Pierre Chareau's bathrooms in the Maison de Verre

1. Chareau's design blurs boundaries in the building between the domestic space of the home and the public space of doctors surgery and waiting rooms. The spaces throughout the building are multipurpose and mean an inhabitant can use it for one function during the day and another in the evening.  Users can choose what purpose to give primacy to within the space using screens and moveable cabinetry. Having multifunctional rooms means a smaller house and a more intimate living environment for the inhabitants.

2. These design strategies challenge the conventional segregation of bathroom from the rest of a domestic space by placing bathrooms within bedrooms, only shielded from the rest of the room by sliding screens of wire mesh or glass. This creates multipurpose spaces where bathers can look out at the open verandah space or around them at their bedroom rather than the conventional view of sealed walls and small frosted windows. A higher degree of natural light can penetrate the bathroom space and domestic noise that would normally be muffled behind walls is brought closer to the bather.

3. I would imagine these spaces are highly uncomfortable to inhabit, especially approached from the contemporary notion of the bathroom as a segregated space within the household. It would challenge the users sense of place and be a disorienting experience.

Personally I do not like the layout or design features of the Maison De'Verre. It reminds me of early twentieth century Frankenstein movies that played on the viewers fears of advancements in technology through heavily industrial sets bedecked with cranks, chains and levers. The house, and especially the bathroom, are reminiscent of this and therefore distinctly creepy to me.


An interesting review from an architecture graduate student about their experience visiting the site in recent years can be read here - http://sahstudytours.wordpress.com/2011/06/22/maison-de-verre/


References

Vellay, Dominique. La Maison de Verre : Pierre Chareau's modernist masterwork. London, Thames & Hudson, 2007.

Taylor, B.B. Pierre Chareau Designer and Architect. Germany, Koln Benedikt Taschen. 1992.

Image from

http://maddme.wordpress.com/2010/02/10/lecture-8-pierre-chareau-%E2%80%93-maison-de-verre/