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. http://www.galinsky.com/buildings/marseille/


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 results in high repair bills. Such a building would now be built in steel with basement parking.

Corb devised the Modulor, a system of dimensions based on the ideal human body, providing a series of large and small dimensions - for ceiling heights, doors and storage units. This is demonstrated in the sculptures in the east core wall.

The impressively large undercroft is used only for motorcycle parking, but the growth of car ownership is such that much of the surrounding parkland is now car parking. The site huts are for the repair contractors.


The North end has an escape stair for the shopping and office level. To the 21st century mind the decision to have a totally blank wall at the north end is an environmental disaster as the long corridors are totally reliant on electrical lighting day and night and the only lighting is from small electric lights over each door. Any building now with a long corridor would have a daylit end window.

The concrete has suffered from acid rain decay, so major works are taking place on the building These appear to have gone on for years. Postwar concrete would not have been good enough to survive 60yrs without erosion. In fact, this is a problem with all buildings of that era using so much concrete externally. The vertical shading louvres indicate the position of the shops and offices.

The Entry has a porte cochere in concrete, and there is concierge service at the ground floor - something that was missing in so many post war highrise blocks, and was one of the causes of a decline in their reputation.

Up to the roof terrace... a playground with service towers as sculptures, and space for school, club etc. Many visitors come here to see the building and the roof terrace.

On the day of filming, the roof is serving for a fashion shoot, with a camera team and the model changing clothes and positions. The reddish tinge of the concrete is caused by the colour of sunset.

The Unité was built in the countryside in 1952, but Marseille has expanded mightily. All around are many postwar residential highrises. Some are inheritors, but many are misinterpreters of the good design ideas in the Unité.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Le
• Corbusier
• Unité
• d'Habitation
• Marseille

[jpnarch]

The shots of the roof garden in the sunset are fantastic, as are the environs. One gets a real sense of the idealism of Corb's vision.

Of course, today the building would be oriented east-west to improve solar design. and many other things would be done differently. But this was a huge leap forward.

[dnicholsoncole]

Thanks. I was incredibly lucky that there was a fashion photoshoot going on at the same time as the setting sun.

[estrouge]

The blank wall is at the North end of the building, the South have a full set of apartments. The corridor is meant to be dim and discrete as it create a contrast when one arrives from the interior street to their unit, where they will be greeted by bright interior with double height windows.

[dnicholsoncole]

What the movie says is that the flats the the south end are Deep Plan Single Aspect (unlike all the others) - they only get south light (gives excess contrast because interior is dim) and they could but do not have had some discretely applied side windows, eg to the lobbies or bathrooms.

[lancil9]

è meglio un imbianchino di Le Corbusier!!!

[gerardinlucas]

i love corbu i from corbu it(s my lifeee !!!!

[dnicholsoncole]

@vchavez56 I did say that the architect for the alteration would have to put up a large notice apologising for this. Go to one of the Unités yourself - there are others in France and one in Germany, and walk in the corridor. You will see what I mean. You have a point, but it's too purist. One thing that can be done for Terrace houses is that the end one can be given the benefit of unexpected additional windows. the same could have been done here.

[vchavez56]

@dnicholsoncole Punching holes on the wall? Do you want Le Courbu to roll on his grave?! The blank wall was meant to be like that because the plan was to put more buildings like this together, windows would defeat this purpose. Thanks for the video though! Its very illustrative!

[m4ckic4]

wow, thank you very much for this video!

:D

[dnicholsoncole]

Yes, but it doesnt even have proper electric lighting. There are none, apart from tiny concealed lights on each front door (which are painted dark.) The decision not to have light tube windows at the north end is utterly wilful and surprisingly against much of Corbs other environmental thinking. If the electricity fails that building is dangerous because the escape routes have no light.