By Judy Carmack Bross
The Villa Stein-de Monzie
Sharing stunning architecture and intriguing social history, Judith DiMaio will open the doors to the privately owned Villa Stein-de Monzie by Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret outside of Paris at an Alliance Française de Chicago lecture October 10. An architect and for many years an associate professor (adjunct) at Yale’s School of Architecture and then Dean Emerita of the School of Architecture at the New York Institute of Technology (NYIT), DiMaio is a world-renowned expert on modern architecture as well as a longtime advocate for the Villa’s restoration. Currently residing in both New York and Rome, she is the principal of Close Reads Consultancy PLLC. With her emphasis on ‘Visual Literacy’,
she advises other design professionals and guides students on how to create their most innovative solutions and as a consultant is working to raise restoration funds for the Villa.
Judith DIMaio
An original photo showing the Garden façade
Leo, Gertrude and Michael Stein
Approximately 45 minutes from Paris in Vaucresson, the Villa Stein-de Monzie was built between 1926 and 1928 on the initiative of Michael Stein, the brother of Gertrude Stein, and his wife Sarah, and Gabrielle de Monzie, daughter of a wealthy banker and ex-wife of Count Anatole de Monzie. Originally from San Francesco, the Steins were modern art collectors who knew absolutely every important Bohemian artist in Paris. Sarah was a patron of Matisse, while Michael’s older brother had moved away from collecting Picasso to collecting Renoir and Bonnard among others. Michael Stein, though he continued to acquire paintings, commissioned Le Corbusier, unconventional and with painterly desires, to design his villa. “I have always loved the house—it is just so smart—a work or architecture but also a work of art, especially painting”, she said.
Pablo Picasso and Le Corbusier at the Villa
“Just as his sister Gertrude had her Saturday evening salons that brought together the most famous of their day, Michael and Sarah’s villa was a moveable feast, with artistic friends such as Leger, Picasso, Mondrian, Gropius and Cocteau in attendance,” DiMaio said. She went on to say that “down the road was Coco Chanel’s Villa Bel Respiro which she shared with her purported lover, the Russian composer Igor Stravinsky…..I have to believe they visited the villa as well, or at least, she did.”
Iconic photo of Le Corbusier at the bottom of the spiral stair and Michael Stein and friends on the lookout. Note the ocean liner aesthetics
Also known as Les Terrasses, the Villa is “like an elaborate jungle gym culminating with a giant roof terrace with a spiral stair climbing even higher to an lookout.” DiMaio said. “I love the transparency of the building, and when I look up to the roof terrace and then down to the garden terrace I can imagine a wave of those famous guests on each level communicating one with the other through the transparent layers of terraces” she told us.
DiMaio related that the Stein departed Paris in 1935 because war was on the horizon. A Norwegian banker named Steen, oddly enough, bought the house. Upon Steen’s departure in 1957, it gradually fell into abandonment. In 1960 it was divided into condominiums. In 2017 it was classified as a ‘Monument Historique’ meaning that once the exterior is restored to its original design it cannot be altered. The Ministry of Culture will fund up to 40% of the restoration, the homeowners, 15.5%, and the rest needs to be raised.
Villa Stein-de Monzie by Corbusier
“In 2014, Pierre-Antoine Gatier, whom I had invite to join the NYIT faculty as a visiting professor and who was later hired by the homeowners of the Villa Stein-de Monzie to restore and save it from further deterioration called to see if I wanted to become involved. I said “Yes, without hesitation”, and I established an on-going, special workshop for NYIT students to study the Villa. The workshop lasted for four semesters and each small group of eight students made visits to the villa.
Judith DiMaio on the Villa’s roof
“The aim was to “inspect the evidence”, meaning to look closely at Le Corbusier’s original design intentions and compare them to the changes made that ran counter to his Five Points of Architecture or were made invisible over time due to interior and exterior interventions and significant deterioration of the building envelope. As part of our exploration, we developed large scale drawings to be reviewed by the homeowners and Architect Gaiter. Armed with pentels. markers and colored pencils, we met with the five primary residents and asked them to draw and note the changes that had been made in their own living quarters. It was a wonderful way for the students and homeowners to engage in discussions about their units and the building’s exterior. Not surprisingly, champagne was served throughout the exploratory process!
Mary Ellen Connellan, Executive Director of the Alliance Francaise, told us more about this year’s Symposium on French Architecture:
“This year’s Symposium on French Architecture will be focusing on iconic structures, beginning with Judith DiMaio who will be visiting us in person, having arrived in New York from Rome, to discuss the design and restoration of the iconic Villa Stein-de Monzie.
“The Alliance hasn’t discussed Le Corbusier since 2020 when the Symposium on the Arts of France, our series held each spring, featured Eileen Gray’s Villa E-1027, and his nearby Cabanon. We are thrilled to have a speaker of Judith’s distinguished professional and academic credentials, to share with us her impressive expertise and ‘eye’ and love of the subject with us this year.”
Judith DiMaio studies architecture all over the world, here in Havana
Close Reads Consultancy combines DiMaio’s interwoven multiple careers as an architect, influential academician, student of diverse architectural cultures from the ancient to modern eras, making her a mesmerizing storyteller. She chose the name Close Reads to note her ability to look beyond the surface and beyond the obvious, a talent her Cornell professor Colin Rowe noticed in DiMaio early on as he took students on innumerable trips up and down the Grand Canal in Venice to look at facades. He would ask, “what do you see that is not there?” I would ‘guess’ and say what I saw, and at some point, he said to me “you are extraordinarily visual, and certainly the most visual student I have encountered.” Ironic, given that I learned ‘to see’ through him.
The term Close Reads is akin to Le Corbusier’s 1923 essay: “Eyes That Do Not See”.
DiMaio’s storytelling abilities, architectural and social history knowledge and ability to look beyond the obvious should make this day at Villa Stein bewitching.
For more information about the October 10 seminar at 6 p.m. at the Alliance Francaise de Chicago, 54 West Chicago Avenue, visit: af-chicago.org
