Description
It's a beautiful house that slopes gently down the hillsides of Cologny facing Lake Geneva, Geneva's most elegant neighborhood. The Le Corbusier-inspired villa "Les Ailes" was built in 1932 by Louis Vincent and Jean-Jacques Honegger.
It's made up of three interlocking "parallelepipeds" staggered to make the best use of the sloping terrain and create terraced clearings to highlight its major asset: the view. A breathtaking view of the shimmering waters of Lake Geneva.
Significant renovation work has been carried out to breathe new life into this (listed) gem of 1930s modernist architecture.
The swimming pool has been laid out on the large overhanging terrace, which is embellished with a "brise-soleil" wall in the manner of a veritable solarium. A monumental staircase descends to the sunken garden, adorned with a fountain and a sculpture (a "winged lion"); it allows access to the terrace and reception areas without having to go inside the house. The original colors of the facades (plastered with a "rustic" rendering) were rediscovered through chromatic research. A complex process: in fact, the choice of these colors had been entrusted to (Swiss) painter Georges Aubert, whose proximity to Le Corbusier had led him to take an interest in architectural polychromy.
