Maison Ternisien

Le Corbusier – Maison Ternisien-Petit Maison d’Artistes a Boulogne France, 1926

The Maison Ternisien was organized for a couple Paul and M.me Ternisien, connected musician and painter. The overall shape is composed of a triangular and a rectangular mass, which reflects the internal program, the distribution and the triangular shape of the lot.
For the different programmatic needs of a painting and music studio, Le Corbusier has developed a double-height space with a balcony for sleeping for his wife's painting studio, and a space and a piano for her husband's musical study.

The two studios join together in the middle with shared spaces, including an entrance hall, a bathroom, a kitchen and a small library.
The sunken entry is the result of the architect's desire to preserve an existing tree by shaping the house around it.
A cause of customers' financial difficulties, the upper part of the project is rebuilt into a multi-storey apartment, however the new design still reflects and maintains the architectural language of this modern architecture.
Despite its small size, this project is important in Le Corbusier's design history for its masterly resolution of complex programmatic requirements with rich spatial experiences.