Bedroom
Bedroom
Garden
Courtyard
Garage
Lounge
Bedroom
Garden
Garden
Work
Living
Lounge
Dining
Over a cup of coffee in his home recently, Louis Sayer explained UNESCO headquarters in Paris. “At about the time we bought the
that there were pragmatic reasons for hiring Hungarian architect property, there was an exhibition at the Petit Palais in Paris showcas-
Marcel Breuer. A major figure at the Bauhaus, who had followed ing plans of various modern residential buildings,” he recalled. “It
Walter Gropius to the United States in 1937 to teach at Harvard, was primarily models by Richard Neutra and Oscar Niemeyer that
he soon expanded from residential work to major institutional we instantly took a liking to. We liked the lightness and openness
projects, including the Whitney Museum in New York and the of the architecture. That is what we were after as well. We had no
Above left Maison Sayer, Breuer’s only residential project in France was completed in 1973. The soaring hyperbolic parabola form of its
concrete shell roof was the fulfillment of a proposed design for two previous unbuilt projects. Spreading outwards as it rises to its apogee of
25 feet, the roof provides a maximum of daylight and open views. The east wing, left, contains the living room, with a faceted fireplace that
echoes the roof’s three exterior support pillars (one of these is visible at the facade’s center). The west wing contains the dining room, as well
as the kitchen and service area, at right, with the owner’s office above. Bedrooms are below, snuggling compactly into the earthen hill.
Opposite A detail of the southwest roof-support pillar. Embedded pebbles enliven the pillar’s cement, while the horizontal wooden
boards of the roof’s overhang reflect the casing patterns of the cement walls.
Above The main house is at bottom, its three roof supports defining a triangle, separated from the children’s wing and garage by a
courtyard. A six-foot-high wall joining the two structures defines a contained area for the swimming pool and patio.
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