The house was built in 1959 for Dr Bernard and his family. The project was led by the American architect Edith Schreiber-Aujame, assisted by her husband Roger Aujame, both of whom trained in Le Corbusier's studio. Located in the park of Maisons-Laffitte, the house opens onto the surrounding woods.
The villa is organised in half-levels around a vast central staircase. Each of the levels is dedicated to a specific function (children, parents, guests, etc.) in order to ensure the privacy of the occupants without partitioning the spaces. Each floor also has a special relationship with the garden and the landscape, thanks to a loggia, a terrace, a patio and a solarium. The raw materials, simply assembled, constitute the only decorative elements of this brutalist construction: limestone rubble for the base, reinforced concrete for the acroteria and sunbreakers, exotic wood for the joinery, slate or marble for the floors.
When the villa was acquired in 2021, it was marked by numerous transformations. The patio had been condemned, the fireplace had disappeared and several pieces of furniture and fittings had been demolished.
The restoration project began with a diagnosis revealing the elements which had been added and which had disappeared. Research in the archives, followed by on-site observation during the restoration phase, enabled the original state of the building to be precisely reconstructed.
Based on this knowledge of the building, we have imagined a project that restores the house to its original qualities and also allows it to be adapted to contemporary living through a number specific transformations. The opening of the kitchen and the upgrading of the staircase are subtle transformations of the 1959 project that allow this house to remain a place to live.
