Unité d'Habitation (1952)

SUBJECT :- CONTEMPORARY ARCHITECTURE

TIMELINE :- BRUTALISM

Architect :- LE CORBUSIER

GUIDED BY,
PROF. JAYKISHOR PANDIT
PROF. MEGHNA PARKAR

PRESENTED BY,
MAYUR WAGHULDE - 309139
LE CORBUSIER
 Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris aka Le Corbusier was a Swiss-
born French architect, designer, urban planner and writer.
 The main pioneer of MODERN ARCHITECTURE.
 His career spanned 5 decades and he designed buildings in
Europe, Japan, India and North and South America.
 He viewed house as “a machine for living in”.
 He was awarded the “Australian Institute of Architects Gold
Medal” in 1961 and also Grand Officer's of the legion
d’Honneur” in 1964.
 Delved into city planning and designed Chandigarh.
(6 OCTOBER 1887 - 27
 Died while swimming in Mediterranean sea on 27 august AUGUST 1965)
1965.

Unite’d High Court, Project :- Ville

Ronchamp, Notre Villa Savoye,
habitation, Chandigarh Radieude (1930)
dame (1954) Poissy (1930)
Marseilles (1947) (1955)
 Unité d'Habitation, Marseille
 After World War II, the need for housing was at an unprecedented high.
The Unite d’Habitation in Marseille, France was the first large scale
project for the famed architect, Le Corbusier. In 1947, Europe was still
feeling the effects of the Second World War, when Le Corbusier was
commissioned to design a multi-family residential housing project for the
people of Marseille that were dislocated after the bombings on France.
 Completed in 1952, the Unite d’ Habitation was the first of a new
housing project series for Le Corbusier that focused on communal living
for all the inhabitants to shop, play, live, and come together in a “vertical
garden city.”
 With nearly 1,600 residents divided among 18 floors, the design requires
an innovative approach toward spatial organization to accommodate the
living spaces, as well as the public, communal spaces. Interestingly
enough, the majority of the communal aspects do not occur within the
building; rather they are placed on the roof.
 Unite d’Habitation is one of Le Corbusier’s most important projects, as
well as one of the most innovative architectural responses to a
residential building. So much so, that the Unite d’ Habitation is said to
have influenced the Brutalist Style with the use of beton-brut concrete.
CONCEPT OF THE ARCHITECT
 It’s transoceanic , sustainable society,
town houses feed and entertain
thousands of passengers in a very
limited space and project for the new
concept of a common housing.
 The Unite d 'Habitation is bulky and
looks like an ocean liner.
 This huge volume seems to float.
 The horizontal windows look like ship
cabin windows.
 On the roof (roof garden) ventilation
sculptures looks like the upper deck
and the chimneys.
 ENVIRONMENT AND CULTURAL
CONDITIONS
 Designed as a " vertical garden city' unlike villa
construction.
 located on Boulevard Michelet, in the elegant suburbs
of Marseille in France.
 Designed specifically to rehouse victims of destroyed
neighbourhoods of the city after the 2nd World War
and to put in place an innovative project.
 It is an early model building capable in anywhere
positioned.
CONCEPT OF SPACE

 Le Corbusier deliver an analogue system

modulor.
 Balance, series of Fibonacci (the
mathemathecian), operating ratios of the
human body and use of modulor in Unité
d'habitation.
 Its not just a series of numbers with inner
harmony but it is for a measurement system
governing lengths, surfaces and volumes and
everywhere maintains the human scale.
PLANNING
 We see that the commingling
of residents was on the roof ,
which hosted various
activities. The ground floor
and the main corridors were
designed to resemble the
streets of a neighbourhood.
 Bright apartment covering
the full width of the building,
have sea view mountain
view.
 Unlike most housing projects
that have a “double-stacked”,
Le Corbusier designed the
units to span from each side
of the building, as well as
having a double height living
space reducing the number
of required corridors to one
every three floors.
 INTERIOR DESIGN

 The apartments are private.

 Located around internal central corridors. On one side of the hallway you enter the lower
level of an apartment and on the other you may enter the upper level of the adjacent
interconnected.
 Each unit has two floors connected by an internal staircase leading to the narrow bedrooms
and a double-height space , living room with a wall around windows, allowing a complete
picture of the landscape.
 Extending from one side of the building to another and provides balcony.
 The project is not completely free , the partition wall is load bearing , releasing the facades
, and providing soundproofing from lead sheets.
 In the kitchen, shelves are sliding and moving, creating new opportunities
LIGHT AND SUN PROTECTION
 Innovations which resolve isolation and light
problems with concrete shutters Balcony sun
protections.
 Shelters exceeding from the main body building
Apartments are covering the whole floor but allow
to natural light and Ventilation to be permeable in
both sides and also surround the apartments.
 Each apartment is decorated with a large glass wall
Internal corridors are dark. The only source of light
comes from the lights above doors.
 BUILDING MATERIAL
 The materials used are reinforced concrete and glass, without ornaments
and elegance.
 This reveals the greatness of possibilities using reinforced concrete as a
natural material.
 Often referred to as the original inspiration of the Brutalist architecture and
philosophy.
EXTERNAL STRUCTURE
 Located in a large park.
 The north side is blind due to cold winds.
 It consists of 337 apartments of different
sizes , placed on the pilotis creating traffic
areas below.
 Discloses the structural core , through the
use of concrete balconies.
 Uses independent concrete structure, while
the pay elements are prefabricated , so the
apartments come and slide the frame.
 TERRACE
 The roof becomes a garden terrace that has a 300 m
running track, a club, a kindergarten, a gym, and a
shallow pool. Beside the roof, there are shops,
medical facilities, and even a small hotel distributed
throughout the interior of the building.
 The Unite d’Habitation is essentially a “city within a
city” that is spatially, as well as, functionally optimized
for the residents.