Unité d'habitation

Project

Simultaneously an architectural experiment, an urban concept and a social experience, the Marseille Housing Unit brings together 330 housing units with modern comfort as well as collective spaces. The building is 135 m long, 24 m wide, 56 m high. The Unit is mounted on stilts in order to save space on the ground both for greenery and to allow pedestrians and cars to circulate beneath it. The use of pilotis is an essential element of the Green City designed by Le Corbusier. The building is moreover located in the centre of a wooded park.

The Housing Unit is made according to Modulor and its frame is in reinforced concrete cased in situ. The facades are sometimes raw, sometimes painted, as at the level of the loggias. The apartments are accessible from the large entrance hall giving access to the lifts and the staircases.

The apartments are divided into 23 different types, assembled on the “bottle rack” principle, i.e. they are built in an independent framework of reinforced concrete posts and beams. They rest on a primary structure called “artificial ground,” a network of transverse and longitudinal beams.

These 23 types are designed using eight combinations made possible by the use of three standard modules. The first module brings together the entrance, the hallway, the kitchen and the living room; the second is occupied by the master bedroom and the toilet block while the third module is intended for two children’s bedrooms.

Although their sizes vary (from a single person’s home to an apartment for a family with eight children), their organization is similar. The apartments, with the exception of those on the south facade, are through. They may be on two floors connected by a staircase. These were made in collaboration between Jean Prouvé, the workshops of Nancy and Le Corbusier. Their design is standardized, made up of different independent cells. There is no contact between the different apartments and they are soundproofed in order to guarantee the privacy of each family. Deeply impressed by his visit to the Ema Charterhouse in 1907, Le Corbusier wanted each dwelling to remain independent within the unit.

The accommodations are all equipped with modern comfort: running water, central heating, sanitary facilities and a ventilation system. The kitchen units, designed by Le Corbusier and ATBAT, together with Simone Galepin and based on a proposal by Charlotte Perriand, are equipped like laboratories (electric cooker, rubbish chute, refrigerator cabinets, multiple storage units).

The apartments all benefit from a loggia in the living room with double-glazed bay windows that fully let in the light in winter, while brise soleils are designed to filter it out in summer.

The apartments are accessed by a system of interior streets, which not only allow the occupants accede to their apartments, but also allow mail and purchases from the Housing Unit’s grocery store to be delivered. Le Corbusier saw the Unité d’Habitation as a  “vertical city,” with shopping streets on the 7th and 8th floors. Thus there are various shops within the building and there is even a hotel-restaurant for the use of occupants’ families.

Full use is also made of the Housing Unit’s roof. The 300 sq m roof terrace includes a running track, a gymnasium, an open-air theatre, a nursery school with a paddling pool, and above these a day nursery, now a paint shop.

The garden is lit by luminous concrete bollards. There is also the “Measurement Stele” and a refuse collection station. The Marseille Housing Unit was inaugurated on October 14, 1952.

On that occasion, Eugène Claudius-Petit, then Minister of Reconstruction and Urban Planning, presented Le Corbusier with the insignia of Commander of the Légion d’Honneur.