cap martin, le petit cabanon and corbusier’s resting place

I visited Corbusier’s holiday cabin—the only house he ever built for himself—and hiked up the hillside to pay my respects to his gravesite. The design of the one seems to have informed the composition of the other. It was a powerful experience to inhabit the natural environment that so affected the greatest architect of the twentieth century: a steep, rocky landscape that gives way to the two shades of blue.

The cabin sits just above the sea, just below the railroad tracks, and along the aptly named Promenade Le Corbusier. Its door was locked and its windows shuttered but, registering with the Cap Martin tourist office, I was able to take a look inside the next day. After sketching my lodgings’ close quarters for the last few months I felt primed to take in Corbusier’s lessons in diminutive dimensions. That the exterior rusticity is but a self-conscious appliqué is belied by its selective, idiosyncratic fenestration. My excitement to step inside was well-rewarded, needless to say.

After some searching and a bit of charades with the locals, I found Corbusier’s grave in a local cemetery beside the medieval chateau. Understated, its concrete squre-and-golden-rectangle design is unmistakably his, with a cylindrical planter to represent his wife, Yvonne and a stylized shed for himself. Though it faces away from the sea instead of toward it, the resemblance to the cabin and its rounded retaining wall is unmistakable. I’m not necessarily keen on pilgrimage but I never feel as content traveling as I do when I’m off on a Corbusian tangent. Even his headstone is an instructive manifesto.