Architectural Consultant 

DiMaio is the de facto design expert in regards to the restoration of Modern Architecture across the globe. During her tenure at some of the greatest architectural institutions and academies, from Yale to The American Academy in Rome, DiMaio developed a proprietary “trans-historical methodology,” a way of viewing architectural relevance unhindered by the boundaries of time.  This methodology has fostered in DiMaio an innate ability to understand an architect’s original intent; to more accurately interpret his or her original drawings, allowing her to respond to a building’s original vision with modern techniques and materials.  For DiMaio, architecture is a layering of history, no matter how clean the lines. 

Case Study: Villa Stein-de Monzie

Judy DiMaio first saw Le Corbusier’s buildings in and around Paris many years ago with her mentor, the eminence grise of architectural thought, Colin Rowe. It was on that trip she visited the Villa Stein, alas, only from the exterior, as it was privately owned. Today she and her team at the New York Institute of Technology are assisting Pierre Antoine Gaiter, Chief Architect for the Monuments of France, in restoring it. 

History of the Villa Stein

Recognized worldwide, Le Corbusier designed spacious homes in middle class neighborhoods on the outskirts of Paris, though not all came to be built. The most striking is the house “Les Terrasses”, built in Garches on land that now belongs to the commune Vaucresson.

The Villa Stein-de Monzie house was designed for Michael Stein, brother of the writer Gertrude Stein, and his wife Sara, and later was home to Gabrielle Monzie, divorced from the radical socialist Anatole Monzie and faithful supporter of Le Corbusier. The luxury of these spaces disturbed critics worried about the social dimension of Modern Architecture.

British critic Colin Rowe compared the geometric grid pattern made with alternating wide and narrow horizontal bands or zoning with the Villa Stein with a similar strategies employed by Palladio with the for Villa Malcontenta outside of Venice. In this way he compares the house, so to speak, with an unpacked box in space.

The introduction of Pierre Antoine Gaiter*, Chief Architect for the Monuments of France, and the Intervention

Many years later she had the great honor to be introduced to Pierre Antoine Gaiter*, Chief Architect for the Monuments of France, who has been the architect in charge of the restoration of such icons as Le Corbusier’s Maison Roche Jeanneret, and Eileen Gray’s seaside villa, E-1027,  in Roquebrunne St Martin. Upon meeting, Gaiter realized that Di Maio’s in-depth knowledge and incisive critiques of Italian Renaissance architecture and painting as well as Modern Architecture and art in France were unsurpassed/unparalleled.  DiMaio credits this with a hyper-visual memory and sensibility, learned from the master Rowe and his “expert eye.” DiMaio invited Architect Gaiter to be a visiting professor at NYIT’s School of Architecture and Design, and it was during his New York sojourn that they continued to speak about architecture and in the case of le Corbusier and his Oeuvre Complet.

It was in the Fall of 2014 that DiMaio received a message from Architect Gaiter, restoration architect for Eileen Gray's villa E-1027, informing her that he had been retained by the homeowners of the Villa Stein de-Monzie to restore the Villa’s exterior desperately in need of restoration, and invited her and her team of students at NYIT to become involved as the conceptual advisor on the project. Their role was to look for and to consider the presence of the those architectural moments that were compromised or lost over time and as a result of interventions of the various owners. Dean saw this extraordinary invitation as an opportunity to involve our student body and offer a seminar for both the Spring and Fall of 2016 called , Close Reads; Inspecting the Evidence, Le Corbusier’s Villa Stein de-Monzie. 

Over the course of a year, DiMaio's team of 7 students made three site visits to the Villa, documenting the existing structure. They produced a brochure which not only documents Le Corbusier’s original intentions through his original drawings, but elaborates on the conceptual ideas and intentions, that have been lost or made invisible. The seminar brochure also is intended to assist the homeowners to better understand Le Corbusier’s hidden meanings and his insistence on the relationship of his architectural design strategies. Furthermore, the brochure makes proposals for ‘surgically re-introducing lost moments such as reintroducing covered over skylights and reintroducing curved walls which, overtime, have been replaced by straight walls.  They also created models and window mock-ups as a way to substantiate the reintroduction of missing or lost architectural elements.

Fundraising

The project has moved progressively since these studies. The five individual homeowners have since signed on to the concept of a full renovation, interior and exterior, back to le Corbusier’s initial intention and design of the Villa. Although what was once a single home is now a subdivided residential project, the plan is to create a contemporary home that has the spirit, ethos and design elements that once made the space great.

The Villa has been elevated to a Tier 1 status by the French government, which means that they will assist in the restoration expenses up to 50 percent. The goal is to raise private funds to restore the home in conjunction with Fondation Le Corbusier. 

This project was conducted in coordination with the

New York Institute of Technology.