Le Corbusier's Unité d'Habitation

Le Corbusier's Unité d'Habitation in Marseille. Visit to the Unite d'Habitation in Marseille built 1947-1952, visited July 2008. The building is conceived as a city in the sky, a 12 storey multi-use high-rise with 337 flats, and a number of shops, offices, hotel, school, club, and a roof garden that reclaims the land footprint. It is surrounded by parkland. This one is also called 'Cité Radieuse' and there are a number of repeat Unité buildings in other cities, such as Berlin, Firminy, Nantes. www.galinsky.com The block is oriented North-South. At the time, there was almost no precedent for highrise housing, all of which have been postwar. That makes this is a highly inventive project. This is the East elevation, facing Boulevard Michelet. It includes the core of stairs and lifts. The vertically louvred floor is the two stories of shops and offices. On the same level is the hotel. For most of the building, the flats are 2-storey, double ended with an east and west window. At the south end, the flats change to single aspect, with sun breaking details to reduce solar gain. It's a pity the side wall at the south end has no windows (architectural purism more important than environmental benefit of daylight) The building is on piloti (giant columns), one of Corb's guiding principles of architecture - freeing the land. In the late 40s there was a shortage of steel, so concrete (Beton brut) was used, with unskilled labour. This made the construction time very long, and now ...



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