Exhibition Natures intérieures
Des œuvres de la collection design du Cnap à la villa Savoye
Exhibition
Villa Savoye • Poissy
➜
© Designers Unit
The Centre des monuments nationaux (CMN) and the Centre national des arts plastiques (Cnap) jointly present the exhibition Natures intérieures, gathering together emblematic works by designers from the Cnap collection, from 15 November 2024 to 2 March 2025, at the Villa Savoye, the iconic Modernism masterpiece by Le Corbusier. This exhibition celebrates the intimate relationship between architecture and nature, and illustrates the wealth and constancy of ‘natural models’ utilised by contemporary designers.
The Villa Savoye: architecture and design in symphony with nature
An icon of 20th-century avant-garde architecture, the Villa Savoye embodies the ‘Esprit Nouveau’ mindset championed by Le Corbusier. Located in a verdant setting, the villa clearly illustrates the five features of modernist architecture: pylons, an open floor plan, unadorned and non-bearing façades, ribbon windows and a rooftop terrace. These elements favour greater interior-exterior porosity. Le Corbusier underlined that fusion by stressing to his students: ‘From the outside, your architectural work will add to the site. But from the inside, it will incorporate it’.
The surrounding nature is omnipresent within the villa, forming a harmonious whole with the architecture. In the Corbusian approach, nature and geometry have never been in conflict. Natural elements such as light, the sky and plants are all integral parts of the architectural project.
Thus, the CMN and the Cnap propose at the Villa Savoye in Poissy the exhibition Natures intérieures, celebrating that relationship between architecture and the natural environment. The exhibition presents some thirty works by French and international designers convoking that connection to the living world and exploring a new habitability of the villa’s spaces.
The exhibition Natures intérieures: an ‘artistic stroll’ through the Villa Savoye
The tour of the villa is punctuated by interplays of volumes, openings and colours, as well as by multiple ‘framings’ of the landscape. Le Corbusier described it as an ‘architectural stroll’.
The works selected for the Natures intérieures exhibition by the curator Céline Saraiva, head of the Cnap’s decorative arts, design and fine crafts collection, accompany this architectural amble.
The chosen creations draw inspiration from forms of the living world – plants, minerals, animals – or from atmospheric phenomena.
The exhibition Natures intérieures has thus been elaborated based upon that poetics of nature eminently present at the Villa Savoye. The exhibition explores the plurality of natural models, not only formally with such works as Algue (2004) by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec, Galets (2017 – 2018) by Sylvain Rieu-Piquet and Ymer & Malta, and Sponge vase (1997) by Marcel Wanders, but also through the use of motifs as upon the vases Douglas (2009) by François Azambourg, the crockery of the collection Étrange végétation (1992) by Garouste & Bonetti, and the armchair Antibodi (2006) by Patricia Urquiola.
Creations like the shelves Cabana (2009-10) by Fernando & Humberto Campana and the armchair Bamboo Study III (2019) by Studio Mumbaï demonstrate how natural materials and primitive forms continue to nourish artists’ imaginations.
Finally, the famous armchair Miss Blanche (1988) by Shiro Kuramata nicely sums up that masterful marriage of nature and artifice, with its red roses embedded within the acrylic resin.
The selection includes works of different typologies (a seat, a table, a luminaire, a vase, crockery, etc.), whose uses are connected to the house’s various rooms.
Exhibition curators
Artists
Partners
The Centre des monuments nationaux (CMN)
The Centre des monuments nationaux (CMN) is the public institution responsible for conserving, curating, restoring and animating over 100 historic monuments and gardens located throughout France.
In their natural or eminently urban settings, these archaeological and prehistoric sites, these medieval abbeys, castles, modern villas, cathedral treasures and towers, all illustrate the wonderful diversity of France’s monumental heritage.
A rich programme comprising over 400 events and partnerships, associated with artistic and cultural educational initiatives, yearly attracts over 11 million visitors to exhibitions, workshops, concerts and live shows. A plethora of out-of-the-ordinary experiences welcoming all audiences and serving the territories’ further development.
On-site at the monuments, enthusiastic staffs are keen to share with visitors the history and life of these exceptional sites, as well as their parks and gardens.
The CMN also makes the most of digital technologies to delight visitors of all ages by offering new experiences for discovering and exploring its monuments: virtual reality, geo-localised headphones, immersive tours, interactive tablets, evening and immersive spectacles, etc.
To extend their visits, the CMN’s network of 80 bookshop-boutiques presents the artbooks, guidebooks and architectural publications published by the institution’s own Éditions du Patrimoine publishing house.
The Le Corbusier Foundation
Founded in 1968, the Le Corbusier Foundation was imagined by the architect as early as 1949 to ensure the perennity of his archives and oeuvre, in the absence of any direct heir. This public-service institution is the sole legatee of all of Le Corbusier’s property and it safeguards the majority of his drawings, studies, original plans, and a vast collection of written and photographic archives. The foundation’s main missions include conserving and disseminating Le Corbusier’s oeuvre. It also protects the moral rights of the entirety of the architect’s oeuvre, comprising nearly 80 buildings situated in eleven countries throughout Europe, North and South America, Asia and Africa.
The foundation itself owns four buildings: Le Corbusier’s apartment-atelier in Paris, the ‘Little House’ on Lake Geneva in Corseaux (Switzerland), and the Parisian houses of La Roche and Jeanneret, with the latter serving as the foundation’s headquarters and documentation centre.
Updated: March 4 2025