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Unite_d'Habitation_(Rightee_2).jpg
The Unité d'Habitation is the name of a modernist residential housing design principle developed by Charles Edouard Jeanneret-Gris (aka Le Corbusier), which formed the basis of numerous housing developments designed by Le Corbusier throughout Europe with this name. The first and most famous of these buildings, also known as Cité radieuse and La Maison du Fada is in Marseille, France, built 1947-1952. Probably the most famous work of Le Corbusier, it proved enormously influential and is often cited as the initial inspiration of the Brutalist architectural style and philosophy.
The Marseille building comprises 337 apartments arranged over twelve stories, all suspended on large piloti. The building also incorporates shops, sporting, medical and educational facilities, and a hotel. The flat roof is designed as a communal terrace with sculptural ventilation stacks and a swimming pool.
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Inside, corridors run through the centre of the long axis of every third floor of the building, with each apartment lying on two levels, and stretching from one side of the building to the other, with a balcony.
The building is constructed in rough-cast concrete, as the hoped-for steel frame proved too expensive. Nevertheless, his replacement material influenced the Brutalist movement, and the building inspired several housing complexes including the Roehampton estate in London and Park Hill in Sheffield.
Le Corbusier's utopian city living design was repeated in several more buildings with this name and a very similar design. Other Unités were built in Nantes, Briey, and Firminy, as well as in Berlin.
External link
- La "Cité Radieuse" ŕ Marseille (http://www.villes-en-france.org/histoire/Corbu13.html) (in French, contains many pictures)
- Map of the Unité (http://lava.ds.arch.tue.nl/lava/people/art/corbu/corbumap.html)
- Unité d'Habitation (http://www.tu-harburg.de/b/kuehn/lec34.html) (in German, contains many links)
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