The wall at the Malcontenta forms the traditional solid pierced by vertical openings, with the central emphasis in the pediment; and the outer ones have the windows placed towards the extremities of the façade, a device which seems to reinforce the cubic quality of the block. The double bay in the middle is expressed by a single door, or in the rear elevation by a “Roman baths” motif, and carries the upper pediments of the roof. Horizontally the wall falls into three main divisions: base; piano nobile, corresponding to the ionic order of the portico, terminated by a flattened entablature; and a superimposed attic with cornice. The base plays the part of a projecting, consistently supporting solid, upon which the house rests; but while the attic and piano nobile are rusticated, the base is treated as a plain surface. A feeling of even greater weight carried here is achieved by this highly emotional inversion of the usual order.
In the Villa at Garches the exploitation of the structural system has led to the conception of the wall as a series of horizontal strips, alternating void and solid, a system which places equal interest in both centre and extremity of the façade, and is maintained by Corbusier’s almost complete suppression in elevation of the wider spans of the double bays, which are arranged to read as two separate bays. Any system of central vertical accent, and inflection of the wall leading up to it, is profoundly modified. The immediate result in the garden elevation at Garches shows itself in the displacing of portico and roof pavilion from the central position which they occupy in the Malcontenta. They are separated, the one occupying the three bays to the left of the façade, and the other a central position in the solid, but an asymmetrical one in the whole elevation. The diagonal of the staircase forms the balance.
The entrance elevation retains the central feature in the upper storey, but it is noticeable that the further development of this feature within itself is asymmetrical. The downward indication of weights in this sort of façade is impossible; and
to see the central feature, interrupted by the horizontal voids, centrally repeated in the base, would be grotesque. Displacement and breaking up of the feature are again compensated by diagonal relationships; and in the ground floor entrance marquise and service door fulfill these purposes.
The other chief point of difference lies in the idea of the roof. In the Malcontenta it forms a pyramidal superstructure dominated by the temple fronts of the upper pediments, which occur above, and augment the central features of the main wall. Interest and silhouette are provided by the highly romantic chimneys, which possess a mediaevalizing quality, recalling the complicated machicolations of the now disappeared courtyard walls. Garches has a flat roof on two levels, treated partly as enclosure cut out of the block, and scattered with the irregular incident of gazebo, perforation and pavilion. The main plastic elements, the framed terrace of the entrance elevation and the pavilion of the garden front, are placed respectively in symmetrical and asymmetrical relation to the façades below. As at the Malcontenta, they are dominant features in the composition, but in neither case are they placed in direct vertical relationship with the principal features of the lower wall.