Reinventare Jeanneret. Interventi di Angelo Mangiarotti, Bruno Morassutti e Chiara Pampo a Villa Schwob, La Chaux-de-Fonds / Reinventing Jeanneret. Interventions by Angelo Mangiarotti, Bruno Morassutti, and Chiara Pampo at Villa Schwob, La Chaux-de-Fonds

Abstract

Between 1959 and 1960, in collaboration with Bruno Morassutti, and later in 1976 with Chiara Pampo, Angelo Mangiarotti worked on the celebrated Villa Schwob in La Chaux-de-Fonds, a project by the very young Jeanneret, not yet Le Corbusier. The architects intervened on the main body of the house with the awareness that they were dealing with a historical document that did not permit ‘fancy and arbitrary solutions’. Once the original condition of the building was rediscovered, they designed essential furnishings, aiming not to divert attention from the architecture, the sole true protagonist. This essay seeks to reconsider the interventions of Mangiarotti, Morassutti, and Pampo on Le Corbusier’s work, with a view to examining the fortunate circumstances that allowed them to engage directly with the oeuvre of a twentieth-century master. Considering the two phases of the project also enables an assessment of the evolution of the language of interior design and the ways in which the Villa adapted to the (unforeseeable) demands of new living conditions.