The landscape is malleable

Modular is a bench-sculpture, a sculpture-object, a hybrid entity composed of 5 parts: 3 rectangles and 2
semicircles. Made of metal for outdoor use, it can take different possible forms including that of the Carrond,
fusion of a half-square and a half-round. Sculptural object, it can become utilitarian object and thus operates the
transition from art to design that can also stretch to urbanism.

The work pays tribute to Le Corbusier. Its title comes from the combination of «Modulor» and «aire». Modulor is
an architectural concept invented by Le Corbusier in 1945. It is a standardized human silhouette used to design
the structure and size of the houses designed by the architect allowing, according to him, maximum comfort in
the relations between Man and his living space. Le Corbusier creates with the Modulor a system based on human
morphology, alternative to the metric system and aiming to replace it.

Maud Louvrier Clerc’s Modular aims to question the notion of landscape. What do we mean by landscape? Can
we make it malleable?

In the continuity of his exploration of balance, the artist opens with Le Modulaire, a tribute to Le Corbusier, a
reflection on our lifestyles and our relationship to the environment. Taking as reference the Five points of a new
architecture, published in 1927 by Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret (stilts, roof terrace, free plan, window in
band, free facade), Maud Louvrier Clerc offers her pairs a collective reflection around the Five Points of a
Contemporary Design as part of her solo exhibition OUTSIDE/ INSIDE in the Villa Savoye.

The site has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2016, the Modular Maud Louvrier Clerc is still installed in
the gardens following the joint decision of the Fondation de Le Corbusier and the Centre des Monuments
nationaux. The work has indeed, since its exhibition, become a privileged rallying point for group visits, since it
allows to observe the 5 points of modern architecture. Its location had been chosen in this sense by the artist who
had taken the time to observe where the architecture students were going to position themselves, and sit in the
grass before the installation of the bench-sculpture, to draw the Villa. The designer had also aligned it with the
elements of the solarium of the roof terrace of the Villa.

Design seems to have to be ecological, empathetic, balanced, multi-use and interactive at the beginning of the
21st century. The Modular bench-sculpture was born from this reflection that it reflects.

The 5 points of contemporary design

ECOLOGICAL - Every object is matter, natural resource drawn from our Earth. Does taking this material irreparably
harm him? Is the material renewable and in what temporality? The eco-design of the object and its future recycling
must be thought ahead.

EMPATHIC - Every object is created to serve the human. The adult, the child, the family, the groups, the wheelchair
user, the running user, the sleeping user, the playing user, the passing user… It must therefore be the subject of
particular attention centred on multiple needs.

BALANCE - Each object is made by the man/woman but will be integrated into an environment. This environment
or landscape evolves, over the seasons if it is natural, according to urbanism, if it is artificial. Can aesthetic harmony
adapt to these evolutions? The sobriety of form, its universality are to be studied. The balance between line and
curve should be sought.

MULTI-USE - Each object is made at a given time for a given audience. Because lifestyles change, the only certainty
of the designer is the potential evolution of the function, the use of the object. If the object is initially conceived
in a logic of multiple uses, it demonstrates its adaptability, its potential for transformation.

INTERACTIVE - Each object is intended to interact with a place or a person, it transforms the landscape, creates
new possibilities.

The «Modular» bench-sculpture and the 5 points of contemporary design

ECOLOGICAL - Choice of a highly recyclable material: aluminum + Eco-design to optimize the material, the sheet
is bent, welded but not cut = 0 waste.

EMPATHIC - An object designed to facilitate the comfort of visitors to the Villa Savoye and the work of the
gardener, invisible interlocking but easy to undock for the passage of the mower…

BALANCE - A form reconciling opposites to create harmony = ½ round + ½ square

MULTI-USE - An object to sit and see, or draw the Villa Savoye comfortably and from different angles, for lunch or
snack after the visit for visitors, to lie in the sun … meeting point for groups.

INTERACTIVE - Visual interaction with the landscape and the villa, whether in choice of color: white as an extension
of the villa in the grass, the shape in the alignment of the arabesques of the roof terrace.