Pierre Chareau, Maison de Verre, Paris, France, 1931

Date:March 19, 2014

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Pierre Chareau, Maison de Verre, Paris, France, 1931 (view from google)

The “Maison de Verre”, located in Paris, is a house projected by the interior designer Pierre Chareau in the beginning of the 20th century. This house was design for Dr. Dalsace and was inserted in an existing building bought by the doctor, where the modernist construction is integrated with the old structure of an already existing building. This isn’t a very common exemple of the inclusion of the house in a traditional neighborhood, in which the house make a obvious contrast with everything that is surround, appering that it doesn’t bellong to that place, so once anyone gets into this house, is transferred to another local.

The house is constituted by 3 floors: the inferior floor was the Doctor’s work space and the 2 superior floors, that were for his private habitation, appear suspended creating a spatial interrelation between the 2 different types of space.

Chareau designed the interior of this house as an array of autonomous and separated compartments that communicate and modify his limits by the management of a dynamic set of slidling or roating screens that make housing a dense but changing landscape.

Probably the main protagonist of this building is the glass bricks, that proves that every material is capable of amazing effects when used wisely, occupying all the facade. The facade of glass bricks is an element of separation, intead of integration or relation between the interior and exterior, as traditionally. The effect of bright translucent box in contrast to the 18th century architecture is breathtaking.