern architecture,” which he had been developing throughout the years prior.
Over a year later, in the summer of 1930, after several issues with leaking and structural strength and various alterations requested by Mme Savoye, Villa Savoye was completed enough to accommodate the Savoyes. The problems with the building, however, would unfortunately continue for years to come, with leaks all throughout the home incurring the threat of legal action from Mme Savoye.
While this drama resulted in several years of sour arbitration and shifting of blame between Le Corbusier, the Savoyes, and the construction company, there would be no satisfying conclusion of their battle. Instead, World War II swept across France. German forces occupied the house and filled the plumbing with concrete, and it was later taken over by American forces, who destroyed many of the windows with bullet holes. By the end of the war, Mme Savoye was an impoverished widow who was unable to afford the $80,000 of repairs the villa would require.  Thus, the beautiful, natural landscape became a farm, and Villa Savoye, once called “Les Heures Claires,” meaning “the bright times,” became a barn. As for Poissy, the automobile industry transformed the town into a growing, prosperous city, one whose Mayor had his eye on the expansive Savoye property.
