Letter from the Basses-Pyrénnées: An Unintended Trigger for a Site Exchange

Abstract

[EN] The contents of an unpublished letter (FLC I1-17-5), sent to Le Corbusier from the Basses-Pyrénées during the development of the Villa Ocampo project (1928), is the key to understanding the Swiss-French master’s particular response to the site at the end of the 1920s. Countess Adela Cuevas de Vera, who negotiated the project from Anglet, revealed the Côte Basque as an attractive new market and claimed Le Corbusier's presence there. Furthermore, she reminded him of the prevailing regionalism and the strong cultural identity of the place, as well as the fact that Robert Mallet-Stevens, a great competitor of his, had already embarked there. Whatever the content of this letter awakened in Le Corbusier, led him to submit a very similar version of the third Villa Meyer project (1925) (designed for Paris) to be built in Buenos Aires. This paper re-evaluates the reasons behind a site exchange between two Southern cities on different sides of the Atlantic, studying the role of the negotiation site in the design process; and reassesses Le Corbusier’s critical attitude towards regionalism, mapping out his relationship with a French region in which he never intervened. Through primary source research, this paper also recognizes that in architecture, rivalry, pride and ambition can quite often be authentic triggers for action.

[ES] The contents of an unpublished letter (FLC I1-17-5), sent to Le Corbusier from the Basses-Pyrénées during the development of the Villa Ocampo project (1928), is the key to understanding the Swiss-French master’s particular response to the site at the end of the 1920s. Countess Adela Cuevas de Vera, who negotiated the project from Anglet, revealed the Côte Basque as an attractive new market and claimed Le Corbusier's presence there. Furthermore, she reminded him of the prevailing regionalism and the strong cultural identity of the place, as well as the fact that Robert Mallet-Stevens, a great competitor of his, had already embarked there. Whatever the content of this letter awakened in Le Corbusier, led him to submit a very similar version of the third Villa Meyer project (1925) (designed for Paris) to be built in Buenos Aires. This paper re-evaluates the reasons behind a site exchange between two Southern cities on different sides of the Atlantic, studying the role of the negotiation site in the design process; and reassesses Le Corbusier’s critical attitude towards regionalism, mapping out his relationship with a French region in which he never intervened. Through primary source research, this paper also recognizes that in architecture, rivalry, pride and ambition can quite often be authentic triggers for action.