Le Corbusier’s cabin

i am a realist, not a fantasist, as a rule. but i do have a persistent fantasy about a particular kind of living space. earlier in my life, it was an empty loft in new york city, with no furniture except a white desk, white curtains, a white bed, and two white side tables. i have a similar vision of a whitewashed stucco house on a rocky, isolated greek or italian island. and now there is le corbusier. the architect known for brutalist concrete slabs built a tiny, rustic, cabanon (or cabin) on the shore of the côte d’azur, just a few kilometers from the italian border. the cabanon is 144 square feet, sided with half-logs like a northern minnesota cabin, and full of built-in furniture he designed. as steve and i walked across the beach to see the cabin yesterday, i looked down and realized that everywhere i looked, there were striped beach rocks, maybe my favorite kind of beach rock after hagstones. so now, of course, i want to live in le corbusier’s cabanon, and create art by the sea, and gather gallons of striped beach rocks, and then maybe one day when i am very old, go out for my morning swim in the mediterranean, and just not come back.

striped (gneiss) beach rocks from Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, France