une petite maison ronde

Le Chasseur Français, a French hunting magazine, ran an article on round houses in December 1950.

The author, architect Gérard Tissoire, described a small round house, presumably of his own design, in exhaustive detail, from the entryway to the windows to the bedrooms to the closets.  He responded first to the claim that such a house was impractical -

Good people will say, “A round house isn’t ‘livable.’  How are you supposed to arrange furniture when you have round walls?” These good people forget that round houses are divided up by walls and partitions that form flat surfaces; that in general the rooms will be in a nice fan shape, with windows in an arc toward the view; that where necessary a cupboard can conveniently and usefully correct an irregularity, and that one can even, exceptionally, build furniture with cylindrical backs.

Tissoire went on to laud the beauty of the round form -

 A round house is so harmonious on a nice site!  The ancient Romans and Renaissance architects understood this well.

. . . . Here more than elsewhere, sobriety in lines and colors is required. This house is not suitable for those who dream of jagged shapes and screaming melodies. But it can combine, in a small package, modern comfort and antique nobility.

In an earlier article, titled “Artist’s Home in Périgord,” Tissoire described a round tower of a house that he had designed for a friend in the 1930s -

The King’s Windmill is basically a two-story round tower in hard stone, with, on top, a large cantilevered section made of reinforced concrete that has glass on all sides, capped by a cone. It is reminiscent overall of the towers and dungeons of the old Périgord region, but without any trivial copying of details, and without any effort at anachronism. The interpretation remains free, arising simply from the use of materials.

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