In 1927, the great Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier completed a house in the Paris suburb of Garches. No structure of the early modernist era has gained more renown. In 1947, British scholar Colin Rowe's essay "The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa" brought Garches to the foreground — and Garches has stayed there ever since. GARCHES 1234 picks up where Rowe left off and throws bold light on Le Corbusier's assertion that at Garches, more than any of his other projects, "proportion ruled absolutely there, as absolute mistress." Architect JEF7REY HILDNER published an early version of this essay in the Journal of Architectural Education (1999). Here the essay appears in its final and fully illustrated form.