From place Lorrain to the Musée Marmottan
France > Paris > West > Auteuil > From place Lorrain to the Musée MarmottanJust off place Lorrain, in rue Poussin (on bus #52's route), carriage gates open onto Villa Montmorency, one of the grander villas – more like an exclusive estate (with a security guard on the gate). The writer André Gide, and the Goncourt brothers of Prix Goncourt fame, lived in this one. Behind it, in a cul-de-sac off rue du Dr-Blanche, are Le Corbusier's first private houses (1923), the Villa Jeanneret and the Villa La Roche, now in the care of the Fondation Le Corbusier. You can visit one of the houses, the Villa La Roche (Mon–Thurs 10am–12.30pm & 1.30–6pm, Fri 10am–12.30pm & 1.30–5pm, closed Aug; €2.40; M° Jasmin), built in strictly Cubist style, very plain, with windows in bands, the only extravagance a curved frontage. They look commonplace enough now from the outside, but were a great contrast with anything that had gone before, and once you're inside, the spatial play still seems groundbreaking. The interior is appropriately decorated with Cubist paintings.Further north along rue du Dr-Blanche and off to the right, the tiny rue Mallet-Stevens was built entirely by the architect of the same name, also in Cubist style. No. 12, where Robert Mallet-Stevens had his offices, has been altered, along with other houses in the street, but you can still see the architectural intention of sculpting the entire street space as a cohesive unit. Continue to the end of rue du Dr-Blanche, turn left and then right onto boulevard Beauséjour; a shortcut immediately opposite rue du Ranelagh across the disused Petite Ceinture rail line takes you to shady avenue Raphaël, which runs alongside the pretty Jardin du Ranelagh (with a rather engaging sculpture of the fabulist La Fontaine with an eagle and fox) and on to the Musée Marmottan.
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