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5. AD Classics: Unite d' Habitation / Le Corbusier

AD Classics: Unite d' Habitation / Le Corbusier

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AD Classics: Unite d' Habitation / Le Corbusier

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 © Steve de
Vriendt

 Written by Andrew Kroll

 + 42
MIXED USE ARCHITECTURE, APARTMENTS
•
MARSEILLE, FRANCE
  Architects: Le Corbusier
 Year: 1952
 Photographs: Steve de Vriendt, Rik Moran, Wojtek Gurak, Flickr User: Vincent
Desjardins, Flickr user : Guzman Lozano, Flickr User: dom dada, Flickr User:
saragoldsmith

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© Flickr User: Vincent Desjardins

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Text description provided by the architects.  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.

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 © Steve de
Vriendt

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.”
Save this picture!

site plan

The Unite d’Habitation was a first, both for Le Corbusier and the ways in which to approach such a large

complex to accommodate roughly 1,600 residents. Especially since Le Corbusier did not have many

buildings of such a substantial scale when compared to the villas. When designing for such a significant

number of inhabitants natural instinct is to design horizontally spreading out over the landscape, rather Le

Corbusier designed the community that one would encounter in a neighborhood within a mixed use,

modernist, residential high rise.  

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© Flickr user : Guzman Lozano

Le Corbusier’s idea of the “vertical garden city” was based on bringing the villa within a larger volume
that allowed for the inhabitants to have their own private spaces, but outside of that private sector they

would shop, eat, exercise, and gather together.

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plan

With nearly 1,600 residents divided among eighteen 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. 

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section

The roof becomes a garden terrace that has a 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.

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 © Steve de
Vriendt

Unlike Corbusier’s usual employment of a stark, white façade, Unite d’Habitation is constructed from

reinforced beton-brut concrete (rough cast concrete), which was the least costly in post-war Europe.

However, it could also be interpreted as materialistic implementation aimed at characterizing the

conditional state of life after the war - rough, worn, unforgiving.

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© Flickr User: Vincent Desjardins

Even though Unite d’Habitation does not take on the same materialistic qualities as most of Corbusier’s

works, there is still a sense of mechanistic influence, in addition to the Five Points developed by Corbusier

in the 1920s. For example, the buildings large volume is supported on massive pilotis that allow for

circulation, gardens, and gathering spaces below the building; the roof garden/terrace creates the largest

communal space within the entire building, and the incorporated patio into the façade system minimizes

the perception of the buildings height, as to create an abstract ribbon window that emphasizes the

horizontality of such a large building.

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© Steve de Vriendt

Also, it is apparent that Le Corbusier’s mechanized influences from other industries have not been lost in

design. As massive as the Unite d’Habitation is, it begins to resemble the steamship that Corbusier is so

intrigued with.

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© Flickr User: Vincent Desjardins

The massive volume appears to be floating, the ribbon windows resemble the cabin windows running

along the hull, while the roof garden/terrace and sculptural ventilation stacks appear as the top deck and the

smoke stacks. Even though that these elements are quite figural and open to interpretation based on

perception, there is an inherent connection between the two.

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© Flickr User: Vincent Desjardins

One of the most interesting and important aspects of the Unite d’Habitation is the spatial organization of

the residential units. Unlike most housing projects that have a “double-stacked” corridor (a single hallway
with units on either side), 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.

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© Flickr user : Guzman Lozano

By narrowing the units and allowing for a double height space, Corbusier is capable of efficiently placing

more units in the building and creating an interlocking system of residential volumes. At each end of the

unit there is a balcony protected by a brise-soleil that allows for cross ventilation throughout the unit

flowing through the narrow bedrooms into the double height space; emphasizing an open volume rather

than an open plan.

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© Steve de Vriendt

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. Unite d’Habitation has since been the

example for public housing across the world; however, no venture has been as successful as the Unite

d’Habitation simply because the Modular proportions that Corbusier established during the project.
Nonetheless, Le Corbusier’s first large scale project has proved to be one of his most significant and

inspiring.

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© Flickr User: saragoldsmith

Project gallery
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Project location

Address:Boulevard Michelet, 13008 Marseille, France

Location to be used only as a reference. It could indicate city/country but not exact address.
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Published on November 05, 2010

Cite:  Andrew Kroll. "AD Classics: Unite d' Habitation / Le Corbusier" 05 Nov

2010.  ArchDaily . Accessed  16 Jun 2021 . <https://www.archdaily.com/85971/ad-

classics-unite-d-habitation-le-corbusier> ISSN 0719-8884

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