Maison De Beistegui

Le Corbusier – Maison De Beistegui (apartment on the Champs Elysées) Paris France, 1930

The completely new structure on top of an old building, the apartment is in fact on the sixth and seventh floor of a building on the Champs-Elysées, near the Arc de Triomphe.
The Parisian apartment was commissioned by a wealthy client named Charles de Beistegui who was a collector of surrealist art and loved exaggerated images and upholstered furniture.
The purpose of the project was to create an attic not necessarily for living, but to host parties.

The garden located on the roof had a splendid view of the famous Parisian monuments. Le Corbusier designed the walls of the garden in order to effectively limit the views from the garden, transforming the great monuments into small pieces of art sitting on the shelves of his outdoor living room.
The hanging garden was comparable in size to a living room and the walls were about five feet high.
All the hedges on the roof were controlled by a hydraulic mechanism and could be raised up and down to control the view. The roof garden was also detached from the house and a separate staircase was needed to reach it.
The Beistegui apartment designed by Le Corbusier stands out as an anomalous value in his work. While it exemplifies one of its principles with the hanging garden, many details are more decorative and decorated with its typical clean and modern lines, imaginative furniture, the fireplace and the grassy "carpet" suggest a surrealist experience.