Collaborations

A new look at the Villa “Le Lac”

A collaboration with the ESVMD–CEPV
To renew the audience, expand the museum space and bring an added value to the “traditional” visit through an experience in virtual reality (VR): that’s the mission that the Villa “Le Lac” Le Corbusier entrusted to l’École supérieure en Visual Merchandising Design (ESVMD-CEPV) in Vevey, Switzerland. The students also designed and produced a book to accompany and present the experience.

The intelligence and inventiveness mobilised in this project produced results that greatly exceeded our expectations—at least those that our knowledge and imagination were capable of framing! This partnership truly anchors the Villa “Le Lac” in its contemporaneity and proves that it is a universal work that builds a bridge between past and future. Visitors to the Villa generally spend one or two hours there. They experience the light and the array of colours in this architectural work at the moment they are there. But what is that experience like six hours earlier or six hours later? That’s impossible to know unless the visitor stays there an entire day to see the changes taking place in the atmosphere. This is where a project like A Story of Light displays all the potential of virtual reality—a project conceived in four dimensions since time becomes an essential part of the experience. Visitors can see the Villa—meaning “be in the Villa”—at every hour of the day: morning, noon, afternoon, night. It is they who determine the time of day, move forward or backward in time thanks to a virtual cursor that they can operate as they please. The Monde Miroir (Mirror World), for its part, offers a holistic museum experience in which the history of the Villa, its architecture and its place in the history of modern architecture are presented, suggested and revealed inventively and poetically—directly reconnecting with Le Corbusier’s literary aspirations.

Photos © FLC/ProLitteris